Ask HN: Hiring managers why don't you post salary range in your job postings?

Most of the times it’s a company policy. As a hiring manager i never knew the salary of the open positions i was filling, only hr snd c-levels did.

Since my last job, asking the salary range is my first question in recruiter dms and generic emails. My current company was super open to reveal salary range on the first email, and i really appreciated it and eventually accepted the offer. People should demand transparrency.

I currently post ranges because we're now large enough. But when we were smaller, I wouldn't include ranges because our job posts didn't filter by seniority, and at least part of the comp was the potential for a healthy options grant. So the effective cash comp range was so large as to be meaningless on a single job post. "$0 to $1m DOE" (for example) doesn't help anyone make any decisions and is so distracting that its better to leave it off.

Also as a hiring manager, you'll also find that if you post the range, it just so happens that almost everyone's very firm minimum acceptable comp is the top of your published range.

Have you found it helpful? Having a recruiter at a "transparent" company give me a base salary range band where the Max was more than 2x the Min actually kinda left a bad taste in my mouth

I'm not allowed to. I've made the arguments for, and HR controls the actual job listings, and they won't put salary in the JDs. I've been trying for two years to make this happen.

Reasons I've heard -- and again, this is not me, this is what I'm told -- include * we can't as a matter of company policy, which can't be changed * we offer great benefits (true, they're the best I've ever had) and so it's not fair to us to post salaries, because it'll look low and we'll lose candidates * we want to start the conversation about the company and the position, and not the money * it lowers our ability to negotiate with candidates and thus costs the company money

I've made all the arguments you'd expect for why we should, generally, and why specifically not doing so costs us candidates, and in return I don't get an engaged debate, just select 1-2 of the above reasons and then refuse to elaborate or work to find a way to "yes"...

Which makes me suspect there's something else going on, but what? We pay significantly above-average, with good incentives, great benefits, it's not like we're a used car lot where the goal is to get someone on the phone or property to work the high-pressure magic.

But in short: for whatever reason, I can't, and I would bet other hiring managers are in the same situation. I'd love to hear an HR/legal person explain what the actual reasons companies don't allow this are.

> $0 to $1m DOE...

Actually, that does help me. At least I know that for the right candidate, with the right skills and fit, we can talk. That means I am not wasting my time because I am not talking to a place that has an inflexible top dollar range controlled by someone other than the hiring manager that will become a brick wall if we hit that point.

I don't mind an interview process where I need to prove my worth to get that high offer. I just feel disheartened for everyone's sake when I get through a process and both sides really want to work together, but everything comes crashing down because of the money.