from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are you more likely to apply for a job that discloses salary upfront?

by finspin on 12/6/16, 5:00 PM with 136 comments

• by pjungwir on 12/6/16, 7:51 PM

  Certainly.

  Especially right now, you need to attract candidates who are "passively looking": people who have a job, but would move given a good offer. I do freelance development and consulting, and I'm basically happy with that. I wouldn't turn down a great opportunity, but I'm not going to start the application process unless I know you can beat what I'm already earning.

• by jawns on 12/6/16, 5:14 PM

  I doubt you'll get anyone who says that salary range disclosed in a job advertisement is not a good thing, from the perspective of the job seeker.

  The question you may want to ask instead is: "Does the benefit to the job seeker of having a salary range specified outweigh the loss of potential advertisers who do not want to disclose a salary range?"

  If you're just doing this as a side project, with no expectation of making a business out of it, then you may want to lean more toward what benefits the user.

  If you're trying to run a business and pay the bills, you might need to think more about how it decreases your potential revenue, assuming the job advertisers are the ones who are paying for your service.

  One other thing: Salary range is inherently a fuzzy concept. It's possible to set limits (e.g. the range must not span more than $20K, or the range must not constitute more than 20% of the lower-end number) but then you have to take into account that an advertised salary range is not necessarily the same as what they're ultimately willing to offer you. And then you have to factor in benefits, etc., which can make salary ranges misleading.

  Edit: One possible way to make salary range disclosures more palatable to advertisers is to borrow a strategy from matchmaking systems: The advertiser discloses a salary range, and the job seeker discloses a minimum required salary, to the website, which does not make any of that information public. When the job seeker submits an application for a job, they receive a notice if the advertiser's specified salary range does not meet their minimum requirements. This keeps the actual salary range out of public view and at least slightly difficult to estimate, but it prevents the job applicant from wasting their time.

• by shados on 12/6/16, 5:37 PM

  A range helps to know if it's even worth applying. If I see a range, from X to Y, and my prefered salary is Y + 20k, It's probably worth talking to you because there's a chance I can make the needle move.

  If I'd have to make the needle move by 100k, then I'm not going to bother.

  If the range is not shown at all, I'll still apply, but I'll usually start with "While I negotiate salaries later in the process, my range is usually around X-Y, depending on the role".

  Too many times I went through a phone screen, and when talk of salaries came up, it was just way off. And sure, phone screens are quick, but at that point I already had to deal with the silly pointless puzzles for 30-60+ minutes.

• by deedubaya on 12/6/16, 5:40 PM

  Lacking a salary range in a job posting tells me that "competitive salary" really means "below market rate" in most cases.

  I've found the best postings list their minimum ($70k+ or whatever). Maximum is irrelevant, as you can assume it's around 20% of that minimum. It shows what salaries and skill expertise they're after.

• by JamesBarney on 12/6/16, 7:44 PM

  Too many employers think on one hand that they need hours of interviews to verify that I'm a top candidate, and on the other think that 70k is a competitive offer for me to waste my time applying to jobs without salaries.

• by themckman on 12/6/16, 5:30 PM

  As a current job seeker, its certainly helpful to see the range I can expect when the process gets that far. I might suggest that you offer two modes for input: exact and range. In the case of range, maybe, warn them if their range is crazy big. I've seen jobs recently in the market I'm searching in on StackOverflow advertising a range with the low end being 50% of the high end. That doesn't actually help me when deciding on whether to contact.

  If you really wanted to go crazy, make a publicly advertised email field mandatory, also. If I find a job posting and can't send an email to apply for it. I, most of the time, skip applying for that job. I might fill out a form that asks for just, like, my name, email and has a file field for my resume, but, it still rubs me the wrong way to fill that out. Give me an email address and let me write a small personalized note with a link to my resume. When you present me with a form to apply it makes me feel like I'm just a new datapoint in your recruitment database rather than, like, a human being just trying to start a conversation about how we can help each other.

• by marktangotango on 12/6/16, 5:26 PM

  More than once I've gotten to the negotiation phase of the job offer only to find the employer won't meet my salary requirement. It's very frustrating and a huge waste of time for everyone.

