[HN Gopher] NYC to require salary ranges be included in job post...
___________________________________________________________________
NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings
Author : O__________O
Score : 257 points
Date : 2022-10-31 17:45 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I remember seeing this ad for a (direct) sales position. The
| headline was something like: "Do you want to earn up to $150000 a
| year?" and then a bit down with the caveat that the position was
| 100% commission based, with salaries ranging between
| $10k-$150k/year.
| Eumenes wrote:
| From a recruiter perspective, this will accomplish very little,
| outside of the firms trying to pay the least. They will still get
| around it.
|
| Take this example, which happens multiple times per day. Junior
| candidate applies to senior job. Thinks cause they are senior at
| X company, that means they are at Y. False. Every company has
| diff leveling and definition on what that means. Companies give
| away senior titles like candy. Go look at how many "engineers"
| with 2-3 years of experience are senior at a number of companies.
| How is giving away those titles good faith? Really? Is anyone
| SENIOR after that little on the job? I sure hope not.
|
| Anyway, back to my example. They still consider the candidate,
| but at a lower level. Salary on job posting doesn't match the
| candidates expectations. This is why its the recruiter AND the
| candidates responsibility to get within the ball park on the
| initial phone conversation. Its still difficult for the recruiter
| to confirm with the candidate that they'll get the range they
| want. Usually they need to be interviewed and have their
| skills/ability assessed first.
| angmarsbane wrote:
| I don't understand the obsession with ranges, shouldn't posting a
| minimum be sufficient? Posting a minimum allows job seekers to
| rule out roles that can't pay their bills/expenses without
| putting a ceiling on how high a job seeker can negotiate.
| robocat wrote:
| What's wrong with just needing the minimum?
|
| Why do they need a band with the maximum?
| danijelb wrote:
| Because one of the main issues with negotiation is that people
| have different idea on what's a good salary depending on their
| educational and cultural background, the environment they grew
| up in, etc.
|
| For example a company might be willing to pay up to $175k for a
| certain dev position. This amount of money seems completely
| crazy to a developer who comes from a poor family and is the
| first one to have a skill that can pay so much. It will never
| occur to them to attempt to negotiate for this amount, because
| even $90k seems like a great salary compared to what their
| parents had. $175k would seem unreal, especially in a country
| where talking about money is taboo.
|
| But if this number can be seen often in ads as an upper range,
| it becomes normalized in the eyes of everyone who is applying
| for jobs, no matter their educational and cultural background.
| filoleg wrote:
| I genuinely wonder how this would work for non-cash portions of
| the total comp.
|
| Would they have to declare the dollar value of the shares issued?
| What about non-public companies that offer a significant chunk of
| the comp in illiquid stock options?Would they have to be included
| as a part of the salary range?
|
| Disclaimer: I am neither opposed nor in support of this. I don't
| mind taking that route and seeing how it works out. I see the
| potential downsides and upsides, and neither seem to be extremely
| impactful. So it feels like there is little harm in testing it
| out, even if it ends up being a nothingburger.
| bberenberg wrote:
| I have a hard time believing this will meaningfully help
| workers. It's a way for large companies to crush smaller
| competitors who offer anything other than base salary. Small co
| that offers more flexibility in location / hours? You will get
| filtered out because adding a salary filter is the easiest
| thing possible. Getting someone to read the JD that explains
| why working for you makes sense is hard.
| joe5150 wrote:
| Smaller companies have always had to compete on non-salary
| benefits like flexibility, and jobseekers who actually value
| those things above a higher salary will presumably be
| motivated to look into them, as they have always done as
| well. It's still helpful to know if your actual paycheck is
| going to be in range of your expectations or not before you
| waste your time applying to jobs.
| ghaff wrote:
| Presumably stock--and perhaps variable comp bonuses--would not
| be part of a listed _salary_ range.
| filoleg wrote:
| If that's truly the case, then it is gonna be a complete
| nothingburger for most devs. Same for finance, where a large
| (and, a lot of times, the largest) chunk of the total comp is
| in the annual bonus.
|
| In that case, I don't understand the celebrations and
| arguments people keep having about how it is gonna affect
| "big tech". I guess it might end up being good for non-
| tech/only-cash-comped employees, so we will see.
| ianpurton wrote:
| I actually think this benefits the employers. I rarely apply for
| jobs that don't post a salary range just because it's not worth
| the hassle of trying to figure out what they will pay.
| minraws wrote:
| Good. Applying and then knowing the person on the otherside can't
| pay shit is a PITA
| jedberg wrote:
| These laws are a great idea, but I really wish they would require
| that the bottom and top of the range be within X% of each other,
| were X is like 20 or 30 or even 50 or 100. But no more than the
| top being double the bottom.
|
| If the range is bigger than that, it sounds like you have two
| different jobs, a junior and senior, or senior and principle,
| etc.
|
| It would at least force them to be slightly more transparent
| about what they're actually looking for.
| matteotom wrote:
| My biggest annoyance with most salary transparency law compliance
| is companies pretend they'll accept anyone in any location at
| levels between 1 and 5, resulting in ranges like "$85k" (lowest
| paid location, level 1) to "$250k" (highest paid location, level
| 5) - when they're (internally) looking for "level 3 or 4".
| matteotom wrote:
| My hope is that the internal posting requirement will help with
| this, since internal postings are maybe more likely to be more
| specific about what level/location the team is looking for.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I'm a recruiter.
|
| I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads
| don't have salary, or have a wide salary range.
|
| The fact is that many employers _don 't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone_. Until they have met them,
| assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up
| against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the
| team.
|
| The conversation almost always goes like this: Employers come to
| me and say "we want a great senior C# .NET developer". I say
| "what do you want to pay?". They say "don't know, we just want
| someone great, what do you think we need to pay to get the right
| person?". I say "I think it will be about $X, but lets put a job
| ad up and indicate it's top of range $ and see who we get."
|
| It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a
| number of people at various positions of seniority and
| experience.
|
| Government agencies are required to carefully define salary
| ranges because that is the way they work. So it does not surprise
| me that governments would legislate to require job ads to do the
| same - essentially because of ignorance about how the world
| works.
|
| If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there
| are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not
| apply for that job.
|
| It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a
| key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply.
|
| Being angry about it or feeling that employers/recruiters are
| playing some sort of manipulative game is ignoring the reality
| set out above. And when you come into a position that requires
| recruiting, likely you'll speak to your recruiter and say "what
| do you think we'll need to pay for someone like this?".
|
| Far more important is to know the salary target that you are
| aiming for.
|
| EDIT: lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the
| messenger. Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.
| dangom wrote:
| Funny salary ranges are disclosed literally every else and it's
| never been a problem except in the US.
| brk wrote:
| _Far more important is to know the salary target that you are
| aiming for._
|
| I think people would be more willing to accept this if the
| application process was not such a complete cluster fuck 99% of
| the time.
|
| So many sites want you to upload a resume, and then also re-
| type the whole thing into some clunky form so that the company
| can seemingly index it or search it or whatever
|
| Then after your resume has been randomly selected for review
| you get to waste more time with useless recruiters and/or HR
| people for some kind of preliminary screening process that
| makes little sense.
|
| If you're lucky enough to actually start to enter a real
| interview process you can plan to sink another 2-8 hours of
| your time before the discussion of salary ranges is even
| remotely danced around.
|
| Finally, after a ton of hassle you learn that the company
| wishes to pay approximately minimum wage for this position and
| wants to pay you in IOU's, bottle caps, or gift vouchers (only
| a slight exaggeration sometimes).
|
| If a company cannot give a salary range that is even +/- 20%,
| perhaps they're not actually ready to make a job posting and
| invite people to hopelessly waste their time on the application
| process.
| joe5150 wrote:
| You contradict yourself when you say employers don't know what
| they would be willing to pay someone, but then somehow manage
| to come up with a number when they start recruiting. You even
| say you would post a job ad with that range? That's what the
| law wants, so I don't actually understand what you're arguing
| against here.
|
| If it's genuinely true that a company has no idea what they
| might pay someone they want to hire, they're just not ready to
| hire someone. "It's that easy."
| orev wrote:
| I think many here will disagree, but this is spot on. Having a
| fixed salary range also implies there's a fixed/well-defined
| set of tasks for that role, which is only applicable to typical
| lower-level jobs that do repetitive tasks. Once you get into
| higher skilled positions, the roles become much more flexible
| and negotiable.
|
| The HN crowd is exactly the opposite type of people who would
| benefit from this. Job definitions become fixed. You want to
| try your next project in Rust? Implement a new database? Start
| learning the customer-facing side of things? Too bad, the job
| description didn't include that, and your salary range is
| locked in to the job description.
| bumby wrote:
| While it seems logical that a fixed salary implies a fixed
| set of tasks, I don't think it holds in practice. I've worked
| my share of fixed salary positions where the day-to-day looks
| nothing like the job posting. It seems all you have to do is
| add a clause like "and other duties as assigned".
|
| There is a chance your duties get so out of whack that you
| request HR to reinterpret your pay, but not only is that a
| laborious and somewhat arbitrary process, but it seems both
| HR and management are incentivized to not rule in the
| employees favor.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| > Once you get into higher skilled positions, the roles
| become much more flexible and negotiable.
|
| So make the salary range bigger.
| incone123 wrote:
| While this applies to public advertisements, once you are
| employed then I don't see why you or the company can't
| renegotiate based on changed responsibilities.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Depends. 95% of candidates fit into a salary band. If you
| didn't do that, the company would get ripped to shreds by
| lawsuits about pay equity.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| The important part is that employers post the maximum salary
| so that job seekers know what the budget is.
|
| Employers should make a separate job ad for each pay grade,
| and they should provide a detailed explanation of how they
| determine salary. If the range is $150k to $250k, what are
| the criteria to make $250k? What's the difference between
| someone who makes $150k and $175k? That information belongs
| in the job posting.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would argue for most people who are not exceptional, the
| important data is the minimum pay, which helps them
| identify employers to avoid or aspire to move on from.
|
| Also, an increase in the minimum of the pay range can help
| people who were hired at lower pay rates know when new
| hires are getting paid more. Businesses love having this
| arbitrage opportunity, which is why the common advice is to
| change employers to maintain market rate pay.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.
|
| Companies want to pay (give) as little as possible while asking
| for (demanding/getting) as much as possible. More news at
| 11:00.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
| zebnyc wrote:
| I don't mind if there are certain companies which don't want to
| list their salary range. However, they also need to be
| respectful of candidates' time and energy.
|
| Recently I had a company reach out to me and after asking me
| many questions about my background for an hour, the recruiter
| asks me, "What is your salary expectation?". I said I would
| rather not say but would be happy to let them know if their
| range is acceptable to me. The recruiter rambles a bit about
| how they recruit from all over the world and then tells me that
| is not how they operate and I must give a number. I refused and
| they hung up. Of course it is their prerogative if they don't
| want to provide the number or need my number up front. But then
| they can be upfront about it early in the call. They should not
| waste my time for an hour and drain my energy in the process.
