Do you put the salary for the job in your job postings, either your online job postings or in other venues?
This debate about putting salary in job postings becomes more important as job applicants are willing to settle just to have a job. This could cause retention chaos as jobs become more available or motivation damage for people who are under-employed, under-utilized, and bored.
The Debate About Salary in Job Postings
Employers argue that not supplying the salary range gives them more flexibility in considering a wide range of candidates, especially in cases where they may have some flexibility. Some also believe that the first party to supply a number in a salary negotiation is in the weaker negotiating postion. Job applicants argue that they don't want to waste their time applying for jobs that pay outside of the salary range which they require.
Applicants say that an online job application for an employer's applicant tracking system can take an hour or more to fill out. So, it is unfair to withhold salary information that would have helped them decide whether to apply. It's one thing to enter a resume online, but entirely different to fill out an application, participate in interviews, and more, for a position that he or she cannot afford to accept.
Another piece, when you hire an employee, to the salary negotiation puzzle is that employers frequently ask candidates to provide either their current salary or their expected compensation with the application.
I have seen all sorts of advice about how to respond to this request. But, the reality is that, if the employer asks for this information with the application, the application is not valid, and the applicant need not be considered, without supplying it.
I can see all sides of this debate and have taken positions on both sides in the past. The online job application world has made me rethink much of what I believe, however, because of the time job applicants invest. I now lean toward believing that employers should supply salary information, albeit a broad range, in job postings. Your arguments have convinced me. Can you convince me otherwise?
Poll About Salary in Job Postings
So, what's your opinion? Do you include salary on your job postings, or not - and why? Is "competitive salary and above average benefits" enough to attract the most qualified applicants? Please vote in my poll so we can all see current thinking.
There are a number of good reasons for not posting salaries or ranges in recruitment adverts.
• We pay a great deal for salary surveys. We are not going to give our information away to our competitors for free.
• We might be looking for a particular level of candidate but, having looked and not found we may change the scope and settle for something less. Now we have a candidate with high expectations. If they do accept they come in with a poor feeling about the company.
• Sometimes we upgrade the position that has just been vacated. The outgoing incumbent feels cheated because they didn’t receive that salary.
Finally, desperate applicants don’t bother to read or pay attention to adverse information. If the high salary confirms the high level of the position suggested by the rest of the advert, so what? We’ll try anyway. The only reduction to the number of applicants will be the few at the top end who are earning much more than your offer. Some of them, desperate enough, will try anyway—who knows, maybe I can persuade them to up their offer? So the reduction in numbers will be limited.
Therefore, leave it out. But, hey, if you’re advertising something I might be interested in, put it in. And if you are one of my competitors, I want to see it!
There is absolutely positively NO good reason to neglect posting the pay other than it pays commission. I suppose in an upper management career where there’s a lot of posturing things may be different. I however am not posting for a sales position or to be president or CEO of an oil company. Mostly, I’ve performed grunt work and truck driving. The most I could ever hope to make without a miraculous intervention of some sort would be $55K a year. I’ve tried to apply for jobs I didn’t even want and the first thing they want me to do is become a member of their website. (STUPID) After that some want you to take a test and then fill out a lengthy app and never once tell you what the pay is. After you become a member and taking a test and after you fill out an app then you’re stuck waiting for them to call. All these things are perfectly fine and I’ve done all of them but knowing the pay up front would save me that much time. The further away a job is the more it has to pay. I went all the way to Ann Arbor last week only to find out that after fuel and taxes I wouldn’t have enough to pay my bills. Time after time I’ve spent a half hour to an hour of my life to find I’m looking at a job that’s an hour away and pays $8 DOLLARS AN HOUR! If it were 30 minutes away (At this point) I might take it but when it’s an hour and twenty minutes away I couldn’t if I wanted to. If I look at a job posted and see up front “Hey, here’s a job playing video games and watching TV in right down the street, cool. HMM what does it pay? $27.00 dollars a week, gee that’s not enough.” I can live with that. Not “Oh, here’s a job cleaning spider rectums. Well, it’s an hour away, but that’s not bad. I’ll fill this out, that out, this out, that out, go here go there call this guy’s mom and how much does it pay? 8 dollars an hour! I wasted hours of my time looking at a job I can’t afford to work at. It’s stupid, irresponsible and inconsiderate. How about not giving out the location? Does THAT make sense? NOOOOOOOOO!!! How about the leaving out the job description or the qualifications? It’s only the single most important part of the job.