• by bbarn on 12/6/16, 5:33 PM

  There's a big problem with salary ranges:

  Everyone wants the highest number listed. This prevents employers from being honest, because that max range should be the MOST They want to spend, but to the applicant, it's the least they think they should accept.

  It's frustrating as an applicant, and having been on both sides of this fence, I've stopped listing it because it's a very easy question to ask on a first contact: "Just so we're in the same ballpark, what kind of salary range are you looking for? I'm not going to hold you to whatever number you throw out because we've still got a lot to learn about each other, but I don't want to waste anyone's time"

• by junto on 12/6/16, 5:10 PM

  Absolutely. Job hunting is an intensive task. Knowing the salary range before you apply for a job, is extremely important . Cutting out jobs that aren't applicable from the salary perspective saves you time and effort.

• by jpulec on 12/6/16, 5:16 PM

  Having a clear salary expectation up front just saves both parties time and effort. One of the big reasons salary ranges aren't always public, is because it benefits the company, by maintaining information asymmetry. By but doing that, you're at least in a small way, telling me that you don't want to play that game and are more likely to be transparent with me about other parts of the process.

• by lojack on 12/6/16, 10:46 PM

  Absolutely. If I currently have a job (probably the people you want), the most companies I actively interview for at any given time is ~4, give or take. Any more takes way too much time and is difficult to prep for. I simply can't waste my time with companies that may take a significant chunk of my time and end up not being able to offer an acceptable salary. There's a big enough pool of jobs I know for a fact are within my salary requirements, so I don't need to have doubt. Some of these usually come from job postings including salaries, and some of them come from a recruiter (a good recruiter is a valuable asset for me) who know my requirements.

• by segmondy on 12/6/16, 5:40 PM

  Of course, one of my terrible experiences was interviewing after a company pinged and showed strong interest. Only to be offered half of what I was making and been begged to take it because they are about to go big and shares.

  I wish to know the salary upfront. I'll never take another interview without discussing the salary range beforehand.

• by tixocloud on 12/6/16, 5:06 PM

  For the most part, yes.

  Given that job titles aren't able to help me discover whether an opportunity is right for my next career move, salary ranges help me to gauge whether I'd be moving up a ladder and save me time from having to schedule something only to find out that they were really looking for juniors.

• by MrTortoise on 12/6/16, 5:19 PM

  Yes.

  It's a colossal waste of half a day or so plus all the conversations.

  No salary range usually implies generic ad from some half assed agency trying to get people on their books

• by ap22213 on 12/6/16, 5:46 PM

  Total compensation is the first and only thing that I ask before even learning about an opportunity.

  I make $240k / year. And, that's a jaw-dropping figure for companies that only seek warm bodies to fill seats. It's better to get that out of the way immediately.

• by jaclaz on 12/6/16, 8:00 PM

  I see the issue as information symmetry, the more the employer asks, the more he should quote the salary and detail other "advantages" (if any).

  To add some humour, from:

  https://tudorbarbu.ninja/message-to-recruiters/

  "This is how most job ads sound nowadays:

  We’re looking for a person with more than 100 years of experience in software development, coding everything from BIOSes to cloud applications, knowledge of all past, present and future operating systems and setting up secure networks. The applicant must also be able to juggle up to twenty balls and read hieroglyphs, be fluent in Swahili and dance like Michael Jackson (especially moonwalking – nice to have at corporate Christmas parties)."

  So, this is what is expected from you, it is only polite to list (including fringe benefits, in detail) what you can expect from the employer.

• by cwp on 12/6/16, 8:22 PM

  Absolutely.

  There's no point in wasting either side's time applying to a company that can't afford me.

  On the flip side, if they're got very nitpicky requirements and are offering a huge salary, that's a good signal that they really are requirements and not just a description of the pie-in-the-sky ideal candidate.

• by derekp7 on 12/6/16, 5:44 PM

  Here's the problem though -- often times, someone may have an open position or two, for a range of skill levels. So they interview, and determine what skill bucket the candidate falls into, and makes an offer based on that.

  So the only way to solve that in a job listing, is to either give a wide salary range (50k - 150k, for example), which then becomes useless. Or to have one posting that lists a number of positions (systems admin level 1, programmer/analyst level 3, etc) with a set of skills required for each bucket.

