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I've done worse than that. I've taken the job on a lower salary, being told I'd get a promotion and pay rise in 6 months. That didn't happen. And then when it didn't happen at 18 months they dangled the carrot of a promotion up two levels. After a few weeks of not hearing about it I popped a resignation letter in the post one morning, went into the office and had an email to say the promotion had "gone away".

Then they went legal trying to prevent me working for a competitor.

I actually got what I needed from the role anyway, but it was a lesson to heed the red flags. I've not heeded that lesson a couple of times recently, just because the market seems to be toast, but it's not been worth it.

A friend that works as a manager told me that companies stretch the interview process on purpose so that at the end you will accept a lower offer that you normally would because you are exhausted by the process.

I always assumed that kind of tactic was a way of hiding other decisions, e.g. protected class discrimination or some such.

I’ve similarly had 6-round interviews where at the end I either receive a lowball offer or am rejected because of something disclosed up-front.

This is very common with small software shops (which don't have the budget) and startups (which are running on private equity fumes).

Similar experience, multiple tech rounds all completed with excellent feedback from a company which approached me. Mentioned my ask and no indication of the range being a problem (but no firm approval either).

Based on that, assumption was the budget would be adequate. Final response was that they would not even mention the salary because it was too far away.

Following week they posted the job advert for same staff engineer role but at under average eu minimum wage.

It's risky if no salary is listed but do not ever proceed if they don't openly accept your ask without any doubt.

yep - never interview - if salary range is not disclosed by the hiring manager or recruiter. if hiring manager can't discuss salary - the hiring manager is a lame duck and won't push anything but just take orders.

with regards to uk tech companies - they have salary ranges like 60k-75k - where someone might have spent time in a role at 63k e.g if the average tenure within a certain position is 3 years, 63k - then when you join they will say new joiners start at 60k.

Perchance you mean: "non disclosure of salary is a dealbreaker"?

There should be a Yelp for shitty businesses like this and half of linkedin would get listed in the hall of shame

Do you still like their product or do you now understand your bias?

They always can low-ball you even with salary disclosure.

I would never consider a company that's making me wait that long unless I'm desperate to put food on my table and I have no other choice.

Had a similar experience, vowed to never do take home assignments ever again.

If i was good enough to get hired as a faang with just interviews and no take home stuff i see no reason to do that for a smaller company.

When hiring I don't have a narrow range in mind, it can be 50% or more. I look at the individual and make a judgment call on their impact to the business. For software we don't have a widget factory where employees are easily substitutable.

I've tried the opposite, paid everyone the same. But there were clear differences in ability and more importantly outside options. It became a problem when it came to retention and the business didn't have the ability to overpay everyone to keep the top performers.

I've always asked, and then get the generic "for the ideal candidate we are prepared to go very high", which I tactfully point out as the BS it is - there is no role that has ever been advertised without a manager or director-level sign-off on the range.

I usually reply to the brush-off with "I only ask because the seniority level is reflected in the salary, not the role or the advertisement."

I say that because it is, in fact, true: the seniority/skill required for the role and duties/responsibilities dictates the pay, the bullet points in the advertisement and the role description is often completely divorced from the level of seniority or skill required in the actual role.

IOW "We're hiring a Senior dev" might have me respond "That's a Junior pay-bracket".

Freakonomics have a good episode including one of the authors of that paper - https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-pave-the-road-to-hel...

It's very hard for people to accept that this might even be the case, many people just assume that transparency is better for workers.

Agreed.

My first question to any recruiter is now always "what's the salary range for this role?" precisely because I've run into your first point earlier in my career. I'm not even particularly salary-driven (doing interesting, valuable work is far more important!) but it's the best indicator that the role is pitched at the right level for me.

From an employer's point of view, there's also the avoidance of future unpleasantness if (or, rather, when) it comes to light that some staff are paid significantly less than their peers.

Responsible employers don't need mandatory salary disclosures to do the right thing here but, sadly, not all employers are responsible so this sets a common baseline and ensures everyone plays by the same rules.

After a bitter experience early in my career I _never_ “negotiate” the salary. When that conversation comes up I ask for the range they have for the position. If they are not willing to give that, it’s a huge red flag for me. It means that either the company _doesn’t have a range_, or they’re hellbent on hiring the cheapest person for the job. In both cases I don’t want to work there anyway.