| iso1631 wrote:
| If your expectation is 200 and you're about to hang up, tell
| them 450 just for shits and giggles. You never know, it might
| work.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| > I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people
| nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary
| range.
|
| Do you think it's true that you may be biased a certain way?
| Perhaps not in favor of job seekers?
|
| > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to
| employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and
| experience.
|
| Perhaps include separate descriptions for junior/senior roles?
|
| > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job.
|
| Why do you expect the candidate to have to change their
| mindset?
|
| > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are
| aiming for.
|
| Wouldn't having these ranges let a candidate become more
| informed about their salary target? Markets and salary ranges
| change over time, this would let them know what is current.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Every job in tech I have had (~10) have started with a
| recruiter reaching out to me, me asking the position range and
| then telling the recruiter I want the top of the range or more.
| No interviews with anyone in the company until the salary
| requirements are handled otherwise its just a waste of
| everyone's time. I couldn't imagine talking to someone to see
| if they want to hire me without knowing if its even worth it
| for me, it puts all the power in their hands.
|
| I've never had a recruiter balk or push back on answering even
| for the roles I decided not to pursue. A recruiter doing so
| would be a huge flashing red light for me.
|
| "If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job.
|
| It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a
| key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply."
|
| Or the state could just pass a law making it a required
| field...
| e12e wrote:
| I suppose if employers don't know what employees are worth -
| they certainly don't know what recruiters are worth? And I
| suppose that information assymetry works out in favour of the
| recruiters?
| make3 wrote:
| you're not just the messenger though, you are part of this
| jedberg wrote:
| It is hard to convince someone they are wrong when their salary
| depends on being right. But I'm going to try. I've done hiring
| myself as a founder, so I have some experience here.
|
| > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone.
|
| Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be
| looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if
| they don't already have access to back channel data.
|
| > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to
| employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and
| experience.
|
| Then it should be multiple listings with different
| requirements, even if the only difference is years of
| experience.
|
| > So it does not surprise me that governments would legislate
| to require job ads to do the same - essentially because of
| ignorance about how the world works.
|
| The way the government does it is more equitable, so it makes
| sense that they are trying to legislate that to the private
| sector.
|
| > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't
| specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get
| angry, just don't apply.
|
| This is exactly the problem. If they aren't required to list
| it, they won't. And this is harmful to people who aren't good
| negotiators. And also harmful to women and minorities, as
| countless studies have shown they are chronically underpaid in
| large part because they aren't willing or able to negotiate.
|
| That's why there is a push to force companies to list the
| salaries.
|
| > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are
| aiming for.
|
| You're right! The best way for me to know what salary to target
| is with lots of data about how much similar jobs pay. A great
| way to get that is job listings with salary ranges, since I
| don't have access to data like the person offering the job
| does.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| >> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what
| they would be willing to pay someone.
|
| > Then they need better data. A great way to get that would
| be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges
| if they don't already have access to back channel data.
|
| You're missing the point: the variable is the _candidate_ ,
| not the role. I know the market rate for a candidate that is
| just over-the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate
| for a super-star who can not only do this role, but is
| probably already capable of doing the next one.
|
| > Then it should be multiple listings with different
| requirements, even if the only difference is years of
| experience.
|
| So, what if you apply for a role that turns out to be wrong
| for you based on my assessment of you then I should reject
| you so you can re-apply for the other role? That's
| ridiculous.
| jameshart wrote:
| > I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-
| the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a
| super-star who can not only do this role, but is probably
| already capable of doing the next one.
|
| Those are going to be two vastly different numbers. Which
| one are you looking to pay for? If you have budget for a
| superstar, why would you settle for just-over-the-bar
| talent?
|
| I kind of find myself suspecting that what you're really
| hoping for is that you'll find someone who has superstar
| talent, but doesn't know their market rate, so you can hire
| them at just-over-the-bar money.
| jjav wrote:
| > Which one are you looking to pay for? If you have
| budget for a superstar, why would you settle for just-
| over-the-bar talent?
|
| Having done a fair amount of hiring over decades...
| because you don't know who will show up.
|
| The minimum bar of the job description is who I need at
| least. But occasionally someone shows up who is insanely
| perfect, hitting on every optional wishlist item. I'll
| pay a lot more for that person, but I can't count they
| will apply because I can't wait a year for the perfect
| person to show up. So I'm also happy to hire someone at
| the minimum bar if that's how it goes.
| testACCT321 wrote:
| im3w1l wrote:
| Well maybe the goal is increase features / month, and
| they want to hire a few people to do that. A just-over-
| the-bar will be a small increase, and a superstar will be
| a big increase. They don't particularly care about the
| mix as long as the total is big enough.
| ebiester wrote:
| It's so rare for a superstar not to know their market
| rate as to be unlikely.
|
| What I can see happening is that more corporations start
| doing SDE 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12, with different
| ranges, and most of the interviews are at 7-10 and are
| "releveled" at 3-5. We will end up in the same place we
| started but with more games.
| jameshart wrote:
| > It's so rare for a superstar not to know their market
| rate as to be unlikely
|
| You're no-true-scotsmanning 'superstar' here to assume, I
| suspect, that one of the attributes of a superstar is
| being in the know, and so on top of the industry and job
| market that they are aware how much their skills are
| worth.
|
| For a certain class of superstar that may be true, but
| there are many, many very strong developers who are
| working in backwater job markets and have not looked for
| jobs in a while who literally have no idea what typical
| total comp offers from serious tech companies in hot
| markets are like.
|
| There are plenty of high skilled people who have been
| blown away by an offer they thought was incredibly
| generous, only to discover they were actually lowballed.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >It's so rare for a superstar not to know their market
| rate as to be unlikely.
|
| And you're getting this data from, where exactly?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| If you tell me the salary range is $200-300k and you offer
| me $400k I'm not going to be upset. If you offer me $125k,
| I will be. If I knew up front you had three roles, one
| paying $75-$125k, one $200-300k, and one $400-500k I could
| judge for myself what the chances were of the one I'm
| interested in (or higher). If you refuse to make ranges or
| publish $75k-$500k I have no idea if we are wasting each
| other's time. It's used car sales tactics.
| jedberg wrote:
| > So, what if you apply for a role that turns out to be
| wrong for you based on my assessment of you then I should
| reject you so you can re-apply for the other role? That's
| ridiculous.
|
| No of course not. You simply offer the better role at the
| higher salary. Or if they turn out to not be good, you tell
| them that you are going to deny them this role because they
| are not qualified, but you'd be happy to offer the lower
| role if they are interested. In fact, I'll bet this will
| happen a lot as a workaround for this law.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| If the only way to operate realistically is to engage in
| some form of borderline-compliant workaround then I
| suggest the entire exercise is ill-conceived.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| At least in that case I can read the job descriptions of
| low, medium, and high before applying. If I don't know
| where my salary expectations line up with the company's
| job requirements at all there's a higher chance of
| wasting my time.
| showerst wrote:
| > I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-
| the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a
| super-star
|
| Great, then you know the good faith range and you're good
| to go.
|
| > then I should reject you so you can re-apply for the
| other role
|
| In my experience this happens all the time at big corps and
| the government. Except it's not a rejection, just an "oh
| actually we have this other open job on the books that
| would be a better fit - let's transfer you over to that"
| joe5150 wrote:
| The law doesn't say you can't offer someone a different job
| than they applied for.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| If I make up the job after meeting the candidate, is that
| OK?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, if you can talk your boss/executive that a
| candidate is a true super-star and you should pay over
| the published range, why not?
|
| The goal of this law, and others like it, is fixing the
| bottom end of the range to prevent low ball offers from
| employers that know women and minorities (and others)
| frequently undervalue themselves.
| joe5150 wrote:
| The question was specifically about hiring for multiple
| positions at different levels of seniority. If your
| company is hiring for positions with differentiated
| responsibilities and expectations for pay, you can
| advertise multiple jobs and shouldn't have to make
| anything up.
| wlll wrote:
| > I'm a recruiter.
|
| I'm a CTO, for context.
|
| > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone. ... I say "I think it will be
| about $X, but lets put a job ad up and indicate it's top of
| range $ and see who we get."
|
| As someone pointed out, it sounds like this isn't too hard to
| do. I've hired people, I've come up with salary ranges. It took
| some thought, I didn't particularly enjoy the process, but it's
| possible.
|
| > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to
| employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and
| experience.
|
| "We're hiring for 10 widget programmers, x senior, y mid, z
| junior. The salary ranges for these are ... and will depend on
| the skills and experience of the individual candidate"
|
| > It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is
| a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply.
|
| I've skipped job adverts in the past because the salary wasn't
| specified. People care about the wage, it's an incredibly
| important part of what work is, getting paid, it's one of the
| largest parts of the deal. Pretending that the wage doesn't
| matter because your company is special, or because people
| shouldn't be in it for the money is BS that basically everyone
| can see through and coming to that realisation will allow
| companies to have a much better understanding of the
| relationship they have with with their current and future
| employees.
|
| Or, if the wage is important after all and you just couldn't be
| bothered to work it out? I guess just put a bit more time in
| and work it out. Or don't, and be skipped over.
|
| As someone who sometimes hires people, I'd very much prefer it
| if all the people that applied had already self-selected on
| something as simple as the red line that is what people will
| expect to earn. I really don't want to have to trawl through a
| load of resumes for people, selecting them for interview, doing
| the first round etc. only to discover that they want n*2 more
| than we're offering.
| Patrol8394 wrote:
| > employers don't actually know what they would be willing to
| pay someone
|
| They know, they know. They just don't want to be the first one
| to putting numbers out there, because they want to low ball as
| much as they can.
|
| I clearly remember, in one of my latest interview, the
| recruiter mentioning an internal system of theirs that would
| come up with "numbers", and my numbers were way off, so they
| couldn't make it work.
|
| Knowing, at least a ball park range, it would have saved me
| time and stress.
|
| They must have a range in mind:
|
| - average candidate $x - good candidate $y - awesome candidate
| $z
|
| Therefore they could just ads for $x-$z signaling they won't be
| able to go above $z. So a candidate can at least decide if it
| is worth interviewing or not.
| mkl95 wrote:
| > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them,
| assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it
| up against their skills and experience and calibrated it
| against the team.
|
| One of the reasons I want to know the salary range upfront is
| that it tells me the _bare minimum_ they are paying for that
| position. Companies love lowballing candidates, so I usually
| don 't apply for an offer that doesn't pay at least the minimum
| I'm looking for.
|
| > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are
| aiming for.
|
| It's also important to know the company's budget. I don't enjoy
| working at places that can't afford a $200/year IDE license, to
| name a common example. Fat salaries often come with fat
| budgets.