• by swalsh on 12/6/16, 5:25 PM

  Having enough salary is important, but it shouldn't drive your decision (as the employee). Not having enough money definitely matters, but at some point there are diminishing returns on how important salary is to your motivation, and future success in a role.

  You know what I wish I had in a job search? Let me post a profile, not a resume, but give me a survey. Let employers search for me based on what I'm good at... where my strengths are. Focus the hunt not on "who has the best skills" but rather "who's going to round out my team". The idea that specific technical skills can be acquired easier than personality traits.

  So here's the traits I'd look for. Every engineer has a mix of motivations, some care more about tech problems, others care more about business problems. Then honestly some are just more concerned about growing their career. All 3 personalities have equally important traits that are essential to a team. A good team should have a tech guy to make sure what it builds is maintainable, it should also have a guy who is always making sure what the team is building is valuable, and then frankly if you have both of these guys they're going to constantly disagree with each other... so you need another guy who will take both viewpoints into account and determine what's better for the company.

• by aml183 on 12/8/16, 12:04 AM

  I'm a tech recruiter and job boards are one of the worst sources of candidates both for agency recruiters and companies. The best candidates aren't looking for jobs and hence will rarely visit job boards.

  Companies like Hired & AngelCo are taking a marketplace approach to the hiring process. Arguably, the biggest issues with these processes is that you can't attract passive candidates.

  If you can figure out a process that attracts passive candidates, you will win the recruiting industry. I think companies like HackerRank are in the right direction by being a platform for recruiting, but not in an overt way.

  A lot of developers use HackerNews, but not for the recruitment aspect, but YC companies have an advantage because they can post to the job board.

  As a developer, why would your job board be a massive difference to recruiters/companies? Chicken and Egg problem, but with subtle differences.

• by josephhardin on 12/7/16, 2:37 PM

  I think it may depend a lot upon the candidate. I personally feel like I make a pretty good salary, and with many jobs I would otherwise consider applying to, I don't feel like it's worth the time to go through the interview process just to find out their max salary they can offer is a pay cut for me. Similarly if there is a job that looks interesting to me, but advertises it's range and it's in the ballpark of what I want, I would be MUCH more likely to apply.

  It also provides a lot of information about what the job will be expected to do. With what I do, people are not going to be willing to give me the salary I want, while also wasting my time on remedial work when they could get someone much cheaper that could do those tasks. So by keeping my interest in higher salary jobs, I can try to limit it to jobs which hold more interest for me personally.

• by hiven on 12/6/16, 5:45 PM

  I tend not to consider roles with no pay / range disclosed. Applying to roles is time consuming and why waste time on it to be told the salary is far lower than expected.

• by rudyrigot on 12/7/16, 8:53 PM

  Absolutely, even if the salary doesn't imply any commitment from the employer, and that it's not one salary, but an interval (like, $150k-170k). When I was looking for a job recently, I exclusively focused on Hired.com and AngelList, exactly because their postings have salaries.

  Why does it matter? To me, it's actually not about the money, but about ensuring that what I understand of the job title is what the employer understands of the job title too. Job titles are currently very loose in the industry, and if I see a posting for a "Lead Full-Stack Software Engineer" for $80k, I will immediately understand that this title does not mean to me what it means to the employer, and will save everyone a lot of time.

• by slavoingilizov on 12/6/16, 5:30 PM

  Even though the wording of the question is great, I think most people will take it as "Do you think disclosing a salary is a good thing?" Everyone would definitely be more likely to apply if the salary is good, but less likely if it's bad. The answer depends on the amount disclosed, not on the fact it's disclosed. It automatically makes you imagine the "happy case" and say that YES, it's awesome if I see a big salary and I would definitely apply more. But reality is different.

  I think it's an interesting point, but any results or replies are destined to lead to wrong conclusions. It's like doing UX research by asking people what they want instead of observing their behavior (i.e. prone to bias). So I wouldn't take any of the answers here as relevant.

• by logfromblammo on 12/6/16, 8:36 PM

  Absolutely. I am sick of having my time wasted by companies that pretend to want above-median employees, but whose pay scales max out at below-median dollar amounts.

  When I say I want $120k to move to your city, because you asked me to give you a number, and you say "Uhhhhh... we can't even negotiate from that as a starting point," you had better start putting your maximum number on your call for applicants. Because I just found out you were lying when you said you pay competitive market salary for the job requirements you chose to publish.

