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Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#331

Post by michaelcampbell »

wintogreen74 wrote: post #189
indymike wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I routinely hire developers in 24 hours from initial contact. It's fun watching them get random recruiter calls two or three weeks later. "I'm not interested, I STARTED my new job three weeks ago. No, I'm not willing to leave for that. Have a nice day." Except the "Have a nice day" part is usually less friendly and polite.

How can either side get an accurate assessment of the other in such a short time? I was hired by my current employer in less than 2 weeks from initial conversation and it was a bit of a smell that they weren't more thorough. Now I'm a hiring manager and am a little concerned with what I feel are "loose" practices that let too many marginal candidates through because otherwise "it's too hard to source talent". For me…

> How can either side get an accurate assessment of the other in such a short time?

Given the state of tech interviews, and what can be objectively determined _at all_, what makes you think more time would give you any more accurate assessment?

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#332

Post by indymike »

robocat wrote: post #193
indymike wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the companies indeed inflicting self harm? They are spending 14% more on recruitment advertising than they would have to if they just put a range in the salary box. So, yes, financial self harm. 14% is substantial for many companies. > ther downsides - e.g. it might tilt existing employees. People have access to wage data and job boards in their pocket. If they answer that unknown caller, it's as likely to be a…

> They are spending 14% more on recruitment advertising Oh boy, huge assumptions there, so bad that I would associate that thinking with HR recruiters. What matters is what selects/filters for desirable employees. Getting 14% more applicants is a terrible metric to be measuring - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law which is obvious since one can increase applications by advertising in irrelevant places to get…

> Oh boy, huge assumptions there, so bad that I would associate that thinking with HR recruiters.

HR and recruiting is not legendary for financial acumen, but they do spend in aggregate, billions on advertising, and they do in many cases have very good analyitcs on that spend.

> Alternatively 14% more could be extremely important, if a lack of salary indication filtered for bad candidates, and salary indication brought in good candidates.

We've not seen a change in quality of candidate in either direction. It does reduce the cost per applicant significantly.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#333

Post by indymike »

lalopalota wrote: post #244
indymike wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the companies indeed inflicting self harm? They are spending 14% more on recruitment advertising than they would have to if they just put a range in the salary box. So, yes, financial self harm. 14% is substantial for many companies. > ther downsides - e.g. it might tilt existing employees. People have access to wage data and job boards in their pocket. If they answer that unknown caller, it's as likely to be a…

> reducing the number of applicants to the advertised job by 14% does not mean > spending 14% more on recruitment advertising if a company gets 86 applicants instead of 100, that's less screening work which means less $ spent for the hire.

> if a company gets 86 applicants instead of 100, that's less screening work which means less $ spent for the hire.

Using this logic, then just hire the first person who applies and you will minimize all cost. Screening is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of making a bad hire, and the quality of the final candidates requires you have enough candidates to make a good selection from.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#334

Post by jvvw »

newaccount74 wrote: post #210
wintogreen74 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can either side get an accurate assessment of the other in such a short time? I was hired by my current employer in less than 2 weeks from initial conversation and it was a bit of a smell that they weren't more thorough. Now I'm a hiring manager and am a little concerned with what I feel are "loose" practices that let too many marginal candidates through because otherwise "it's too hard to source talent". For me…

You read the candidates CV, you ask them what they last worked on, ask them why they want to work at your company, if they are okay with the posted salary range. Maybe have them write a short bit of code to make sure they aren't totally bullshitting you. That takes about one or two hours. Then you think about it, and if you want to hire them send them an offer the next day. First 3 months of the contract is trial per…

Agree - most of the interviews I have had have been 1-2 hours plus some sort of coding test or similar. I guess if you are trying to recruit people already in a job, you can't get away with that much more than that - unless the job is super-amazing, you can expect people to take a day off work but not more than that. I don't know that longer interviews etc. would actually have told the interviewers massively more about me, perhaps a tiny bit more but not a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#335