| freejazz wrote:
| "If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job."
|
| Looks like that's not going to be the case anymore.
| bogota wrote:
| sad that the government is having to regulate you into humane
| practices. Already in NY and CO im sure this will just keep
| spreading.
| irrational wrote:
| Sounds like HR at those companies has no clue what they are
| doing. I work for a Fortune 100 company. Everyone has a very
| specific job title and everyone with the same job title is
| guaranteed to make the exact same amount as anyone else with
| the same job title. They have a third party company come in and
| do a review yearly to make sure that is the case. We are not
| able to create new job titles without a lot of work. So, we
| always know exactly what the salary will be for anyone we are
| trying to hire.
| iso1631 wrote:
| My company has recently posted internal salary ranges for job
| titles. There's the bottom of the range, a 33% mark, and the
| top of the range.
|
| Everyone gets paid at least the bottom of the range. After
| proving competent they must be on the 33% mark. Some are paid
| above the top of the range but it's rare.
|
| A given job family has different titles, broadly
| Junior-'Vanilla'-Senior-Principal. A junior might be on 25-45,
| vanilla on 35-55, a senior on 40-65, a principal on 55-80, or
| whatever (triple those for US wags I guess). That fits the
| "more experienced" part. You could advertise for a principal
| and find someone who just about scrapes in, so pay them 55,
| find someone great and offer them 80.
|
| When advertising externally though, this information is not
| available - unless you know someone who already works there,
| which is crazy.
| drogus wrote:
| I have been searching for a job at least few times in the past
| few years. I've emailed/messaged probably 100s of tech
| companies asking for a salary range. Maybe one or two companies
| failed to give me the salary range. I have no idea what
| companies you work with, but from my experience most companies
| in tech know the salary ranges for the positions they hire for,
| they just require an extra effort from people to find out.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > don't actually know what they would be willing to pay
| someone.
|
| As an employee, sounds like not my fuckin problem. I'm not
| about to go through 3 phone screens, a take-home test, a full-
| day onsite, etc. just for the privilege to be low-balled or
| even worse denied.
|
| > I think it will be about $X
|
| Oh! So looks like it's not that hard to ball-park a number off
| the top of your head. I don't get this "how the world really
| works" junk. How the world "really works" right now is that job
| searchers are having their time wasted and don't have tools to
| determine what the market for various positions looks like. For
| work that apparently amounts to texting the on-staff recruiter
| I couldn't care less.
|
| > if the ad doesn't specify salary...just don't apply.
|
| So all job postings before these laws have been put into
| effect? Looks like someone doesn't understand how the world
| really works.
|
| RTFA. The job range has to be "in good faith" if the job
| posting encompasses a range of experience levels, that's
| allowed. The range just has to be "in good faith". That's such
| a low bar to clear and from your own hypothetical the work
| required from the employer is basically nil.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| If neither prospective employee nor employer talk about
| salary up-front before investing many hours with interviews,
| travel, etc. that's just simply a screwup on both sides.
|
| This salary range thing won't fix that. Ready? The job
| listing is now "$100k to $200k depending on experience." If
| you are making $140k and hoping to make $160k the range
| doesn't help you at all. You still better talk about salary
| up front!
| rednerrus wrote:
| Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first
| interview. Employers should have a sense of what your number
| is and whether or not they can get there before moving
| forward with interviewing. If they're not doing that, they're
| wasting your time and their time.
| gopalv wrote:
| > If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and
| their time.
|
| Actually, they're getting paid for the their time. I'm not.
| I'm actually burning my time.
|
| > Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first
| interview.
|
| I'm going through the recruitment process right now and the
| numbers out of the gate are always lowball figures
| (possibly personalized to me), because of two reasons.
|
| Because they want to see if you accept it or not. I'm sure
| a lot of people coming into the bay area from other
| cities/countries will be like "wow, 185k, that's awesome" &
| they'll figure it out that the company was willing to pay
| upto 350k for the same work.
|
| Secondly, publicly advertising salaries have a big impact
| on the people who are already in the building. This is
| pretty much already a problem when you bring in an H1B who
| has to put their salary into the DoL database and post
| notices in the offices with their pay. But this is only
| base pay, not including bonuses or stocks, so it's easy to
| cap the base pay and fill it up with bonus packages.
|
| So the companies are legitimately balking at this because
| they'll have to pay their existing employees more if they
| put out an attractive posting, but if they put a lowball
| figure nobody would even show up to interview - only people
| who already make lower than the lowball figure will show up
| & then try to negotiate upwards.
|
| I'm currently interviewing and this is a weird dance, sort
| of like buying a car.
|
| I've only got a single response to someone asking "Is this
| range acceptable" - "I'm looking at multiple offers and
| being the second best offer is no good for you and I'm not
| negotiating before an interview or comparing offers. It's
| your bid, not my ask".
|
| I guess it's a position of privilege to deal from. My need
| to go to back to work isn't economic, I'll just languish if
| I don't find a job & become truly feral :)
| scarface74 wrote:
| > wow, 185k, that's awesome" & they'll figure it out that
| the company was willing to pay upto 350k for the same
| work.
|
| I'm nowhere near the Bay Area, I know what Bay Area
| salaries are by looking at publicly available sites.
|
| I also know while I never made above $160K until starting
| at my first "FAANG" two years ago working remotely, there
| is no way in hell I would accept less than $250K - $300K
| to ever give up my big house in the burbs in a much lower
| cost of living area and that's only because my kids have
| already graduated and my wife and I could stay in a
| smaller place and not worry about the school system.
|
| Well I personally would never work a job where I had to
| go into an office again.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| > So the companies are legitimately balking at this
| because they'll have to pay their existing employees more
| if they put out an attractive posting....
|
| Let's phrase this properly: companies are balking because
| they'll have to pay existing employees _market rate_.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| 100%
| rednerrus wrote:
| If they're asking your number and you're not being
| straight forward, what's the problem?
|
| Them: "What's your number"? You: "$350k." Them: "Ok, cool
| lets move forward." or "That's a lot of money and we
| can't pay that much. Thanks for meeting with us."
|
| I'm assuming that you've done your homework and know what
| a reasonable top of the range is. If that's the case,
| just say what your number is and let them decide if it's
| too much.
| mikebenfield wrote:
| The candidate has just as much if not more ambiguity and
| uncertainty as the employer, so why is the burden on the
| candidate?
|
| It's very possible for a candidate to be thinking
| something like "I'm currently making $200K. I think it's
| possible I could get $300K, but $250K would probably be
| acceptable, and I might even settle for a lateral move of
| $200K if I find the position really appeals to me." What
| should they say? $300K and possibly price themselves out?
| $200K and possibly lowball themselves?
| drekipus wrote:
| Really just seems like candidates don't want to do these
| negotiation process.
|
| I was surprised with how much I was able to get away with
| negotiating my first tech job. It was a little bit of
| back and forth, a recruiter was involved, and I could
| just poker face my way into a six-figure job.
|
| If they say 200k are you want to just say 250k and see if
| you get it.
|
| Like everything it's just quicker and easier if you rip
| off the band-aid and just do it.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Why not legislate the other way around?
|
| Make it the law that you post how much you're willing to work
| for on your LinkedIn profile and that you have to supply it
| to employers at the start of an application process so
| neither side is wasting time.
|
| Seems like that would address all your complaints just as
| well.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| Because that gives employers more leverage to push salaries
| down, and makes it more likely that workers will be
| exploited.
|
| The point of this legislation is to push salaries up by
| forcing employers to reveal their hiring budget up front.
| That way, prospective employees can more easily shop around
| for the highest salary.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| Because ostensibly, governments should be acting on behalf
| of their citizens (almost all of whom work for a living)
| rather than their corporations.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Because corporations already have more leverage than
| individuals like 99% of the time.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This just tilts the scale of information asymmetry even
| more in the direction of employers than it already is.
| jedberg wrote:
| Because the employers already have more information than
| the employees. The whole point is to level the playing
| field. Your suggestion just gives the employers more data.
| chadash wrote:
| _> just for the privilege to be low-balled or even worse
| denied_
|
| I'm ok being denied. You set the bar and I don't meet it,
| fair enough... far worse is wasting my time when a simple
| discussion about salary at the start (at least after the
| first interview) could have saved us both time.
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| And you can of course bring it up early on in your calls
| with the company as well.
| mc32 wrote:
| I have never had a first interview where the recruiter or TA
| person could not or would not let me know the salary range.
|
| Would it be nice to know in advance, yes. Is it necessary for
| me to know in advance so long as I can get it during the fist
| contact? No.
| antisthenes wrote:
| I'm with you 100%. And also never had a problem getting a
| hard number or a range from the recruiter.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > I'm not about to go through 3 phone screens, a take-home
| test, a full-day onsite, etc. just for the privilege to be
| low-balled or even worse denied.
|
| Maybe I got lucky but I've always been able to figure out the
| rough range they were thinking of paying before the first
| real interview. In case of recruiters, sure, they want to
| talk to you first and that's 15 minutes you'll never get
| back.
|
| Personally I just don't move ahead unless I have some signal
| about salary to not get into that situation.
| JackFr wrote:
| That's the value ad of a good recruiter. You tell them I'll
| move for $X and don't call me without that.
| victor9000 wrote:
| Yep, just ask "What is the budget for this role?". Yep,
| it's that simple.
| Keyframe wrote:
| It's never that simple. If it were, that's how it would
| turn out to be and in some places it is. Just one example
| why it's not that simple - you might have an ad running
| for a role with no seniority attached. You're open to all
| seniority, because you need all. Do you open all three
| ranges in the ad, in the convo? It might be that simple
| but it closes the door to another convo which might be,
| after you hear out the company's needs and present
| yourself, you might offer to jump to the occasion and
| offer an extended role of yourself above what you were
| before (a step up) and ask for more. Now what? There's no
| room to go either way anymore in negotiation but down
| from the top of the budget.
|
| There's no black and white, fits all, thing. Never is
| that simple. The only fair thing I saw so far is along
| the lines of if there's any indication that company is
| decent and you're interested in a role, if you pass a
| filter to get a call: do the short intro about the
| company and the people and the role, do the short intro
| (after company intro, that's important because you can
| tune your self-presentation) about yourself and then go a
| bit back and forth on the expectations from both ends,
| including financials. If all things are aligned then you
| proceed forward. If there's no talk about financials on
| that call, not worth it or if there's no indication
| there's an honest answer we have to see since we're
| talking about outside of what we initially even asked for
| but here we are - offered more. Getting low-balled there,
| in such environments, is hard since the day you start you
| get to feel and know that you, indeed, were.. and what
| did company accomplish with that then? Nothing good.