I think it is pretty ridiculous to hide the rate of pay for a position. I guess I would just assume that the employer is trying to hide their true intentions, eg.. they want to pay less than market value. Fine if all the people who apply are desperate and have no income, but if you already have a job, wouldn’t you want to know the job you’re applying to pays at least something similar to the job you already have?
I think all employers should show what salary they are going to pay, or at least a range. It will make others stop and think whether they should apply for the position or not.
I have been looking for work now in the IT field for over 3months and with 7yrs exp. no one wants to pay. They will ask you for the moon and stars but when it comes to salary they expect to get you for free.
It is good to see some companies put a range to at least know i’m worth something.
I’ve stopped applying for jobs that don’t post a salary range. It’s a waste of time. I darn well won’t provide a “desired salary” to a company that hasn’t told me what they intend to pay.
I have an MBA, years of high level experience in finance and personnel management, and a CMA; why would I waste my time applying for a job at a company that doesn’t value my credentials? Why would I tilt my hand by telling them what I want to get paid when I have no idea what they’re willing to pay (God forbid I say I’ll take $120k when the employer was willing to go $150).
Anyone who has taken introductory econ (or read a Texas Hold ‘Em book) knows about Game Theory — do not put yourself in a situation in which you’re forced to deal with asymmetric information. If I were an HR Director, and I were posting for a job, I’d post without a salary requirement first, just to weed out the idiots.
I wouldn’t mind not having a salary range posted, if the application process weren’t such a pain. I need to focus my application process on jobs that are within my range, and not waste time applying for jobs that I’m not going to end up taking.
I won’t apply for an appealing job that seems to match my skills if I don’t know what the salary range is. It’s a poor use of my time. If I were currently unemployed, it might be different.
I no longer apply for jobs without salary postings – too much wasted time, too many undervalued postings.
The whole point of working is for the salary (otherwise, who would go to work for free), yet that is most often the neglected piece of the puzzle.
There should be no ambiguity about this, or confusing and ‘underhanded’ tricks. It really shouldn’t be a question asked by the potential employee in a formal interview – “sooooo, how much is this job paying?”…
There should be a law against the practice of posting job ads which do not list salaries.
This is driving me nuts.
I do a job search and get 189 results. FOUR of them have a salary listed. I am currently unemployed and looking for a job, but I do not want to waste my time applying for hundreds of jobs that are below my salary needs.
It’s bad enough when the job listing is really vague about the actual job duties, but if it doesn’t list the pay either, how am I supposed to know if it’s a complete waste of my time and the employer’s time to apply?
If I apply for a job and they offer it to me, and it turns out to be about half of my previous salary… that’s less than what I’m making on unemployment! But if I refuse the job, I could lose my unemployment benefits.
Employers think that since they are getting hundreds of applicants for every job that they don’t need to list a salary, but they are alienating quality potential employees.
Hi Tina,
I have come around to your point of view for very similar reasons that you have listed. I now recommend that employers put salary ranges in job postings. The employer faces some problems by doing that, too, though, so I am also sympathetic to them. I mean, how would you feel, knowing the salary range, when an employer offered you an adequate, but hardly spectacular, starting salary in the bottom of the range? Excited to come on board? But, maybe that’s all the candidate’s current skill and experience level were worth comparatively.
Regards, Susan
Salaries should be posted to circumvent exploitation by some employers. What if the prospective employee quotes less than the basic salary of the job? The employer can simple accept. That will be exploitation.
I prefer to have salary matters discussed upon interviewing, as impression and convincing mannets of both parties play a major role.
If the employer has a fixed scale, it may help if salary range is announced
I think revealing salary in a job advert is not good. Often you will find very good employees working for low salaries due to nature of company’s business. While they may wish to take a new job, they are most likely to be intimidated by the relative salary difference between their current pay and posted salary on job advert, if very significant.
