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Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

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Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#291

Post by srvmshr »

goodpoint wrote: post #222
srvmshr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Japan has always been a tech labor-shortage economy. That should incentivize employers to be advertising compensation. I am probably understanding your answer wrong. Could you please elaborate?

> Japan has always been a tech labor-shortage economy The meagre salaries tell a different story.

It is a labor-short economy. But the labor pricing isn't changing because hiring runs like a cartel. Employers don't collude but there is an "accepted bracket" of salaries generally known, which hiring managers don't deviate from.

Its like how you're aware of a price of an item across different stores or markets. Same - but the item is a tech employee.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#292

Post by whimsicalism »

gernb wrote: post #251
corrral wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but... some places think a "senior software developer" should make $70,000, and other think they should make $250,000 or more. And everything in between. I don't care how nice the a place it is to work, I'm not applying to the $70k place. If I can't quickly figure out where you fall on that spectrum, I'm not going to bother to contact you because job listings are not rare . If you somehow manage to present as exa…

Honestly I'm considering the $70k place where as right now I have the $500k total comp. I can't say I hate my job but I have zero interest in it. Where as I had lots of The biggest reason I haven't pulled the trigger is there's no guarntee that taking the $70k will actually be fun this time. I have my criteria for taking the jump though and if they're met I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I've found lower paying jobs typically treat you worse but YMMV.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#293

Post by Markoff »

tomg wrote: post #129

I don’t mean this to sound snarky but I fear it might. Earnestly: If a job looks interesting, why not just email and ask? If the position actually excites you, surely it’s worth a couple minutes of your time?

aka why not waste time of dozen people instead providing answer in the first place, I really hate this attitude

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#294

Post by JoshuaDavid »

nvrspyx wrote: post #266
commandlinefan wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'd get a better response from an ad that said "Free Milk" than an ad that said "Free Expired Milk," But he said he got better candidates with the ad that didn't post salary ranges. If I understand your analogy, that's like (counterintuitively) getting more responses for the expired milk.

No, it's not. They probably got responses from better candidates on the one with no salary range posted because if those candidates knew what the salary range was beforehand, they wouldn't have applied at all. The better question is were they able to hire any of those better candidates after they told them that the milk was expired?

It could simultaneously be true that including a good salary range increases the number of applicants who are good fits for the role, and also true that including a good salary range decreases the average quality of candidates.

One way you might see that effect is if both candidates who are good fits for the role and candidates who are bad fits for the role apply more often when a high salary is posted, but the number of bad fits increases faster than the number of good fits (e.g. because there is some subset of people who will send their application to every role that pays over a certain threshold whether or not they are qualified).

If it's sufficiently costly to distinguish qualified from unqualified candidates, the company might be better off not showing a salary range, even accounting for how it causes good people not to apply. That approach does feel like an inelegant hack to get around their inability to easily tell whether someone would actually perform well in the role though, so addressing that root cause would be better in that scenario if they could figure out how to do it.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#295

Post by chrismarlow9 »

If they don't bring it up in the first meeting I will. It's mutually beneficial for both parties not to waste time if the numbers don't work. If they absolutely refuse to give me any range I tell them I don't think it will work and go look somewhere else. It's not the only thing I care about, but it is a make or break item.

Part of my life is having financial goals I want to meet, the same as any business. Sure I have passions and things I want to do to help the world, the same as any business. But if the numbers don't work I need to find a different way or pivot so that they do (again, the same as any business).

A more pessimistic view is refusing to give me a range upfront (even if the gap is large like 90k-300k) tells me they're betting on me giving into the sunken cost fallacy at the end of the rounds. That's not someone I'd want to work for anyway.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#296

Post by memling »

codefreeordie wrote: post #261
memling wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the upper bound of your range doesn't exceed $350k there is no chance that any of the senior engineers I know will apply and honestly to get something to think about leaving a job they are moderately happy with you'd have to have that be the lower bound of your range. Outside of SV, that upper-bound is an absolutely wild number.

If your upper bound does not greatly exceed that number*, then all of the actually senior folks that I know are not going to be interested in your role. Most of my contacts are outside the Bay. I know lots of people who would consider applying to your senior role, all else being good, if you're offering, say $250k or so -- but none of them are the people on my mental list of senior engineering contacts. Still, you mi…

> If your upper bound does not greatly exceed that number*, then all of the actually senior folks that I know are not going to be interested in your role. Most of my contacts are outside the Bay.

That's fine--it's still a large number, and most roles simply don't pay it. There are, I'm sure, many openings that can pay sufficiently qualified people quite a lot of money, multiples of $350k. But it's a high number.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#297

Post by kinnth »

gernb wrote: post #251
corrral wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but... some places think a "senior software developer" should make $70,000, and other think they should make $250,000 or more. And everything in between. I don't care how nice the a place it is to work, I'm not applying to the $70k place. If I can't quickly figure out where you fall on that spectrum, I'm not going to bother to contact you because job listings are not rare . If you somehow manage to present as exa…

Honestly I'm considering the $70k place where as right now I have the $500k total comp. I can't say I hate my job but I have zero interest in it. Where as I had lots of The biggest reason I haven't pulled the trigger is there's no guarntee that taking the $70k will actually be fun this time. I have my criteria for taking the jump though and if they're met I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Yeah 500k all day. People love to preach about secondary benefits, but cold hard cash allows you to pay for most benefits you actually want.

I think work is work, the more a workplaces tries to trick you into believing you're in a family or home environment they're not being clear on the work. Competency trumps all benefits.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#298

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

kokanator wrote: post #32

We just went through a large hiring cycle. We posted two versions for every job posting- one with salary ranges and one without. The ads performed equally well in regard to total responses with the better candidates responding to the ones without salary ranges. And... before you say, perhaps your salary ranges were bad, they weren't. Our salary offerings are very aggressive to the developer's benefit. In my opinion,…

My primary reason for where I work is my salary (FAANG), and I have never been happier with my job.

I work to live, not live to work.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#299

Post by eranation »

Salary ranges are great, and I think it indeed can save time for some job seekers (as well as employers) but on a side note, regardless of posting salary ranges, sometimes you want to hire people who do not only look for a better pay. Sometimes you can't pay better, and sometimes you know you can only pay worse (e.g. a seed stage startup) and all you can offer is - interesting problems to solve, culture, upside, vision, working with other crazy people who took a pay cut to try and move the needle and make a bigger impact.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#300

Post by ricardobeat »

jacquesm wrote: post #280
gernb wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm considering the $70k place where as right now I have the $500k total comp. I can't say I hate my job but I have zero interest in it. Where as I had lots of The biggest reason I haven't pulled the trigger is there's no guarntee that taking the $70k will actually be fun this time. I have my criteria for taking the jump though and if they're met I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Save for one year then take 6 years off and come out roughly the same. That seems like an absolute no-brainer to me.

Not possible because their $500k/year likely only materializes after vesting. Leaving after only 3-4 years on the job would mean the realized yearly comp is closer to 200-250k.
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