| Overall, that's about half an hour or so IF there's
| indication that company has good reputation. If not, or a
| startup, or you're just shotgunning it across to get to
| the high score (and hopping) - there's no help, it's a
| gamble where number indicated will help but will also
| close a lot of real good opportunities.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| All true, but simply give the 20th to 80th percentile comp as
| bands and state that above band comp is awarded in some cases.
|
| I've worked in a hiring manager capacity for close to a decade,
| and we absolutely know the bands, despite them being quite
| wide.
|
| Companies that are well run can succeed without hiding
| information from their employees... and it's a huge waste of
| time to interview somebody whose expectations are totally
| mismatched
| phphphphp wrote:
| The situation you describe is real, sure. However, the
| situation you describe is far from the majority of recruitment.
| Most companies have a budget, most companies have a salary
| framework. Yes, in the minority of situations in which a
| company truly has no budget for a role then these rules don't
| work very well... but that's relevant to a tiny subset of the
| top end of the market, and at that level, job postings are much
| less important. The positive outcome of these rules far
| outweighs any inconvenience experienced by employers with no
| budget.
|
| edit: regarding your edit, which companies have you recruited
| for? I would bet my own career that you're wrong to suggest
| that recruitment works like this for more than 10% of
| companies.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Over the 2+ decades I've been working in this industry, the
| list of things that are expected out of an interview process
| just keeps growing. Intense panel interviews, coding on
| whiteboards, "show me your github", "do this example project",
| etc. Tell me your life story. What makes you passionate?
|
| They often drag on for weeks, sometimes months, before an
| actual offer letter is in hand. And at the same time we're told
| that there's a shortage of us software engineers.
|
| I can tell you it wasn't like this in the 90s. For better or
| for worse.
|
| So don't be surprised that many of us are becoming incredulous
| that in addition to all of this, we can't get an upfront answer
| in advance about _how much you will eventually pay me_.
|
| (I've also been confronted, very late in the process, with _"
| your requested range is unreasonable because look at this
| compensation survey we bought from a third party"_ -- and that
| survey was full of _complete lies_ because it listed total comp
| for Google L4 in my region as literally 1 /2 of what I was
| making as an L4 at Google.)
|
| So, I dunno, unless the job market really goes tits up and
| we're all suddenly begging for work, seems like your side of
| the industry -- the recruitment side -- needs to get its act
| together. I'm seeing growing dissatisfaction with the whole
| process and people are getting sick of the song and dance.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I've gone through exactly one of these types of interviews,
| and that was at a FAANG. I have since turned down every
| single offer to interview with a company that did something
| similar. The one time I did so by phone, it was kind of
| amusing (and telling) that the company's headhunter was
| utterly shocked that I was unwilling to fly across the
| country to do some whiteboard sessions with the team. They
| clearly targeted FAANG washouts, and weren't accustomed to
| speaking with a senior developer who could afford to be picky
| about the interviews he took.
|
| The important thing is, there are plenty of companies that
| don't pretend to be FAANGs, and don't interview like that.
| Odds are pretty good that working for them won't be like
| working at a FAANG either, which (imho) is also a good thing.
| carlosdp wrote:
| A lot of comments here saying corporations have hiring budgets
| and you're wrong, etc.
|
| I guarantee you startups < 100 people do not actually have
| formal hiring budgets. A lot of people here haven't actually
| been employers before, and this comment is spot on when it
| comes to the reality.
|
| Posting a salary range for many positions would only have the
| effect of making it look like you'd be able to get less than
| you actually could, because employers would always need to post
| the bottom of the range (since these laws have a maximum range
| you're allowed to post), which is dumb.
| danijelb wrote:
| I wasn't an employer but I'm genuinely curious how is it
| possible that a company doesn't know what they are willing to
| pay for an employee of specific knowledge? They maybe don't
| have formal hiring budgets, but they know how much money they
| have, if some investments are coming, how much they pay other
| people on average, etc. Also, they obviously know the amount
| of money they are not willing to go over during the
| negotiation phase of the interview.
|
| If they are looking for some super specific and rare skill,
| why not make a separate ad for that rare position? In that
| case if they are ready to pay 5x the market rate, they can
| put that in the salary range without influencing ranges of
| "normal" positions.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Your client is probably trying to limit your overhead.
|
| I've hired hundreds or low thousands of people. Corporate,
| government, SMB. Never did i go into that process without a
| budget target or salary band with budget. I would say that to a
| contract shop or recruiter to avoid having a budget of $100, a
| bid for $101, and a contractor making $28
| time_to_smile wrote:
| > Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.
|
| I've been the team lead and talk to my team lead about this a
| lot and I know of no serious tech companies that don't actively
| think about employee retention and recruiting a _huge_ part of
| which is compensation. Leadership at my company spends a
| serious amount of time discussing and revising our TC targets.
|
| Any company that doesn't know what "they would be willing to
| pay someone" is a huge red flag for me as a candidate, and I
| can be quite confident that they aren't willing to even reach
| the salary component of my comp let alone meet or beat TC.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| So what is the precise number you pay your senior developers?
|
| Sorry to call you out, but I simply don't believe the answer
| is anything but "it depends on a range of factors". Unless it
| is a government job, but even then, likely it depends on a
| range of factors, and often even government clients flex
| their budget to meet their recruiting goals.
| time_to_smile wrote:
| I'm no longer in a management position and wouldn't post
| what is currently private company info on HN, but I'll tell
| you how it worked at literally every company I've worked at
| that is not a very small startup:
|
| There is an internal document that specifies each level and
| the exact comp bands for each role (like all companies
| there is a range of salaries but it is specified, and again
| this is the practice a multiple companies I've worked at).
| There is a lower and upper bound of salary for level,
| target bonuses are fixed at a percent for ranges of levels
| and the same goes for equity grants.
|
| The details of what defines each level of seniority is
| clearly spelled out in terms of typical ranges of previous
| experience, responsibilities of the role, reporting
| structure, assumed level of autonomy etc. These are also
| calibrated across teams at each review cycles and
| continually kept up to date.
|
| During interviews there are set guidelines for how well a
| candidate performs given the target level of the role they
| are applying for an assess which level is appropriate.
|
| This is not the same as saying
|
| "don't actually know what they would be willing to pay
| someone."
|
| and
|
| "it depends on a range of factors"
|
| At every company that is not sub 100 employees that "range
| of factors" is clearly defined. I honestly have a hard time
| believing you've worked recruiting for any major tech
| company and haven't come across similarly detailed
| documentation regarding levels, comp bands, and evaluation
| of candidates.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| It's ok if it depends on a range of factors, but those
| factors should be detailed in the job posting. The
| candidate should be able to read the ad and calculate what
| their salary would likely be based on the company's salary
| determination process.
|
| Most importantly, the ad should reveal the position's
| maximum salary, so job seekers know how much money is on
| the table. Ideally, median and average salaries would also
| be listed.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| >>the ad should reveal the position's maximum salary,
|
| Noble goal that I feel is completely naive about human
| psychology.
|
| I believe that exceedingly few of us have sufficient
| self-awareness and humility to see a range of e.g.
| "100-200k", and recognize easily that our performance and
| skill and history and capability is worth 120k, and will
| not feel scammed and underappreciated.
|
| The prevailing wisdom on HN is empathically NOT "be happy
| with what you're worth", it's "ask for more more more",
| completely prior to any discussion of person's actual
| history, skillset, contribution, productivity, etc. And
| that's OK! We are human beings and inherently selfish and
| if we don't look after ourselves, who will? But it's
| disingenuous to then pretend that publication of a salary
| _range_ will have any outcome other than all candidates
| expecting the top or slightly above... and I personally
| feel that will only result in employers pushing down the
| salary to match the average candidate.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| They have the option to keep looking in their job search
| if they feel like they are not being valued enough.
|
| If they interviewed around and all offers they received
| were around ~120k, then it should be a wake up call that
| their expectations do not match reality.
| jedberg wrote:
| You know they don't pay a single number, but have a defined
| range for the role.
|
| And if they find someone who is outside that range, they
| will bump them up to the next role with the bigger range.
|
| When I worked at eBay the salary bands for each level were
| well defined and shared internally. If they needed to pay
| you more than the top of the range, they bumped you to the
| next level to do it.
|
| It would be very easy for them to publish the ranges
| publicly.
| standardUser wrote:
| Sounds like this law may force employers to get their shit
| together and actually understand the roles they are hiring for
| and what they are willing to pay for those roles.
|
| The way you describe employers, they could really use the push.
| braingenious wrote:
| >don't shoot the messenger
|
| You're not exactly just "the messenger" here. You posted
| several paragraphs explaining that a good chunk of your
| livelihood depends on this phenomenon of "not sharing data
| about pay."
|
| A messenger's salary is independent of the opinionated slant of
| the information he conveys.
| tejtm wrote:
| Are you sure it is not just so current employees are left in
| the dark as to what they would be worth if they did not already
| work there?
| [deleted]
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| Yes, sometimes a company is just hiring for several potential
| roles at once with one listing.
|
| The need for "more C# engineering skills on the team" might
| filled by a junior engineer for $X, a mid-career engineer for
| $1.5X, a senior engineer for $2X, or a rock star for $5x. (e.g.
| If you land a rock star, you might be able to focus on
| something else for your next hire.)
|
| So, as a company, you put out a job posting for a C# engineer
| and say "the pay depends on how good you are." You don't want
| to lose the senior engineer by listing a pay range of $X and
| you don't want to miss the junior engineer by listing $2X. Not
| every hiring situation is as easy as "I need this exact cog for
| my machine and I'm willing to pay exactly X."
|
| Not sure why a law is needed here. (I assume the intent is more
| to prevent discrimination than to un-frustrate tech job
| seekers, though I can't really see how it would do that.) I
| guess the easy solution for employers will be to either just
| list a very large range, or to post the same listing with
| several different comp bands. Either way they can still
| discriminate to their hearts' content during hiring.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job.
|
| Well, not for long, if I live in NYC and this rule passes.
|
| >It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is
| a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply.
|
| If this type of regulation spreads, we can just turn this into
| a nifty fliparoo counter-argument: It's that easy - if not
| posting a salary range is a key requirement for you, don't get
| angry, just don't post. Maybe ask the HR manager to do a quick
| skills upgrade and program in C# themselves.
| lokar wrote:
| FWIW, I read that as "let's see what race the applicant is"
| andrewstuart wrote:
| People who desire to be offended will see the world through a
| lens that will allow them to see offense.
| jameshart wrote:
| Companies _absolutely_ have fixed hiring budgets and salary
| guidelines. It 's not that surprising to me, though, that if
| they don't have to share that with an external recruiter they
| will choose not to. You're probably on a percentage of the
| final hiring salary, so why would they tell you the max salary
| they're willing to offer? Your interests are not aligned.
