Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 329 posts

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#81

Post by nomilk »

What's the actual problem that including salaries tries to solve? IMO if used strictly, it could only limit the talent pool (consider if someone more skilled than expected applies, but won't accept at or below the stated upper salary bound; the company won't be able to pivot and hire them).

Including salary could let applicants avoid underpaying companies before they embark on a lengthy application process, which is beneficial, but don't companies already have strong incentives not to exploit people in this way since they'll only leave shortly afterward and those onboarding costs would be false economy.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#82

Post by wing-_-nuts »

ENOTTY wrote: post #6

Given that most big tech companies' base salary tends to plateau and total comp begins to be dominated by stock grants and performance bonuses, just how much real transparency is actually going to be provided?

Yeah without TC this isn't really all that useful.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#83

Post by bluGill »

JamesSwift wrote: post #46
InefficientRed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. At big tech salary is close to useless and rarely the primary number that changes during negotiations. My highest paying job -- a 3.5x raise -- came with a $75K salary cut compared to my previous job. This should be, by far, the top voted comment. I don't think MSFT sharing salary ranges is consequential in any way.

Sure it is. If more start to do it, it becomes an arms race. If a company is loading the compensation in other ways and coming in light on salary then their job posting becomes much less compelling for job seekers. So they have a choice: disclose the other compensation (in order to compete with the salary numbers of the other companies) or adjust their compensation to be heavier on salary so their numbers are in line…

That depends on what the other things are. Most years I get half of my take home pay in December because of my bonus (some of that is my 401k maxing out in November), there have been a couple bad years where the bonus was less, but at least I was able to keep my job. Keeping my job is a factor as well, since I have a family to support, if I'm laid off (like most companies do all the time) that means I'm scrambling to figure out how to get cash, while I can live off of the smaller paychecks I get.

That is me - what is the above worth to you? If you are risk adverse like me, then you like that plan. Others want the cash now but can accept the risk of losing their jobs. Some have a high risk tolerance and like getting their money in stocks - in the best case this is the most money, but in the worst case it is the least. There is no right answer.

In the end you need a certain amount of money to live. That is different from your actual value.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#84

Post by bfung »

_fat_santa wrote: post #63
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #43

This is going do to absolutely nothing. Most of this legislation does nothing to really address the potential for folks to just advertise incredibly wide potential salary ranges, to say nothing of alternative ways that they can change total compensation "for the right candidate," if you catch my drift. I would suspect that the biggest effect of this is to actually lead to overall greater distrusts, as folks will make…

I live in CO and we recently had a similar law pass that required companies to disclose salary ranges. Like you said it does absolutely nothing, companies will list "Senior Software Engineer" with a salary of "$70k - $240k". This often times isn't even the range for the current position, but the "entire range" of offers they extend to any level of SWE.

Even so, the bright side is that the applicant’s expectation of the low end has been set.

Without this broad range, someone new to the industry, like a college grad, has no idea what the low range is. This at least prevents those people from getting lowballed and finding out later.

I’ve seen smart techies who are bad or oblivious to money subjects get way under paid, only to learn later, huge discrepancies in pay with the same or lower grade position due to other factors like gender, race, etc.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#86

Post by silicon2401 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #77
avgDev wrote: post #3

This is the way. We need more of this. I'm at a point where if a recruiter messages me "about an exciting opportunity" without any salary information, he/she will not get a response. While there are some jobs that maybe I would consider a pay cut for, I generally want to make more money because that allows me to invest more so I can be free one day.

I get ~4 recruiter emails a day and I don't think I have ever seen the salary in the initial job description. If the job looks interesting I will just reply asking what the salary is. Usually they immediately call me rather than respond via email which is pretty annoying.