Post by JamesBarney »

neon_electro wrote: post #243
wintogreen74 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can either side get an accurate assessment of the other in such a short time? I was hired by my current employer in less than 2 weeks from initial conversation and it was a bit of a smell that they weren't more thorough. Now I'm a hiring manager and am a little concerned with what I feel are "loose" practices that let too many marginal candidates through because otherwise "it's too hard to source talent". For me…

To add anecdata to your post here, in the height of the hiring craze last year, I accepted an "above-market" (from my perspective) offer from a company called Provi. They took less than a week from initial recruiter call to offer. Fast forward to this past February, and I'm being let go for "performance reasons", but it's a lot clearer in retrospect that I should've been failed out of their interview process if it wa…

What do you think they should have asked you that would have properly filtered you out?

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#336

Post by Matthias247 »

xpe wrote: post #263
swiftcoder wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even FAANGs can pull this off. Amazon was routinely hiring folks in single-day loop with offer letter the following morning, back when I joined.

Likely you had a very particular set of (in-demand) skills. Right? What year was this?

I think it's rather the opposite: If it's a very generic position, to which a lot of applicants could match. In this case big companies often do hiring events, where a lot of applicants are interviewed at the same day, and potentially in the same physical location. Since for those hiring events all decision makers (interviewers, hiring manager, recruiting) are available at the same day, the process can be faster.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#337

Post by indymike »

jamiequint wrote: post #242
indymike wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are some comments in here that verge on assuming bad faith on the part of the companies involved Not disclosing pay is illegal in three states in the US, and has the practical effect of reducing the number of applicants to the advertised job by 14%, so it's self-harming for the employer anyway. Bonus: a lot of job boards will just plug an "estimated salary" in for you to max their CTR and revenue on syndicatio…

> It has the effect of reducing the number of applicants by 14% (if you believe the study) only if at market rate or higher. Most startups are paying the lower end of market rate to below market rate salaries and compensating more with equity, so it's not necessarily irrational on the part of the startups. > But for startups and venture funded, high growth companies to be unaware after two years is not cool There are…

> There are a million more important things to worry about at most startups than being in regulatory compliance with every silly law.

Being a scofflaw does not increase your company's valuation.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#338

Post by lazyasciiart »

xyzelement wrote: post #272
lazyasciiart wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting a response to your job application in less than a month sounds naive?

Month does sound long to me, but "a few weeks" isn't crazy given the reality on the ground. Note, I am not saying this is good or how it ought to be, I am just saying how it is. Let me ask you - if you were the recruiter at Apple and let's say you owned 5 roles each of which got 2000 resumes (I am stabbing at a number but it's Apple, so likely tons of people jump on every role) - how long would it take you to get thr…

Pull out 200 of each set, or whatever number you like. Email the other 1800 and say "thanks, but we have decided not to interview you for this role. We'll keep your resume and contact you again if we have a role that you seem good for". Read all the remaining resumes over the next week.

Seriously, it isn't complicated.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#339

Post by roflyear »

jacquesm wrote: post #300
roflyear wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for going off. Inappropriate on my part.

Did you consider mailing Dan about this issue before making it an 'Ask HN' post?

No, I didn't put a massive amount of thought into the post, I admit. But it is a problem with the HN board here (content is posted here) so I didn't think it was inappropriate to highlight it here.

I also don't really expect Dan to moderate this. Seems like it isn't really his job, unless he made the decision to allow that content here to start.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#340

Post by roflyear »

tptacek wrote: post #310
jacquesm wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider mailing Dan about this issue before making it an 'Ask HN' post?

This whole thing is pretty silly, right? The penalties for noncompliance with NYC's law apply to the listing company, not to the board they posted on. If you really think YC companies are deliberately skirting the law, report them to NYC. NYC does a one-time 90-day notice-and-cure, so you can "effect positive change" with listing YC companies without subjecting them to fines, if that's really what you're worried abou…

Well, it is nicer to post here than to tell the authorities, certainly.
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