  I am also very unlikely to budge for less than the annual salary than I earn now times the change-in-cost-of-living multiplier for the best school district in your metro area.

  It saves time on both sides for the employer to disclose up front.

• by jackfrodo on 12/6/16, 5:16 PM

  All things being equal, if I had to choose between applying to two jobs, and one of them explicitly offered the salary that I believe I'm worth, then yeah, I would apply to that one.

  On another note, one thing I've been thinking of doing, (and I'd be delighted if you did it!) is a job board that only shows positions with take home interviews instead of in-person coding exercises. I think this is a growing trend as people realize that they're missing out on good developers who suck at coding under pressure with someone looking over their shoulder. I've come across several threads on HN with people saying the same thing.

• by jachee on 12/6/16, 5:29 PM

  Unequivocally yes.

  I need to know that I'm not wasting my time pursuing what may become a low-ball offer, and I'm wholly unwilling to take a pay-cut, regardless of promises from the prospective employer.

  Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.

• by ChuckMcM on 12/6/16, 5:37 PM

  Hired.com does a good job of this, you look at candidates on the board (as a potential employer) and you put in what you think you would pay that candidate. They can decide if they want to interview for the job or not. As an employer nice bit is that you already know that they would already consider working for you at that salary. For the candidate they can see multiple 'bids' from different companies and get a sense of the market and also see if their own expectations are under valued or over valued.

• by madebysquares on 12/6/16, 5:50 PM

  Knowing the range is definite incentive to apply for a job or submit an application. Too many times a company will not list it and then the range is well below what I would be looking for. I will say glassdoor has helped a bit, because usually that is my first stop when an interesting company has an opening, that gives me at least some degree of what to expect.

  I'm not looking for 200k but if you're budget is about 70k then I don't want to waste their engineers, managers, whoever or my own time.

• by Franksey on 12/6/16, 5:11 PM

  I definitely prefer knowing up front what the salary for a role would be. I go to work to get paid, so it's pretty a significant factor that should be communicated early on.

• by RickS on 12/6/16, 5:55 PM

  Not just more likely, I flat out won't cold apply anywhere that doesn't have a range listed. I consider any company that isn't upfront about compensation as having something to hide.

  Note: if you do this, mandatory salary field should be only numbers and dashes, because everyone will just do what craigslist does: "DOE", "Competitive" etc. See angellist for a good example of how to do this right.

• by lukaszkups on 12/6/16, 8:37 PM

  Add EXACT salary for the job - very often final salary is equal to min. wage mentioned in range.

  Also, used technologies at company - because another job offer for front-end developer that uses Angular1, Angular2, React, Redux, Preact, Ember, Backbone, Node.js, MongoDB, Photoshop, Gimp and has 10+ years of experience is just dumb. Let the companies write about their flow, exact tech stacks etc.

• by misterhtmlcss on 12/6/16, 5:37 PM

  I think addressing the salary too directly e.g this is how much money give or take $5k makes the hunt overly focused on financial benefits, which as has been commented has substantial downsides.

  I think that a standardized band should be selected. Substantial sized bands, to dissuade purely financially driven people. You want them, but also as has been pointed out you don't only want them. You need a range. Bands give security that we are having the same conversation. I have also been interviewed for roles where the salary being offered is substantially below market value. What a waste of time tbh.

  Also some way of getting at the intangibles would be great. For employees knowing whether this manager fires regularly, his feedback in the industry, etc would be helpful when selecting a role.

  Cultural questions with answers are also good.

  There is a great deal not be done to help the two seekers find the right connection and it's quite shocking really how prosaic the tools are for recruiting when you consider the money involved.

• by kenjackson on 12/6/16, 5:41 PM

  It depends -- if the salary is less than my minimum then it reduces the chances. If it is far more than what I expect, that also reduces the chance. The ideal range covers 10-20% more than I'm currently making -- that will increase my likelihood of applying.

  The good thing about disclosing upfront is that it will save both me and the employer time down the road.

• by simonhamp on 12/6/16, 8:22 PM

  Absolutely yes. Interestingly, just today I contacted a possible employee through StackOverflow who didn't provide salary upfront specifically asking them to give some indication of their budget.