I would therefore prefer advert without salary figure, but with statement informing prospective candidates that generous or competitive salary and benefits will be provided.
Javan- Kenya
I simply cannot stand that employers don’t post the wage/salary range. For those that don’t, you know they are trying to play the game of offering you the least possible.
It is like going into a store where there are no price tags on anything. I’ve run across a few stores like this. I turn around and walk right now.
Unfortunately, just about every dang HR idiot in the world refuses to post a salary range (otherwise I wouldn’t ever apply for any job that didn’t post a range). As a result, I and millions of others like me either miss out on jobs that may have been a great fit, or else waste countless hours applying for jobs, sometimes doing one or two phone or in-person interviews, only to finally ask what the job might pay, and find out it is less than I make now! It is such a blatant disregard for EVERYONE’s time, as it wastes HR time too. It just doesn’t make sense. Would a car lot sell very many cars without any prices listed? Would a gas station sell much gas without posting its price?
For example, I just did a search for jobs and found 589 matches, and none of the first 30 or so I checked, that looked like a decent possibility, listed a salary range. Well, I don’t have time to apply for hundreds of jobs.
Seriously, HR folks, have some respect!
Perhaps employers seek to hold candidates by making them think like: “OK I came here and asked permission so many times that….what the hell…I take it” or, if they post salary ranges people would like for getting the job…oh no wait…that is what interviews do already…so why not skip the hideous recruiting process and just reduce everything to a single, solely, one interview instead of meet the whole HP staff?
Phrasing Marx: “Workers are assets themselves, employers see in them the best resource to exploit without of risk of running out of it.” If they post salaries then they put themselves in risk of having to raise that yet unpaid salary cause candidates lower so the days go on. I have an idea, post salaries and benefits and let potential appliers to decide whether it is convenient or not.
Yes, employers should post the expected pay range for the job. It is a pretty lame excuse to say, “Well I don’t want to be out bid by my competitor”. Fact is, I’ve felt like a lot of time could be saved if employers just posted the pay range. There have been many times when I’ve invested hours between filling out applications, interviewing (for some of which I had to travel out of state) only to find that the pay is too low. I’ve even had an employer get disgruntled with me for turning down an offer and I basically told her, “If I had known from the beginning that this was the expected pay, then I wouldn’t have bothered applying.”
I feel that not posting the salary range wastes both the employer’s and employee’s time. Right now I am making a comfortable salary, so unless I know a job pays more than what I am now making, I won’t even consider it.
In applying for “lower levels” of the companies with fast turnover it seems perfect for managers to pick the lowest bids for jobs & then submit how much money they saved the company so they can get a bonus. The fact that there’s fast turnover in the company in that arena helps to disguise these cheap fix choices.
It’s horrible to spend hours of time filling out applications, running into glitches online, following up on applications, determining whether the location is feasible, prep for the interview and know a little about the company, etc. only to commute there go through the interrogation process only to hear at the end of it all that the salary is ridiculously low. I don’t live at home with my parents or have a rich husband so this job is simply fun money for me. I am the primary breadwinner and have a minimum the family can survive off of.
“• We might be looking for a particular level of candidate but, having looked and not found we may change the scope and settle for something less. Now we have a candidate with high expectations. If they do accept they come in with a poor feeling about the company.
• Sometimes we upgrade the position that has just been vacated. The outgoing incumbent feels cheated because they didn’t receive that salary.”
Companies only care about the bottom line. This is jibberish. If they don’t meet the requirements, it’s not rocket science to communicate to the individual that they are welcome to come on board but since they fall short of the requirements they would have to consider a lower salary until their experience or whatever they are short on is up to the expectation of the advertisement. Then their salary can be adjusted. And since when does a company care about an outgoing incumbent? Jibberish.
I would never waste my time on any posting that does not list a salary range.
The HR Department from a firm that does not specifiy salary is indicative of a company who is willing to degrade an individual’s hard earned experience, education and personal sacrifices for the HR’s company’s bottom line. This type of HR “professional” seeks to filter from the pool of unfortunate souls who lost their employment because of our employment “shocked” society – and are taking advantage of the situation. Find out who they are, tell everyone you know, and let the particular HR department know by writing a letter to them and sending a copy of it to the county personnel department, your City and State officials too – that is the job of the politicians to take care of the people not the businesses – businesses are not meant to operate like an individual – how many individuals make 2M dollar profits – not many.