I agree that Jobs should disclose pay upfront before anyone wastes any time. However, quite often pay does not hit the level necessary for me to move from my current role. It is then up to the employer to decide if they want to make the offer better to have me move.

I hold no opinion on whether this is fair is not. Another applicant who is single, low mortgage may end up with more disposable income for less pay and subjectively be "better off" and effectively undercut me and my dependents that I support.

No system is fair. My only personal opinion is that any employee should be able to have representation in employment negotiations. That does not mean just unions, although they work for some, rather they could be a family member or a paid agent.

idk the paper seems very suspect to me.

At the very end you can see what states they’re talking about and it’s basically just New York and California (no other state enacted a law 3 years before 2019).

California’s median income increased 17% from 2016 to 2019 (the 3 years following the law).

New york income increased 17% too.

Federally it increased 5%.

I think using some random spreadsheet as your data source just isn’t a great idea. NBER should be aware the IRS will let people have access to income data for research purposes.

In general, a free market only works (even in theory, let's not even get started on the practice of it...) when _there is no assymetry of information_. Otherwise it's just fraud, one party mispricing things because the other party knows something they don't.

It's why we require public companies to disclose their finances. How could a person, even in theory, know whether to invest otherwise? It's why we require sellers of houses to deliver an independent inspection report. Etc etc.

The converse is also why HFT companies make more money than croesus.

> This applies specially to women.

At least the young women in UK are outearning (and outeducating) young men.

This should not even be a band. It should be exact number and that's it. So that anyone applying knows what they are getting into and whether at that price point it makes sense for them at all.

>In my opinion this is an acceptable price to pay to reduce pay inequality, which often is much more than 2%. It is also a good argument for joining a union.

A company has a fixed amount of money it can spend on wages. Reducing wage inequality means paying less to the best employees and more to the others, which is great if you just want to slack off but terrible if you're already one of the highest paid employees.

It is within your power as a job applicant to ask the salary range in the first phone call.

It is your fault if you allow the recruiting process to get to the third interview without at least knowing if the salary range is acceptable.

If you lack confidence in talking money, here is what you say:

"I'm looking for $120K to $130K. Before we get further into the process I want to confirm that this salary range is what would be discussed if we get to an offer."

You might add:

"$120K is my minimum but I am really hoping to find a role at the higher end - $130K is what I'm aiming for, depending on the job."

If, after saying all this, you get lowballed, then you have good reason to be very annoyed, and express calmly but clearly that you have had your minimum salary on the table since the first phone call." At that point you withdraw from the process and go look for a job with a professional company.

Advice for anyone in future.

Recruiters at big companies will be told to advertise the role within the payband (the min to max pay for that role at that pay band)

So if you see a top end number and think you’ll get that, you probably won’t it will be around the middle of the range.

At that point you go back to the recruiter and state that you would expect the top end of the range. They may agree with you but then keep in mind that may also impact your salary increase at the end of the year, meaning a smaller increase for you compared to your peers which over several years would even out and out you back in the middle of the payband like your peers. This is why the common idea is to jump roles every few years.

> Some companies in UK pay senior devs £30-35k.

That is only about 50% more than full time minimum wage!

In my experience companies in the UK have a habit of labelling devs and engineers as senior extremely early in their career

There are pros and cons of working with external recruiters, but that they will know (and be willing to disclose) the salary range is absolutely one of them, as they don't want their time wasted either.

> The current problem is, for example, people who are not confident enough to ask for more money being paid consistently less than others who are doing the same job.

As far as I know, women who ask for more money are received less positively than men! So the risk/reward calculus for women and minorities are different, since ambition actually hurts you more.

I got this once. I was equivocating, and then the guy was like, well, you're gonna give us your P60 when you join anyway, so you might as well tell me.

I was like, okay, fair enough.

I played it completely wrong though. I should have just reframed it and said, well, I paid this, but you're not competing against my current employer, you're competing against Meta, who I'm also interviewing with this week.

Candidates can just lie in Europe. There is no equivalent to The Work Number, for good reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number

A candidate can just make up whatever number they want to respond though. Most candidates I interview usually say what they want to get, not the real number.

i'd also like to ban asking for a salary expectation. it puts you in a very weak bargaining position. also my expectation depends very much on the type of work i'll be doing. i'll accept a lower salary for a good job and work environment, but i won't know that until after some interviews.