  My reasoning (which got me their expected salary range) was that without this, it could well be a pointless exercise for all parties involved

• by arielweisberg on 12/6/16, 5:57 PM

  I don't consider most jobs and companies because I don't think they can pay the same or more than I already make. A good problem to have.

  That said I think most companies are genuinely looking for more inexpensive candidates. Or maybe not? I don't know. I can never really tell what people are willing to pay.

• by hiram112 on 12/6/16, 5:32 PM

  Yes, but only if the salary is in my range.

  I get so many recruiter spams, LinkedIn junk mail, contacts from former associates, etc. - most of which have absolutely no salary range - those that do and are high enough tend to stand-out in my mind, while a lot of the other ones are simply mass deleted every few days.

• by sailfast on 12/6/16, 5:54 PM

  A range is helpful but if the company is unwilling to put their actual max dollar value up for highly qualified candidates (read: the range is not the real range) it might result in fewer high quality applications.

  If a range is not listed but the job is something of interest to me, I would not hesitate to apply and then ask the recruiter / HR contact about the range and whether expectations line up. It's one call and might help make a connection or refer you to a different gig.

  As an aside, anything that indicates "we're an awesome bunch of rock star ninja people with competitive pay and benefits packages" typically results in a tab close.

• by arenaninja on 12/6/16, 5:32 PM

  Most of the times, yes.

  Sometimes good benefits (NOT equity and soda, but 401k, healthcare, etc.) are so much better than the norm that I may overlook the salary being omitted and treat the interview as a discovery process.

• by probinso on 12/7/16, 1:59 AM

  If the company's Target is noticeably low, then I really want them to put up the salary. I do however want them to be very honest about there range. This allows for me to be much more particular about what my other needs are from the company.

  If they are paying market rates for their employees, then I don't particularly care. I'm comfortable with negotiating at the higher levels.

  It looks like a company's range is dishonest, then I'm comfortable with having wasted their time when I am searching for work.

• by drawkbox on 12/7/16, 1:19 AM

  Indeed, otherwise there is a cost time and sometimes money based on that time to the job seeker to find out what the salary is.

  For the employer this may suck because existing employees will see rates/market and if they don't have an open salary policy it could cause issues.

  For the job seeker, you might also want higher and not go to a place that may decide to pay you higher based on experience and skills.

  A range is probably the best but a number puts job seeker and employer closer to the deal just by seeing the numbers.

• by pmontra on 12/6/16, 5:47 PM

  If I see a job that I like with a salary that I like, I could apply.

  If I like the job and don't see a salary, I could apply only if the job description hints to a salary that I like.

  In other cases, I don't.

  That means that if the salary is hidden and there is a mismatch between my expectation and the salary, I'll apply and everybody will waste time.

  If there are many people like me the number of applicants could be higher but the effectiveness of the hiring process will be lower. I support the mandatory salary field.

• by ars on 12/6/16, 5:41 PM

  I would only apply for a job that doesn't have salary information if it was a large established company, where I could feel reasonably comfortable that they have a clue about what salaries should be, and a budget to actually pay it.

  If it was a small business, especially if the position is the only one of its type at that company I would not bother making any contact at all without salary info - it's a total waste of time.

• by allfou on 12/6/16, 7:43 PM

  Nope. I'd most likely apply for something I believe will be enjoyable 8-10 hours a day, Monday to Friday from January to December. It's called employee retention and you should evaluate that metric yourself. If you let your employer handle that part it'll be about knowing how much will be your next salary increase. Which falls back to your question. Short term versus long term.

• by seattle_spring on 12/6/16, 5:29 PM

  No, because I've literally never seen a posted range that is at or above what I expect to be paid, and what I've been making for 5+ years.

• by runjake on 12/6/16, 5:32 PM

  I have to feel super passionate about applying for a job opening that doesn't list a salary range.

  And maybe that's a good thing for both sides.

• by derekp7 on 12/6/16, 8:13 PM

  This is the one nice thing about going through a recruiter (that you trust). You can give them the range that you are looking for (a lower number plus other benefits, or a higher number if it is a higher stress place), and they can filter the positions ahead of time.

• by rajacombinator on 12/7/16, 12:25 PM

  No ... but I would only apply to a job that didn't list salary if I had a ballpark range in mind for what it would pay.

