HN Explorer

Salary expectation in job posting?

9 points by sshrinivasan ↗ HN
I manage a team of software developers and scientists at a computational biotechnology company, and once in a while we post jobs for either of the two teams. We are in Canada, where salaries typically are lower than the tech hubs of the US. Like most companies, we don't post salary ranges for the positions in the job posting itself, rather wait till we talk with the person face to face. I should mention that our typical interview process is phone first, followed by bringing them in for in-person technical interviews (we also do mock projects and coding assignments, not really relevant here).

Recently we have started mentioning the expected salary range at the phone interview itself, since we had a few cases where we flew people in, only for our salary expectations to be pretty different, hence a waste of time. We of course need to balance between paying top dollar for the best, versus managing the budget.

Here's my question: what does HN think about pushing this salary transparency all the way, and putting it in the job description itself, so neither of us wastes time with false expectations?

8 comments

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lukasm
There is no value in hiding salary this days. Everybody knows what the market is, so why hide it? For me this is a very good sign if a company post the salary range.
pcurve
Definitely post a range if you're willing to pay more for applicants from the U.S.

Most big companies in the U.S. don't post salary because the range is almost identical due to the fact that it has to fall within 'market rate' for a given position. That kind of information is readily available on Glassdoor.com

If you're trying to attract people from the U.S., then you'll definitely have to provide some guidance on Canadian salary for an equivalent position.

stevekemp
> Like most companies, we don't post salary ranges for the positions in the job posting itself.

Here in the UK I wouldn't even apply for a position if the salary (range) wasn't specified up-front.

NonEUCitizen
So what is the salary range in Canada for a computational biology software developer?
sshrinivasan
Well depending upon the experience, anywhere from 60k to 100k
kohanz
I work in Canada, in the same sector, and unfortunately your company's current practice is the accepted norm (in the software development industry in general).

It's basically a poker game. The company doesn't want to reveal their salary range, out of fear that the applicant will set their expectations at the top end of that range. The applicant does not want to reveal their true salary expectations, out of fear that they will under-estimate their market rate. Of course, the company will rarely offer them more than what they set their expectations at (and yes, I've been on the hiring side of the equation to see this happen).

So what you get is a company asking the candidate for their salary expectation and (a) the candidate who recognizes and is able to play the game will reply with what they estimate to be just above the company's top range (ensuring that if they are the leading candidate, they will get the maximum offer) or (b) the inexperienced or not confident candidate underselling themselves and getting an offer for less than their market rate.

It's a broken system and I really don't know what advantage the opacity brings. If you've identified an excellent candidate, pay him/her what you can afford and what is fair. If that's not enough for them, nobody has wasted their time.

patmcc
It would be awesome to see this kind of salary transparency. Worst case, you end up paying someone closer to the top of the range than you would have had to. But you save a whole bunch of unnecessary work by both job seekers and application reviewers.