|
| The way it works in most companies that are big enough to have,
| like, distinct departments for HR and finance, is that teams
| have _staffing budgets_ that are set out quarterly or annually,
| and if the team is expanding they will set those numbers to be
| big enough to cover the cost of the additional headcount they
| plan to add. Then the HR organization will probably have a
| compensation policy, which sets out ranges of rates for
| particular roles by level and geography. So your budget for a
| role lines up to certain job levels you can afford to hire at.
|
| So by the time you're writing a job description looking for '5
| years of react experience, located in NY' or whatever, you're
| pretty much narrowed in on a salary range that depends on 1)
| what your HR compensation guide says is the minimum
| compensation you pay for a level N software developer in that
| geo, and 2) the absolute maximum of your staffing budget
| allocated to the role.
|
| If you can't turn that into a salary range for job advertising
| purposes, you're not a serious business.
| jjav wrote:
| > Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary
| guidelines.
|
| Yes, they hay budgets and salary guidelines.
|
| All of that is negotiable as a hiring manager. Just a matter
| of how many levels up the chain you need to go to get the
| approval and whether you (hiring manager) can convince them,
| which depends on how strong the candidate is.
| enra wrote:
| It's not that simple usually.
|
| Companies might not have HR hire until 50 people or so. Level
| of how much compensation levels or bands are figured out (and
| how big of a mess they are) varies in companies.
|
| Even large companies, you might have variety of starting
| salaries, because you had to get the person in, which then
| needs fixed over time.
|
| Also each new type of role you open, you might not have the
| bands figured out right at the time you write the job post.
| Your comp benchmarks might say 75th percentile is $160k. Then
| you talk to folks and seems like most are making $170k or
| more. Then you end up finding someone more or less senior but
| you would like to hire them and have to adjust the comp based
| on their experience while balancing it against other people
| and roles at company.
|
| IMO comp is one of the hardest things to get right. You might
| do a comp philosophy that everyone gets paid $200k and you
| don't negotiate but then you lose candidates and then overpay
| some people.
|
| Then someone might still complain that if it's fair that iOS
| engineer makes the same as Android engineer, even though
| market rate is higher for iOS engineers (and eventually the
| iOS engineers might leave to get a better paying job).
| alistairSH wrote:
| _The fact is that many employers don 't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone._
|
| Bullshit. Maybe some start-up with no HR. But, any moderately
| sized company is buying salary info, working with compa ratios,
| and has internal salary ranges mapped to positions.
| danijelb wrote:
| > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to
| employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and
| experience.
|
| Separate it into multiple job ads, with well defined
| requirements and salary ranges.
|
| The role of the interview in that case is to simply determine
| if the candidate fits the desired requirements or not.
|
| If a candidate applies to the position that doesn't fit their
| skills this will come up during the interview and the recruiter
| can tell the candidate that they are better suited for another
| position and inform them that the interview will continue as if
| they applied for the lower/higher position.
|
| The company obviously knows how much they want to pay a
| candidate with certain skills and experience. So by making more
| detailed job descriptions there is no problem with posting
| salary ranges. Or if for some reason a company really insists
| on having one job ad for multiple positions of varying
| experience then they can put a salary range table where they
| state salary range for each possible position that a candidate
| might end up in after a successful interview process.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| This has never been a popular / well received message on HN,
| but jives with my experience 100%.
|
| I've been a techie in the same company for 20 years; then I've
| become a lead and therefore hiring manager last few years.
|
| I'll open a seat for something I need, and may be able to
| specify a range of levels/bands that we are acceptable; but the
| salary hugely depends on the person - primarily their skills,
| experience, knowledge, history, as well as (again unpopular but
| realistic) how well they interview. I may have a team of 5 ops
| managers and need a sixth one; I'm OK hiring a junior band 6
| out of school to fully train up for salary X, or a reasonably
| experienced one for band 7 or 8 for salary Y; and if I happen
| to receive a resume for an exceptionally, uniquely qualified
| candidate with expertise with client or type of client and/or
| software/system/business we're working for, I might be willing
| to hire them as band 9 for salary Z.
|
| With that in mind, what's the end-game here?
|
| a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 ->
| $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and
| see human-psychology disclaimer below).
|
| b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good
| candidates on both sides of the range.
|
| To your point, government publishes their rate but that is
| because they aim, intentionally and knowingly, to mediocrity
| and not meritocracy. The bell curve is artificially flattened.
| It's a different system and goal. But I'm OK if my teams have a
| bell curve! Nobody is born at the edge, and I'm usually on
| projects big enough that I can train people up :)
|
| (As well, what most people won't admit, is that very few of us
| are happily aware of our actual performance _and_ will happily
| take salary that matches it - e.g. in the medium of range for
| medium of performance; so large companies may well end up
| moving to a boring average, depressed salaries for all, because
| if I publish range of e.g. 60-150k, how many people will
| willingly admit they only have experience /history/skills for
| e.g. 85k?)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000
| -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful
| (and see human-psychology disclaimer below).
|
| This is very useful. For example, anyone wanting more than a
| minimum of $60k can skip applying.
|
| > b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good
| candidates on both sides of the range.
|
| I do not see how this is possible, especially on the lower
| side. No one is going to skip past your job listing because
| the minimum pay is higher than they expect, and no one is
| limiting you on how high to set your max pay.
| tomrod wrote:
| Regarding your edit, we know how recruiting works. What people
| are genuinely upset about is the lack of empathy for the job
| seeker, who is wasting their time, in the game as you play it
| (and the strong assumption that this is the only way the game
| is played).
| cheath wrote:
| Some of the responses here are a classic case of Fundamental
| Attribution Error - I see a lot of assumptions that imply that
| the employers must not be adding salaries because they are
| malicious or bad actors (which, of course there are _some_ ).
| But the overwhelming majority of these employers probably don't
| even know for themselves the salary that they're willing to
| pay, since compensation is highly variable based upon the
| individual's experience and complex market factors.
|
| Should they all have better data, better perspectives, and
| better job specs? Sure thing. I agree. You'd hire much better
| people, that's for sure.
|
| On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance on
| this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity to
| add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative impact
| on salaries.
|
| I say, let them ship crappy job descriptions and let the market
| sort it out.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance
| on this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity
| to add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative
| impact on salaries.
|
| It adds the inefficiency of a job poster spending 5-60
| minutes figuring out a salary range.
|
| It removes the inefficiency of hours and hours and hours of
| interviews from people that wouldn't have applied if they
| knew the salary range.
|
| It's not like hiring someone is cheap. Companies can and
| should put this effort into ads.
| djur wrote:
| If you're trying to hire for a $100k+ role, it should not be
| a problem to take an afternoon to look up job postings for
| similar roles and figure out an appropriate salary range.
| cheath wrote:
| Agreed. they should. ...But should that be the _law_?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job.
|
| Or, we could pass laws forcing companies to do this, and
| companies could get their shit together and figure out how much
| they're actually willing to pay.
|
| The nice thing about market capitalism is that companies, for
| the most part, are fairly flexible. They may not be enthused
| about posting salary ranges, but if the law says they have to,
| they'll find a way to make it happen.
|
| It's not entirely unlike how so many businesses prophecy doom
| and gloom when there's a minimum wage increase, or street
| parking gets replaced by bike lanes, but then the thing happens
| and it's generally fine.
| idontpost wrote:
| jedberg wrote:
| > EDIT: lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the
| messenger. Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.
|
| It sounds like you've missed the point of the responses then.
| They aren't telling you that you're wrong, they're telling you
| that how recruiting works needs to change.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then
| there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it
| not apply for that job._
|
| If it makes recruiters and employers mad that they have to
| include salary ranges in their job listings, that's just too
| bad, and they will just have to get over it and follow the law.
|
| Thankfully legislators are cracking down on this type of
| entitlement that's coming from recruiters and employers alike.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Go ask your team lead /CEO/CTO how recruiting works._
|
| LOL. I've never listed a position without knowing the salary
| range ahead of time. That range comes from our comp/ben team in
| concert with somebody from finance.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| You need to be respectful of everyone's time. If I apply to a
| position that will never offer me what I want to make then you
| just wasted my time and yours. You are asking me to be upfront
| about absolutely everything, I'm asking for one key detail. I
| do not think that you appreciate my side of this bargain at
| all. This is not a one-way deal, we need to cooperate and be
| able to work together toward a solution if this is ever going
| to work out. I'm choosing to work with you, not choosing you as
| my dictator. If you are not willing to work with me a little
| then I'm going to keep looking, your loss not mine.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is
| a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply.
|
| Seems like there's a third option: vote for legislation to make
| this practice illegal.
| supergeek133 wrote:
| Big companies ABSOLUTELY know how much they are willing to pay.
| They have well defined pay bands/grades by geo area.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| "This is convenient for corporations so suck it up." isn't a
| very compelling argument. The purpose of the government is to
| represent the interests of the people in situations where there
| is sufficient agreement to pass legislation. If your company
| doesn't like complying with local laws, its easy, just don't
| look for people in this country. The people have a right to set
| the terms of exchanges in the marketplace.
| missedthecue wrote:
| That's a fairly uncharitable way to phrase his point. I think
| what he's getting at is that it is hard for market
| participants to accurately price goods and services when they
| are working with insufficient information.
|
| If I asked you to tell me how much you'd pay for a shirt,
| you'd either have to give me a wide range, or start asking
| questions to understand what you're getting. A formal tux
| dress shirtfront? A dirty old Hanes undergarment?
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Both a tux and an undershirt are unlikely to meet the same
| requirements. If you ask for 10 years experience in a field
| (tuxes), you're likely to get people with similar
| qualifications or you can filter out the bad matches
| (undershirts) ahead of time.
|
| I've had overqualified people apply for a position, what
| happens is I don't hire them in that position, I open up a
| new "named hire" for a higher salary.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > it is hard for market participants to accurately price
| goods and services when they are working with insufficient
| information.
|
| Ridiculous. They already have to get enough information to
| make an offer and negotiate at some point.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| No, I wouldn't say it is uncharitable at all. The balance
| of power and information already lies on the side that does
| more of these negotiations, and has less to lose in each
| one. It's time that balance starts to swing the other way,
| and if corporations don't like it, _too damn bad._
| xeromal wrote:
| What's your reaction to their shirt analogy?