  I'm MUCH more likely to spend time browsing job postings (and hence applying) that give a salary range though.

• by dickbasedregex on 12/6/16, 6:07 PM

  When I was younger I'd apply regardless. Now, I won't even bother without a minimum being listed.

  I'm far enough in my career that I won't allow my time to be wasted. And if you're hiding your pay scale, you're wasting my time.

• by SmellyGeekBoy on 12/6/16, 7:45 PM

  Why on earth would someone apply for a job if they don't know the salary up front? When I recruit people I always disclose the salary, it signals the level of applicant I expect for the job and saves wasting anyone's time.

• by pbreit on 12/6/16, 5:27 PM

  AngelList shows salary (and equity) ranges. They are pretty wide but still preferable.

• by deanWombourne on 12/7/16, 3:02 PM

  I often don't even bother to click through if there isn't at least an idea of salary. (Using words like 'competitive', or 'DOE' don't count, and earn the posting minus points)

• by dccoolgai on 12/7/16, 1:54 PM

  The problem is everyone always throws up like "30-180k depending on experience". Standardize that by making like 3 "sample" levels and nake them say what they would give for each.

• by nickbauman on 12/6/16, 11:25 PM

  Location matters. Jobs being offered on the west coast almost always beat my salary here in the midwest. But when you take into account the cost of living, it usually ends up being a significant paycut.

• by nwisnia on 12/6/16, 6:07 PM

  100% believe that Salary should be a mandatory field on your job board. It means the hiring team needs to have a budget for a role; plus has at least thought about the market rate and what they can pay.

• by gwbas1c on 12/6/16, 8:06 PM

  I'm okay with no posted salary range as long as it's discussed with either the recruiter or HR early on.

  That being said, I apply for jobs based on what looks interesting, not based on the pay.

• by smashface on 12/6/16, 7:56 PM

  It seems logical that more people would apply to jobs that include a salary in the post. I'd be far more interested to know what % of employers are satisfied with their hire if they included the salary or not. Additionally I'd want to know how many people they found were outright unqualified if they included the expected salary. My suspicion is that lots of [un|under]qualified people see a great salary and apply just hoping to luckily land the position. That's not say well-qualified people shun seeing the salary in a job post (as is obvious from the comments here) but how much signal:noise do companies get.

• by grigjd3 on 12/7/16, 2:54 PM

  The vast majority of innovations using the Internet here have been to service employers. I think adding more information for employees is a great benefit.

• by zodPod on 12/6/16, 5:42 PM

  A range YES absolutely. I will ignore most that don't because if they're going to not even get near my currently salary it's not even worth my time.

• by baron816 on 12/7/16, 1:42 PM

  You should also require job posts to state what the steps in their interview process are and an estimate for how long the whole process should take.

• by webmaven on 12/7/16, 3:49 PM

  Abso-frickin'-lutely.

  Put another way: A job posting that doesn't disclose at least a salary range has to be much more interesting for me to apply.

• by newintown on 12/6/16, 5:10 PM

  a good salary is definitely appealing, but if I like the job (and I am searching) I am going to apply no matter if they disclose the salary upfront or not

• by marmshallow on 12/7/16, 6:19 AM

  Question to job seekers: Do you disclose your current salary to employers or recruiters during the job search process?

• by jerven on 12/7/16, 3:11 PM

  Yes, especially for those who already have a comfortable salary and a nice job.

• by mydpy on 12/6/16, 8:00 PM

  Traditional salary negotiation, which generally hurts the applicant, heavily favors a salary black-box. So, a job board like this would help people who are not interested in negotiating their salary but want to stay competitive.

• by miguelrochefort on 12/6/16, 9:54 PM

  Yes.

  However, you should not go forward with this silly job board project.

• by spikefromspace on 12/7/16, 11:57 PM

  Absolutely!

• by sambeau on 12/7/16, 8:29 AM

  Yes

• by sjg007 on 12/6/16, 8:01 PM

  Yes.

• by pmiller2 on 12/6/16, 7:46 PM

  Yes.

• by mf2hd on 12/6/16, 5:39 PM

  Yes.

• by apstyx on 12/7/16, 8:34 AM

  yes

• by osi on 12/6/16, 5:16 PM

  yes.