Apparently, in France, the bill is not yet ready, and given the current state of legislative process, I don't think it's going to be ever voted before the next elections.

Again, member states miss European deadlines, but since it has no practical consequences, I don't see a why they would do it differently.

Does the law, as implemented in their local member country, state that they have to state the salary range on that sort of post. There are a number of possible loopholes I can think of depending on how their regulations are written: it is an international posting, it is an informal/prospective posting, the information is available on their site (which they may or may not link to) etc.

Also “in the last year” means only ~50% of that time is covered by when enforcement started.

Some countries have yet to pass any legislation too, this happens quite a lot if you look into past EU declarations, so companies there might be using that as a loophole to act as if not yet be effectively covered (in theory they could be taken to court over it, but that is can be complicated, or at least expensive, when there is no local legislation yet, so in practise it is far less likely to happen). What action will be taken by the EU to push things forward, I'm not sure, presumably there is some sort of fine for extended non-compliance? The question of who you are advertising to and where from can get a bit complex if you are a company in a member state that has not yet enacted anything, especially when you operate out of more than one territory.

Most of the jobs in that HN thread do give a salary expectation (though a few with a very wide range, which might be outside the rules, but they were US anyway so not covered), I don't think I saw an EU one in my quick scan that did not (at least one UK one, but again those are not currently covered by such rules).

Yes, companies indeed break the law all the time. Most of the time, nobody with any power gives a fuck, and in the rare cases where they do, the consequences tend to be comfortably inside the “cost of doing business” range.

No, but people will just assume the actual pay is £20k and decide whether to apply for it on that basis.

As an employer that ruins one of the classic ruses that has been going on for a while: take someone through multiple interviews and then lowball the candidate who seems the most desperate.

If you believe in free market economics I think we can expect this to be a mess for a little while and then within a year or two it gets relatively efficient at dealing with the inefficiencies it’s targeting: younger people just not wanting to play the bullshit game where employers dangle generous starting offers, and then rug pull them to 2/3rds of that number; and to fix the gender pay gap (and the smaller reaching ethnicity pay gap).

We don't have any real firm details yet, the pre-legislative consultation only closed last week.

However that consultation said this:

>We propose to introduce this requirement [pay transparency in recruitment] through a delegated power, enabling regulations to specify exact requirements. For example, the size of a salary range.

it would make more sense to just state median salary for this position in company advertising the job, unless it's completely new position/company, where the min/max would have % limits

That’s as ridiculous as some of the job postings here with a range of $100K-300K. Without bounding the range in some way like you say, this does absolutely nothing.

Example: https://www.enduranceenergy.com/careers/2af3b48c-4e20-420a-b...

https://westkite.com/careers-software-engineer

There's multiple reasons companies don't want to publish salaries, but they almost all boil down to wanting to pay people as little as they can get away with

> My issue with mandated ranges is how to require the range to be narrow enough, without preventing the candidate from negotiating?

So few candidates so rarely have the power to negotiate above what the hidden range already is, that this is a non-issue.

We really shouldn't be deciding policy based on the outliers, besides which those people (the outliers) that can dictate a number higher than the range already set aren't hired from advertisements anyway, making the whole "but we can't do this because it would affect those who don't apply respond to job ads"...

No one is saying you cannot negotiate. It's forcing them to simply make the first offer as opposed to making an offer at all.

> but then you're not allowed to hire the perfect candidate who won't accept less than $250k

You are allowed to hire whoever you want. How could you come to your conclusion? You are allowed to hire people without making job ads at all, for that matter. You are allowed to hire 10 people for a position even if you only advertised 1. And of course you are allowed to pay more than initially advertised.

> but then you're not allowed to hire the perfect candidate who won't accept less than $250k

Says who? No one is saying you aren't allowed to go over the advertised range.

Publishing individual salaries is a stupid way to do it. Instead publish salaries for the title/level. It's far easier to justify why one employee is "senior" and another is "associate". Even more so when there's a well defined career ladder with expectations at each level.

he said that a person that asks for the range before the interview it’s in it for the money

any CEO who says that is also just in it for the money and wants to exploit employees.

what do you expect me to do? work for free?