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| If you don't have those questions at least mostly
| answered, you're not ready to go shopping. You don't show
| up at Target looking to buy a bespoke dress shirt, unless
| you want to be very disappointed and/or waste a lot of
| time.
| joe5150 wrote:
| A job advertisement is meant to address the major questions
| a candidate would have that will contextualize the pay
| being offered. If I asked you to tell me how much to pay
| for a shirt with a sufficiently detailed list of
| requirements and expectations for the shirt, you could
| probably give me a pretty useful range.
| idontpost wrote:
| djur wrote:
| A previous employer of mine had fixed salary levels by role
| adjusted by region (for cost of living). Absolutely no salary
| negotiations, no bonuses. Despite this, they did the "offer not
| available in Colorado" routine as well as resisting requests
| for internal pay transparency. The "good reason" for not
| listing salary is that it makes it harder for prospective and
| current employees to comparison shop. Period.
| bombcar wrote:
| Unless it's the core competency, companies are by definition
| conservative as all hell. They do not want to change ANYTHING
| unless they have to. Whenever the decision is "change
| something, or turn off X and not change anything" the latter
| will be the decision unless something forceful acts in the
| opposite direction.
|
| They act this way even if "doing the thing" would be right,
| easy, good, productive, whatever.
| djur wrote:
| The board and C-level also have a shared class interest
| (and, so often, personal relationships) with their peers at
| other companies that tends to outweigh any personal ethical
| interest they have in the wellbeing of their employees. If
| it doesn't gain any actual competitive advantage, better go
| with the option that keeps your old schoolmates and future
| business partners happy.
| lr wrote:
| And then you end up exactly where the company I work for ended
| up, and where a ton of other companies end up: The same people,
| doing the same work, with very similar experiences, getting
| paid drastically different salaries. It can get so bad, that
| the company then has to hire an outside agency to review
| salaries, and then make company-wide adjustments. Running a
| business is very, very expensive and involves lots of things
| (like proper HR) that have nothing to do with the business for
| which the business exists. If you don't want to actually run a
| business, then maybe give it up.
| sidlls wrote:
| > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they
| would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them,
| assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it
| up against their skills and experience and calibrated it
| against the team.
|
| With few exceptions, what you wrote is not accurate. Most
| companies have salary bands for every position based on level
| within the band. Companies know both the position and level
| they have in mind for a candidate before the first on-site
| interview, and often before the initial screen. The interviews
| reveal what the leveling should be, and sometimes indicate a
| different role is more appropriate. The vast majority of
| companies will not negotiate outside those relatively tight
| bands for most IC and other low level (management) roles.
|
| So having a target salary in mind is fine for an assessment of
| an offer, but not all that helpful if the goal is to not waste
| time up front. Some exceptional candidates might successfully
| negotiate for a bump in in-band level or even position, but
| it's rare.
| zerr wrote:
| If your client tells you secretly that the base salary range
| for the position is 200K-250K. And the prospective employee
| tells that s/he wants 150K. Would you disclose that s/he can
| ask up to 250K or would you rather make your client happy by
| getting them a bargain?
| orev wrote:
| Recruiters typically get paid a commission based on the final
| salary, so it's in their interest to get you as high a salary
| as possible.
| jedberg wrote:
| Much like real estate agents, their best interest is to
| close the deal at any price. They'll make more money
| getting the employer a bargain and a second req.
|
| There is a reason real estate agents homes sell for more
| than anyone else's -- because they know the real value of
| the market and have an incentive to go high when it's their
| own home. Recruiters are the same.
| tech_tuna wrote:
| Exactly, came here to say exactly this. BTW, I don't
| think this in inherently evil, it's just a conflict of
| interests. Employer. Employee. Recruiter.
|
| Different incentives for all three parties.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Bingo.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| This is incorrect. It's in their interest to get as high a
| salary with the least effort involved.
|
| Obviously for them, being able to close more candidates at
| a "high enough" salary is preferable.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| >> would you rather make your client happy by getting them a
| bargain
|
| Recruiters are usually paid based on a percentage of the
| salary. It's actually in the interests of the recruiter that
| you are paid as much as possible, strictly speaking.
|
| In reality, my goals as recruiter are:
|
| * happy client
|
| * find a new employee who the employer is super happy with
| six months down the track
|
| * find a new employee who _wants and enjoys this job_ , and
| will thus stay
|
| * at a salary that the new employee is happy with, that will
| not have them looking over their shoulder thinking they have
| udnersold themselves
|
| * at a salary that will ensure we are not beaten to the punch
| by another higher paying employer
|
| * at a salary that fits the goals of the employer
|
| The idea of "getting an employer a bargain" implies that I
| don't care about the job seeker. Believe it or not, I do.
| When someone comes to me who is a great developer, and is
| asking under market rates, I discuss that will them and let
| them know where I think market rate is for their skills and
| experience.
|
| It might sound cliched, but my job is to negotiate a deal
| that everyone is happy with, and every gets what they want.
| Anything less will fail because the employee feels they are
| underpaid, or the employer feels they overpaid.
|
| I believe the above approach to dealing with salary gets
| everyone what they want. And yes, I the more it is the
| happier I am, but it would be very much against my interests
| to manipulate that.
| humanrebar wrote:
| > Recruiters are usually paid based on a percentage of the
| salary. It's actually in the interests of the recruiter
| that you are paid as much as possible, strictly speaking.
|
| Seems like a recruiter is much more likely to double his
| compensation by spending half as much time per hire versus
| paying twice as much, given that salaries are relatively
| inelastic. Similarly, real estate agents are incentivized
| to get a pretty good price but mostly optimize for lower
| effort per sale.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| Thank you! It's almost exactly the same as real estate
| agents or anyone who takes a small % of a transaction:
| they are incentivized to prioritize throughput above (and
| often at the expense of) anything else.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > Recruiters are usually paid based on a percentage of the
| salary. It's actually in the interests of the recruiter
| that you are paid as much as possible, strictly speaking.
|
| Similar studies for real estate agents who are also paid on
| commission shows that this is not true. It's more about
| velocity than optimizing a single candidate.
|
| https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-
| revisite...
| slt2021 wrote:
| this wont impact tech jobs as much, because there is some
| transparency, but I can imagine it will bring transparency to all
| other non-tech jobs, like Sales, HR, Marketing, Operations, etc.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I get why employers would hate this, but overall, wouldn't
| greater transparency in the labor market drive economic growth by
| virtue of making the labor market more efficient by doing a
| better job of connecting skilled, hard-working and motivated
| employees with employers who can pay more?
| jstx1 wrote:
| By what mechanism does legally enforced transparency make the
| labor market more efficient?
| loeg wrote:
| In general, pricing transparency increases market efficiency
| (and vice versa).
| woodruffw wrote:
| Pricing transparency eliminates economic triage and
| uncertainly: if you want to make $XXX, you don't have to
| apply to 10 different jobs and spend everyone's time
| determining whether they'll pay you $XXX.
| sokoloff wrote:
| You still don't know if they'll pay _you_ $XXX. You only
| know that they claim that there exists some hypothetical
| employee to whom they 'd in good faith imagine paying $XXX.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Ranges have lower bounds. There is some subset of people
| for which this reduces the uncertainty to zero.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Transparency is literally one of the requirements for a
| theoretical efficient market. If buyers (companies) have
| asymmetrical information with sellers (laborers) there is
| room for inefficiency. Remove that and the market becomes
| more efficient.
|
| This efficiency is seen as higher wages and lower profits, as
| we see with the skyrocketing in executive compensation after
| it was legally mandated to be public.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| One of the criteria of a Perfectly Competitive Market is
| "Perfect Information":
|
| "In economics, perfect information (sometimes referred to as
| "no hidden information") is a feature of perfect competition.
| With perfect information in a market, all consumers and
| producers have complete and instantaneous knowledge of all
| market prices, their own utility, and own cost functions. "
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| By the same mechanism that makes it work for commodities and
| public equity markets.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Um, that mechanism is the printing of the actual trades and
| an open-outcry (now electronic) market-making process for
| definitionally fungible assets.
| gsk22 wrote:
| I suspect employers are more interested in attracting talent by
| _appearing_ to pay highly than by actually doing so.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I don't think they'll hate it. If they know what a prospective
| employee is making, they can offer a minimal increment on that
| within their (wide) salary range.
|
| Currently, only the employer knows their real budget (and that
| may change if they get the right candidate) and only the
| employee knows what they'll move for. Salary negotiation is
| based on those two secrets. This legislation makes the latter
| secret public knowledge.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| > only the employee knows what they'll move for ... This
| legislation makes [that] secret public knowledge.
|
| Not everyone's motives is the same on this, so it's still
| secret. Some people will require more than a small bump to
| move into the risk of an unknown new employer.
|
| Also, some people value flexibility (or rigidity), autonomy,
| etc. more than money - to the point where some people will
| pass substantial amounts of money if it means sacrificing
| real time with the fam.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I totally agree, but the new employer doesn't have to know
| any of that.
| m-ee wrote:
| The latter was already public knowledge, your entire salary
| history is probably available via The Work Number. This makes
| the former secret public knowledge.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Blimey, if your current salary is available at salary
| negotiation time then that's a much bigger problem then
| advertising salaries.
|
| To your point: companies can advertise a big range, or
| create a new job title, for a job, or level you based on
| undecided job levels according to what they want to pay
| you. I don't think this legislation adds anything.
| patrickthebold wrote:
| Exactly, I'm a bit surprised that this needs to be legislated.
| Many people will not apply/respond to recruiters if the salary
| isn't posted. I'd think employers would be doing this simply
| because it makes things easier for them.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| An example is when companies have to increase their offers due
| to changing market conditions; currently they can just silently
| do that without telling existing employees. But with the new
| law existing employees have a way of finding it out so they
| will then go ask for a raise to match this range. Of course
| employeees are free to discuss salaries themselves but in
| America that's still not normal and common.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Most won't directly voice this, but I believe the primary
| objection from many employers is that there kinds of salary
| transparency laws raise the _floor_ , since you know (roughly)
| what all of your colleagues are making.
|
| In other words: software (like most other industries) relies in
| part on employees low-balling themselves (and stigma around
| sharing salary information), which is harder to do when you
| know what the actual salary band is.
| boole1854 wrote:
| In my opinion -- and I have no hard data to back this up,
| merely some limited personal experience -- the biggest issue
| employers will have about salary transparency is that it
| makes paying high performers high salaries more difficult.
|
| Typically having a high performer on staff is a huge win for
| the employer. E.g., at one previous company, the top couple
| sales people were 10X performers compared to the median sales
| person. And they were compensated maybe 5X the median. A
| disgruntled employee found and leaked a document that listed
| everyone's compensation -- and the negative feelings that
| were generated towards the company and towards the highly
| paid sales people was profound. Part of the issue is that the
| 10X sales people did not necessarily _work_ 10X harder, they
| just had the right set of personality traits, industry
| experience, and _je ne sais quoi_ that made them able to
| bring in more and bigger clients. But many people feel
| intrinsically that compensation should be tied to _effort_
| and to those people it was upsetting to see coworkers who did
| not necessarily put in 5X more effort get 5X more money.
|
| Edited to add: to be clear, I do not personally have a
| problem with pay being tied to results instead of to effort,
| but I saw first hand that many people have a different
| opinion about this.
| badpun wrote:
| It can be dealt by creating high-paying higher rungs on
| career ladder and then promoting the 10x people there. So,
| regular SE position can have a salary range of say
| $120k-$150k, but principal senior staff ninja can have say
| $400k-$600k. That's how FAANGs do it basically.