This is why I stopped putting personal info in my resume. I once had a particularly aggressive recruiter try and recruit me for a contracting position (I only consider full time roles), and when I repeatedly declined his offer, he actually found my resume somewhere and just called my phone. Needless to say it was incredibly annoying and ever since then I've kept all contact info out of my resume.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#87

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ekianjo wrote: post #45
chrismeller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Software Engineer I - 40-250k”

anything preventing them from doing very large ranges like that?

Yes, it would discourage some candidates from applying if they see the average within that range is lower than the average they could get anywhere else. Dirty tricks are also a red flag for candidates.

However, while that range is an exaggeration, the truth is that salary ranges for positions are actually much wider than candidates may expect. There's a misconception that open positions have a single "correct" salary and that the negotiation process is all about getting the company to reveal that maximum number. It's not true, though. Ranges exist because even within a certain title, candidates have a wide range of skills and locations (especially when hiring remote/international) really do matter, whether or not you think they should.

More broadly, the salary range isn't even necessarily the only range they'd be willing to pay you. It's actually not uncommon to interview someone and realize that their career level is either above or below the position they're interviewing for. In that case, you "decline" the candidate for the position/title/pay range they applied for but continue the interview for a different position.

For example, if someone applies for SW ENG II but their compensation ask is in the range of SW ENG III (and their talents match) then you just bump them up. Conversely, if someone applies for SW ENG II but they're interviewing below the level of your SW ENG II candidates, you offer to continue the interview at the lower SW ENG I title/salary if they're willing.

So the ranges are still just a starting point. There is no magic trick to force a company to reveal the maximum number they'd pay you specifically. It's still a negotiation, but at least you can order job postings somewhat.

I actually think the bigger problem we're going to see is companies bait-and-switching candidates by putting a huge upper range number in the job posting but then offering them the bottom end of range while claiming that they can work their way up the range later. A lot of eager candidates are going to be pulled into companies who claim to have high upper limits, but who tell them they need to start at the bottom of the range and move up.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#88

Post by bluGill »

wonderwonder wrote: post #77
avgDev wrote: post #3

This is the way. We need more of this. I'm at a point where if a recruiter messages me "about an exciting opportunity" without any salary information, he/she will not get a response. While there are some jobs that maybe I would consider a pay cut for, I generally want to make more money because that allows me to invest more so I can be free one day.

I get ~4 recruiter emails a day and I don't think I have ever seen the salary in the initial job description. If the job looks interesting I will just reply asking what the salary is. Usually they immediately call me rather than respond via email which is pretty annoying.

Of course, they already know what they will get, it is a fixed price. Anything they don't pay whoever they hire is money they get to keep. (they can't hire a junior engineer to a senior position - if the contract allowed that they would though). I've seen cases where someone doesn't know their value and thus accepts a very low offer.

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#89

Post by nvr219 »

nomilk wrote: post #81

What's the actual problem that including salaries tries to solve? IMO if used strictly, it could only limit the talent pool (consider if someone more skilled than expected applies, but won't accept at or below the stated upper salary bound; the company won't be able to pivot and hire them). Including salary could let applicants avoid underpaying companies before they embark on a lengthy application process, which is…

> What's the actual problem that including salaries tries to solve?

It tries to solve pay equity problems. https://hr.uw.edu/comp/pay-equity/salary-setting-guidance/

Re: Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings

#90

Post by bluGill »

tcskeptic wrote: post #27
logicalmonster wrote: post #22

Just to play Devil's Advocate: being explicit about salaries is the kind of practice that sounds amazingly good on the surface, but might have some unintended real-world consequences. For instance, whereas before when salaries weren't explicit, a weaker candidate with some good qualities who was on the bubble for consideration might be able to get a job if the salary was more favorable than the company was initially…

Most companies have explicit and firm salary ranges for positions already -- I would bet MS is one of them. They just didn't put them in the job postings until now.

We just made an offer to someone that was far more than asked, our salary range doesn't go that low. It is to our benefit to give a fair offer as we will train this person and want them to stick around not leave in a year when they get a better offer.
Post reply on HN