I do the recruiting for a small non-profit. We always put the salary range in our job postings. We do this for a number of reasons: As a non-profit, our salary ranges cannot compete with corporate salary ranges, so we are very upfront about what we are willing to pay. Additionally, I always discuss salary when I phone screen applicants to be sure they understand that this is the range and that negotiations outside the range won’t be entertained.
Every Organization/Company has its own strategy on attracting the candidates to join their team. What attracts and motivates the job seeker is how the organizational culture of each company / department have instore for candidates. The Organizational Labor Law as well as the salary structure nowadays plays magnificent role whereby an employee has a freedom of choice, speech and affiliate with his/her organization. The Organization with good culture and trust motivates and maintains the employee’s retention at every organization. The potential candidates will only be considered if they reach the minimum requirements and job specifications than just qualified and marketable. I therefore agree with an employer who encourage potential employees to enjoy the right to know about the job offer and positive requirements before the candidates wasting time applying for vacancy.
It always makes me reticent about applying when i don’t get an idea of the salary range. As someone who is looking for international jobs, this is a challenge particularly when applying to North American non profit organisations(NGOs) working globally.
I actually had the terrible experience of applying for such a job with no published salary or benefits. After an application (which included my entire salary history), and two interviews I was offered the position.
However, once the salary ‘negotiation’ began i was offered less than my current job. We had the emails back and forward on this, as I tried to further justify my worth. This was an international relocation, so i also had to factor in these costs. At the end of the day, for a much more stressful and senior job I was being offered a lower salary and less benefits than my current job. How could I accept?
I had to turn the job down even though this was a job i really wanted. I am talking about low-middle level jobs and I have very little savings. I work to earn money to live! This wasted my time and energy, as well as a huge amount of time for the organisation. If they had been transparent about the salary range, I could have done all of the calculations before applying, or chosen not to apply.
There is nothing to be gained in my view from this lack of transparency, especially when so many organisations want to know your salary history too!
I’m wondering if posting salary information might increase the quality and number of inquiries for a job posting. What do you think?
Anyone who responded agreeing with not posting the potential salary of a position is a complete inconsiderate idiot. Unless you are desperate and will take any job handed to you, you are most likely looking to move up in salary and move on to another position. In the mean time, you have to take off time from your current position, possibly piss off your current manager and risk losing that job in order to gain employment with a better opportunity. Why would I waste my time and run that risk for a job paying far less or equal to what I am already making. No one is winning in that situation. The employer wastes time interviewing me and I waste my own time going. And even if I accept the low paying position, trust, I will not be staying any longer than the time it takes to find the position that satisfies my needs. Be considerate and everyone wins.
Whether I am employed or unemployed I absolutely refuse to apply for positions that do not give a salary range. I fully expect a potential employer to try to hire a new employee at the lower end of the range. To hide or obscure something as basic as pay range makes me distrust a company or organisation. It also indicates that they have absolutely no regard for my time or resources…why would I want to work somewhere like that?
There’s nothing worse than applying, coming for an interview, acing it and then getting an offer from HR that is half of what you’re currently making, for greater responsibility.
Don’t try to be cheap – post a range.
Hey,
The way I see it…. IF there is NO Salary Range, then the employer is NOT SERIOUS about hiring a professional/dedicated worker.
Period.
I think it is a waste for both parties, especially when an advert doesn’t even list the company name. In the end I think the employer loses out more from qualified candidates who will not bother with an employer being inconsiderate about not listing a salary range.
The whole comment about, “We pay a great deal for salary surveys. We are not going to give our information away to our competitors for free” is absurd. If your company is a great place to work and pays people fairly, you should not even be worried about the fact that your competitor knows what you are paying.
I think that employers who don’t post salaries so as to keep the competition in the dark is a crock of ….. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but sounds like they’re all in cahoots so that they can keep the salary range low.
Note to self: never apply for a job listing which says to contact “Ian Webster”. Clearly the guy is not only a complete moron but has managed to convince himself that there is meaning to his idiocy.