| boole1854 wrote:
| I see that as being more helpful from a regulatory point
| of view (i.e., by providing a limited defense against
| claims of pay discrimination) than from an employee
| morale point of view. E.g., when people express
| dissatisfaction over the fact that those in the C-suite
| make _X_ times what the average employee does, pointing
| out that the people in the C-suite have different titles
| or roles from the average employee doesn 't seem to
| assuage anybody.
| djur wrote:
| Most complaints I hear about C-level pay boil down to
| claims that the roles themselves are overvalued, not that
| individuals are overpaid for the role. I think the value
| of an extremely highly-performing engineer is likely to
| be more apparent to the "rank and file" than that of an
| executive, especially at a company where employee morale
| is a serious concern.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Companies profit from information asymmetry. Efficiency comes
| from reducing that asymmetry, but efficiency also means less
| ability to profit.
| mathattack wrote:
| Companies get a huge financial lift by underpaying some
| percentage of their employee base. Consider any company whose
| main cost is people, and revenue is roughly proportional to
| headcount. (Consultancy, school, security, etc)
|
| Let's say they can utilize an information asymmetry to underpay
| half their workforce by 10%. That cuts their cost by 5%, and
| it's all to the bottom line. If they were a 10% net margin
| business, now they're 15%.
|
| This is why they fight transparency. It's a form of price
| discrimination.
|
| A libertarian might say "It's a free market, and everyone
| enters the contract willingly."
|
| I am sympathetic to that, though markets tend to work most
| efficiently when there is more information.
|
| The one downside is some remote jobs might not be available in
| New York any more. NYC wage levels make remote work more
| difficult from a cost arbitrage anyway.
| wnevets wrote:
| No, you have gotten it all backwards. You are only allowed to
| use the more efficient market rationale when are you defending
| low wages and higher prices for regular people. Regular people
| getting higher wages is seen as a disease that must be stopped
| at all cost. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-17/powell-
| tr...
| fundad wrote:
| checkmate
| tptacek wrote:
| For our industry, it's effectively already required, right?
| Because of other jurisdictions that require it?
| neaden wrote:
| No, even for a remote position they can simply say "Not open to
| people living in CO etc."
| tptacek wrote:
| Would you apply to a company that posted a job that said "not
| open to Colorado residents" just so they could avoid posting
| a salary range? I sure as shit wouldn't.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| Reminder that if that's the case the company cannot have any
| employees in that state. Otherwise they have to have a real
| reason for limiting the geography i.e. the position isn't
| remote.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| There were a lot of WFH job postings from the past few years
| that said "No applicants from Colorado" because of their
| similar law.
|
| CA and a few other states have recently enacted this same law
| though so it'll become a lot harder to avoid posting the salary
| if you want good candidates.
| joncp wrote:
| I haven't seen those postings, but I imagine that would make
| a _terrible_ first impression to potential candidates,
| effectively signalling that the company is committed to
| playing games with salaries.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Or one which is committed to not kowtowing to every
| jurisdiction that comes up with their own custom laws.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Operating based on spite is not good either!
|
| It's not like they're trying to avoid a _bad_ law.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| Any company with a job posting that had that line must fall
| into one of two categories:
|
| 1. Employ zero (0) people in the state of Colorado 2. Must
| have a "real" reason for restricting the geography i.e. the
| job is not remote.
|
| I mostly used it as a way to get salary info up-front, even
| through a recruiter.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| For finance and tech jobs the compensation will be tied up in
| performance bonuses and equity, so salary ranges aren't the most
| meaningful for these roles, except when there is no non-salary
| pay.
| willio58 wrote:
| For tech jobs I'd wager the vast majority operate on a simple
| salary plus retirement set up. HN is definitely in a bubble
| where seemingly everyone works at the top tech companies and
| gets like 175k base + 90k in bonuses and equity.
| coryrc wrote:
| I don't think most of us working in top tech companies are
| making that little.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Exactly. And the base comp is largely the same everywhere. It's
| the equity that matters.
| habosa wrote:
| This would probably drive increased base compensation and
| decreased variable compensation in order to stand out on job
| boards. I'm among the people who would like that !
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| So?
| tbrownaw wrote:
| How does this sort of thing interact with the business cycle and
| nominal wages being sticky?
| zerr wrote:
| One common method for low-bailing is telling a prospective
| employee that what he or she asks is way above the rest of the
| team/peers and it would be "fair" if he or she accepts e.g. 20%
| less.
|
| I wonder how often do they lie?
| Kalanos wrote:
| After reading the Road to Serfdom - this gov mandate feels like
| it trends toward communism, not a free-market meritocracy. The
| next thing you know the gov will start assigning $ranges to
| positions, and qualifications for those positions.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| That seems like a big leap but I'll bite. How do you see a
| connection between "Let people know what salary they're in the
| running for" and "You must not pay more than XYZ for this job"?
|
| I get that it is possible but I'd be interested if you have
| reasons for believing it is a real risk beyond a slim chance.
| jakear wrote:
| The place I'm applying simply lists: "Software Development (all
| levels)" and is an open call for engineers. Salary obviously will
| depend on experience and interview performance. I don't see why
| that's an issue, a corporatized version of this where each
| company has to split their postings into 8 different categories
| or risk excluding complete novices/interns that might join for
| near free or heavy hitters that would need big cash but provide
| significant return... doesn't seem better in any way.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| The last startup I worked at ranged developers from 100k to
| 150k on paper but "senior devs" landed at around 125, while the
| current startup I work at didn't list numbers but puts senior
| devs at around $200k plus generous bonuses.
|
| Where you land always depends on performance and experience,
| sure, but knowing both ends of the range for any given title is
| still critically important to making a decision (and
| negotiating). If someone comes from a below-market rate
| company, they may not know what to even ask for or negotiate
| around because important information is obscured from them, and
| they'll end up short-changing themselves.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > split their postings into 8 different categories or risk
| excluding complete novices/interns that might join for near
| free
|
| I've been helping a friend who's just out of school and going
| through the interview ringer. They've already gone through one
| round of interviews for a posting like that only to be told
| after 2 interviews (for an internship) "by all experience
| levels we actually meant a minimum of 2 years industry
| experience for the lowest level". So now she completely avoids
| anything that is phrased this way.
| robocat wrote:
| I recently read a study that found most women give up trying
| when applying for jobs and promotions, so they miss out.
|
| Similarly, lack of assertiveness: https://medium.com/the-
| pink/why-women-give-up-their-power-d9...
|
| I hope you can help your friend learn to be more stubborn
| against failure. I wish I knew what a good training technique
| might be: I have friends that need help with the same issue
| (both male and female).
| bombcar wrote:
| Sadly the best training technique is to just keep trying,
| time and time again. If you have difficulty interviewing,
| you should interview even when you have a job, just to get
| more practice.
|
| The first time you're turned down it hurts a lot,
| especially if it was a job you really were interested in -
| the fiftieth? Not so much.
| gsk22 wrote:
| While I am supportive of this, I expect a lot (majority?) of
| listings with ranges like "$40k-200k based on experience". (Or
| the example from the article, "$17-50/hr")
| time_to_smile wrote:
| I'm happy with an upper bound. I've been able to quickly
| disqualify a lot of recruiter messages simply by asking for
| comp ranges and discovering that max possible is less than my
| base, let alone RSUs and bonus.
|
| Even with a larger range like you proposed it's easy to ask
| yourself where you are in that distribution. Even if your
| current comp is 190, a range 40-200 means it's only worth the
| time to interview if you really like the company and think the
| role might be a great fit. If you're making 60k currently then
| there's a reasonable chance you can get a high enough of a
| raise to make the move make sense.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| It's a red flag for me when the range from the company is too
| broad. It sounds like they don't know what they want.
|
| If they truly need people of different levels of experience, it
| would make more sense for them to write separate job
| descriptions that accurately describe the responsibilities of
| the role.
| gsk22 wrote:
| > It sounds like they don't know what they want.
|
| In my experience, including at companies I've worked at,
| that's the case more often than not. Every department is
| perpetually short of employees, so the hope is to hire
| _anyone_ halfway competent and figure out their real
| responsibilities later.
| bombcar wrote:
| This here is the real secret.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| I've seen salaries being rolled out and I have found this not
| to be the case.
|
| In reality, most places have a salary in mind for a position,
| and most hr teams are not going to post '[that salary] - 100k
| more' and they're probably not going to post a lower end that's
| less than what they have in mind.
| willio58 wrote:
| This is still a good thing because you know the true limit. So
| instead of thinking "maybe I can get 60k for this job", you can
| think "maybe I can get 120k for this job".
| jakub_g wrote:
| Something like this is an extreme range (clearly no one in
| engineering would be at 40k) and would make the employer look
| quite bad IMO.
|
| FWIW GitHub https://github.com/about/careers has eng salaries
| for US positions be like "min 110 max 250" and while the range
| is high, it's still more useful than no information at all IMO.
|
| I wonder though how this would look like for non-tech jobs.
| CompleteWalker wrote:
| NYC's Fact sheet about the new law notes that minimum and
| maximum stated salaries must be in "good faith". Not a lawyer,
| but maybe this is space for class action lawsuits or
| something...
|
| Salary Transparency Fact Sheet:
| https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/...
| ender341341 wrote:
| Yeah, in the cases where they're like "looking for someone
| anywhere between college hire & sr engineer inclusive" it'd
| be nice if it was breaking it out by level/pay band, then
| people could have a much better idea if it was worth their
| time
| deltree7 wrote:
| A knowledge worker's productivity can easily (and provably )
| range from -10x to +1000x.
|
| So, it's much easier to prove in the court of law that the
| ranges are justified.
|
| Dude who created the React Framework is always 100x valuable
| to the company than an average Javascript developer. A couple
| of brilliant dudes is all that is required for a company to
| be a mere $100 Million company vs $1 Billion company.
|
| It's ridiculous to pay the same $100,000 for each of them
| DesiLurker wrote:
| > A knowledge worker's productivity can easily (and
| provably ) range from -10x to +1000x.
|
| this is a variation of the 10x engineer BS meme.
| statistically this is not possible, and realistically
| you'll see the companies using that line of arguments for
| obfuscating salary information are also doing it to comply
| maliciously. In fact, using a far outlier case to justify
| your average base case is the definition of operating in
| bad faith.
|
| Also, sure if you see an actual superstar nobody is
| stopping you from hiring him for a different role and
| paying him 10x or whatever. anecdotally speaking in my many
| years in silicon valley I have seen very few cases for such
| high performance engineers and you need a lot more than
| tech expertise to not just produce 10x more personally but
| also keep your team productive & all that is not easy to
| judge in an interview.
| jedberg wrote:
| The dude who created the react framework (who I happen to
| know) already knows his worth, and is not getting jobs
| through public listings. This law isn't for him. Also he is
| getting higher level jobs.