The number you write isn't what the person is worth but what the position you are hiring for is worth.

What?? That’s ridiculous, in which country do you live? Oss there ever a situation where they wouldn’t provide the salary even on the contract?

>literally exile from country

What? And sort your grammar out, I got a headache reading it.

If you do t hear back in a week, they’re just not that into you. Silence is an answer.

Not the reality in sectors that already do this, like the civil service, but it will cap the upper limit that people can negotiate to.

Even if the minimum does apply everywhere, it fixes the inequalities gap that is causing so much economic drag in the UK: white men earn significantly more than any other demographic today for the exact same roles at the exact same companies. If everyone gets the bottom of the band, at least everyone gets the same, and that’s been an important goal for multiple UK governments of different political stripes over many decades for reasons to complex to go into here (and no, it’s not “political correctness”, it’s far more complex than that).

I also don’t think it likely means average salaries come down, I just think it means the distributions narrow.

>but if you've ever been on the other side of hiring, people just don't know.

I've spent my entire career on the other side of hiring and I've yet to encounter a single valid excuse for not knowing, and subsequently not advertising, a salary range. Before you hire, you need to know if you can afford to hire. If you know you can afford to hire, you know what you can afford to pay. It really is that simple.

Few jobs won't have a market salary. I think for exec jobs there could be an exception here. You may want to pay one person double the other and even define different role for them. But for a welder or junior dev it should be easy to define and figure out.

It's actually not hard at all, it's only a problem for companies if they fail to keep it secret. Norway has had their tax records public for ages https://www.weforum.org/stories/economic-growth/norway-can-s... and their society and economy seems fine, except they it's extremely easy for new grade to know what they can ask for.

The "complications" are basically employer and manager propaganda because the information asymmetry suits them better than people realising they are undervalued and leaving

Ranges are still somewhat useful. If they low-ball the upper bound, anyone expecting close or above the upper bound is unlikely to apply. So there is incentive to be honest about that end at least. But as an applicant (or current employee), knowing the upper bound the company is willing to pay for this position is useful information for salary negotiations (and to enable you to spend your limited time and resources in applying to well-paid jobs)

Obviously it's not perfect. But as you say, it's a difficult problem. And salary ranges are at least something

I think that it does. If you’re looking for a 120k a year job you know that you won’t have to apply.

In my experience, they will offer a bit above the advertised minimum of the range. So if I wasn't happy with £60,000, I wouldn't consider that job, and I definitely wouldn't apply on the basis that maybe they'll offer £90,000.

Of course it helps. Often if a company is not advertising their salary it's because they're either trying to lowball you or the current staff

That's fine though - As long as they're publishing the actual range that they like realistically pay someone, there's literally nothing wrong with that.

if i don't agree to the range then i don't need to bother applying. saves me lot's of time.

if i apply despite not liking the range i can still say no and ask for more, but not knowing the range in advance is unlikely to raise the chance of that happening.

The requirement is to publish either minimal salary or salary range for the position from the advertisement. If company has several positions available then specific minimal salaries should be given for each.

Then you tell Bob about how he would be much better suited for job A or B, explain how the pay is less, and if he's cool with it, directly put his CV into the pile for that job. If he's not cool with it, shake his hand and wish him a good day

Well then they'd be interviewing for a different job. I assume it's no different at any other company where they actually do include the salary range

Presumably the law will be written to account for advertised role != assigned role, but it can't account for gaming the system by never hiring exactly the advertised position.

Cancel the job posting - advertise again for A task, Bob already passed some of the stages, maybe see a few more candidates for A task and boom you are in business.

The replies are all about workarounds for the law.

So what is the point of the law, if there are all these workarounds?

I suspect that kind of bait and switch will become the norm.

Nothing says you can't negotiate, does it?

How is this taxing companies? They already have the data.

Unlike the other side (tm) ...

Mandatory Gender Pay Gap Reporting (Conservative Party 2017)

Pay Transparency Pilot (Conservative Party 2022) - (Participating employers only) list salary ranges on all job adverts and stop asking applicants for their salary history during recruitment

You're really clutching at straws to spin this pro-employee move into some way to claim that Labour are bad