|
| And that's true even further down the line -- if your
| experience can mean $200K more per year, then those should
| be two different job listings. One senior and one junior.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| This law applies to anyone in New York with no stated
| exceptions for outliers. If he ever works for a
| company/satellite office there, whether remote or on-
| site, he's as much a member of the job market as anyone
| else. Any company interested in hiring him would
| obviously provide a massive number at the higher range.
| jedberg wrote:
| But they would never make a job listing for the job. They
| would just reach out to him and ask for an interview.
| Actually they would reach out and ask to have a
| discussion about what he wants to do next, and it would
| be a multi-month effort of convincing him to even apply,
| including informal meet and greets with the team. There
| would never be an open req.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| And when hired he would be hire into the role that has
| the salary range he requires and possibly some larger
| than average performance based compensation scheme, which
| is totally legal, but also possibly not because at the
| point that you're hired as a principal or distinguished
| eng the default compensation is still really high.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Can you prove it?
|
| I don't think I've ever met an engineer who is, by
| themselves, 1000x more productive than even the least
| productive person I've ever worked with.
| highwaylights wrote:
| "Expect $40k"
|
| Skip to next.
|
| Job done.
| chrisdbanks wrote:
| As an employer, I am reticent to name a salary range because the
| fact is that the return on investment of employees is not
| normally distributed; it follows a power law where the top people
| return many times the amount of an average person. This may be
| because of connections, experience, intelligence, or a mixture.
| When I recruit I always want to hire a top person for whom I'm
| happy to pay 50% more than an average person, but realistically
| that's not always possible for me. If I state a salary range then
| I have to extend it to the amount I'd be willing to play for a
| top person which would mean if I'd have to settle for an average
| person then I'd probably set their expectations too high.
|
| My advice is that if you're worried about going through multiple
| rounds of interviews to get a low offer then the solution is just
| to be very clear of your expectations up front before you
| interview. The worst case is that I say I can't afford you.
| Candidates should know their value too and shouldn't be afraid of
| letting employers know what they're worth.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > The worst case is that I say I can't afford you.
|
| Actually, the worst case is that they employer lies and after 4
| rounds of interviews and maybe take home assignments, the
| employer says "actually this job will be paying much less."
|
| (this has happened to me once, it wastes everyones' time)
| akvadrako wrote:
| You should always ask for your expected hourly rate for take
| home assignments. If they think it's too much, obviously they
| will low-ball you. And if they agree, at least it's not a
| total waste if they low-ball you anyway.
| akvadrako wrote:
| It doesn't make sense that top people return _many times_ what
| the average does but you are only able to pay them 50% more.
| That kind of thinking is why salary ranges should be posted
| before top people waste their time applying.
| mikebenfield wrote:
| > The worst case is that I say I can't afford you.
|
| There are many possible bad cases. Possibly much worse than
| this is that the candidate lowballs themselves. Another bad
| case is that they price themselves out when they might have
| been willing to take a lower offer after learning more.
|
| The candidate has just as much uncertainty as the employer.
| There's no reason the burden should be on the candidate to be
| the first to name a number.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| Eh I'm not sure this argument holds up.
|
| You can post a job ad targeting the top people and list the top
| of market salary band.
|
| If you can't find such a candidate, you can delete the job ad
| and post the ad targeting the "average person".
|
| You may even be able to post the two ads simultaneously.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| And what, everyone who encounters both of them will
| conveniently silo themselves into the appropriate bin?
| edmundsauto wrote:
| If the roles and expectations are actually thought through
| before posting, perhaps. If not, the first contact can
| gently nudge them towards the appropriate slot.
|
| If an employer can't write a concrete job description that
| communicates the difference between junior and senior and
| staff/supersenior, that's on them. Get better at it before
| you waste the employee's time (or pay people for
| interviewing).
| danijelb wrote:
| The interview process will determine if the candidate's
| skills are suitable for the position and if they are not,
| they don't get hired. If there is a more suitable position
| open, the company can offer to hire the candidate for the
| other position.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > The sweeping New York City rules will apply to almost all
| companies except for the smallest firms. Any business with at
| least four workers, assuming at least one of them is based in the
| city, must include the lowest and highest salaries for any job it
| posts.
|
| ...so, uh, question, because I'm getting increasingly confused
| about how jurisdiction works.
|
| Let's say Houston passes a law which makes it _illegal_ for
| companies to disclose salary ranges. I have no idea why Houston
| would do that, but stupider laws exist.
|
| BigCorp has employees in both Houston and New York City. Heck,
| BigCorp probably has at least one job which requires alternating
| between NYC and Houston to meet with different teams. How does
| BigCorp avoid breaking the law?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Have them work from the Florida office and bypass this
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Does even that work? They're saying if the company has _any_
| jobs that could be performed in the NYC--even fully remote
| jobs--they have to post salary ranges for _all_ jobs, as I
| understood it.
| runevault wrote:
| Colorado has a version of this, and so you'll sometimes see
| listings that specifically say they won't take Colorado
| applicants for that reason. So long as there are no current
| employees in NYC I would think the same could apply to this
| law.
| bombcar wrote:
| We could test this pretty easily by getting a state to pass
| a privacy law that salaries cannot be disclosed, even
| indirectly.
|
| In reality most tiny businesses wouldn't be affected, and
| most larger ones would just split into two legal entities
| closely allied, until finally someone like Google takes it
| to court, where the Interstate Commerce Clause would
| actually be used for regulating interstate commerce.
|
| Before that, however, the states would probably work to
| negotiate something so they don't get slapped federally.
| tomrod wrote:
| > How does BigCorp avoid breaking the law?
|
| Without ceasing operations, they can't. It goes to court, where
| courts resolve it. That is one function of the court system in
| the US.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It goes to federal court and the court makes a decision that
| states (or cities) cannot regulate each other and strikes
| down the laws requiring contradictory actions on entities
| which cross state boundaries. Too lazy to google references
| to similar decisions, I believe a landmark case involves
| shipping with either trucks or trains with states having
| conflicting requirements.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| So, do you think this NYC law is likely to get cut back by
| the courts, or would it be incumbent on another
| municipality to pass a contradictory law first?
| tomrod wrote:
| I am not a lawyer. I just like to speculate about what
| feels reasonable, with a remarkable 10% success rate or
| lower in legal rulings.
|
| My thought is that it will be a Solomon split based on
| how the entities set up operation. If you have operations
| out of NYC and hire for operations to be based in NYC,
| then you'll be required to post (akin to Colorado today).
| There seems to be precedence for this with regards to
| taxation.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Let's say Houston passes a law which makes it illegal for
| companies to disclose salary ranges.
|
| This law would be struck down as a 1A violation.
|
| But also I believe the description of the law is slightly
| wrong: jobs in nyc need postings, so positions in Houston
| wouldn't have them, but positions in NYC would.
| covidiot5 wrote:
| scarface74 wrote:
| Does the law require including total compensation or just salary?
|
| For instance before last year, Amazon's salary top out at $175K -
| $185K I believe in NYC with everything else being signing
| bonus/RSUs.
| cronix wrote:
| This will make it a lot easier to gather financial data on
| individuals and target ads to people who make $x. If the job and
| salary are posted, it will be scraped, and compared to job titles
| in profiles at places like LinkedIn.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Can't you already estimate this pretty well from e.g glassdoor?
| [deleted]
| elromulous wrote:
| Does salary==total comp for these purposes?
|
| For large enough companies, posting total comp distribution by
| position would be way more useful.
| matteotom wrote:
| I think every salary transparency law I've seen (including this
| one) only includes base salary, and not bonus, stock, etc.
| Realistically the laws probably cover 90+% of available jobs by
| only requiring base salary/hourly rate.
| sithlord wrote:
| I saw a posting the other day that had something like, applicable
| only in Colorado the range is 150,000 - 200,000 - 250,000.
|
| A range with 3 numbers is new to me.
| endorphine wrote:
| Dunno why but I laughed with this one.
| elliottcarlson wrote:
| Low - Mid - High range isn't uncommon, it's just not as common
| to see it on a job-listing. Generally you expect someone who is
| solid in their level to have a compa ratio of 100%, which puts
| you near the mid part of the band. When you are newer to the
| level, you would be aligned closer to the low end of the band,
| and as you progress and near a promotion, you would be edging
| towards the higher end.
| Carrok wrote:
| It has been this way in Colorado for some time, and it has been
| nothing but fantastic.
| drewpc wrote:
| Can you please expand on this a bit more? I live in Colorado
| and saw virtually no change when looking for a new job inside
| and outside of the state last year. I did run across a few "no
| job applications from CO" as was mentioned in other comment
| threads, but most job postings I saw did not post salary
| information.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It was effective Jan 1, 2021.
|
| This is the complaint form if you find an employer not
| following the law:
|
| https://cdle.colorado.gov/sites/cdle/files/Equal%20Pay%20Com.
| .. orm%20Dec%202020_Distributed.pdf
|
| Fact sheet:
|
| https://cdle.colorado.gov/sites/cdle/files/documents/Equal_P.
| ..
|
| Actual Law:
|
| https://cdle.colorado.gov/sites/cdle/files/7%20CCR%201103-13.
| ..
|
| Other links:
|
| https://cdle.colorado.gov/laws-regulations-guidance
| pastor_bob wrote:
| I've seen remote places have a 'if you're applying from CO'
| link that links out to a pdf of salary ranges.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| There was a ton of push-back online when that law went into
| effect despite CA having a similar law already on the books and
| obviously other dominoes (like NYC) getting ready to fall.
|
| It was fantastic in my last job search. Even recruiters that
| tried to "not talk numbers" until the end of the process I
| could just point to the relevant laws or just not continue on
| in the process. Plenty of companies were playing by the rules
| so no need to waste my time.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| The CA law on the books was that they had to answer a
| question about salary bands during an interview, but not in
| the job posting itself. CA only recently passed a law
| requiring salary in the job posting itself which I think goes
| live on Jan 1.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| I don't understand why they do this, but I guess it must work
| from time to time. Seems like a lot of effort to do the whole
| interview process and then try to get them to accept your
| lowball offer.
| gausswho wrote:
| I did see a few places offering positions remotely to
| continental US with Colorado excluded when this came into
| effect. Has this obscenity ended?
| game_the0ry wrote:
| I am concerned that some employers might try some creative work-
| arounds to this law, like ranges that are way too wide so they
| can have some flexibility in making lower offers.
| tarentel wrote:
| I don't know the legality of doing something like this is but
| as a worker in NY I just wouldn't apply. Going forward I'll
| likely only apply to a position where the low end is an
| acceptable amount and if I can get more that's great. How
| realistic this will be I have no idea.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| anonu wrote:
| Whats to stop people saying: $45,000-$500,000
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The "good faith" clause of the law.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-31 23:01 UTC)