But also it's because "compensation" is far more than "salary" - which seems to be what this question is really about.
They say that the first to say a number is at the disadvantage. Yet nontransparency can be even worse in compensation negotiation.
>"salary is only a small portion of compensation. Let’s say you and I both make $5000 a month ($60000 a year – make the math easy). But you have 2 weeks of vacation, and I have 4. But I took the lower-deductible insurance option, and you took the higher. Which one of us is bringing home more per month? Who cares! My individual desires and needs are, apparently, being met on my package, and yours are with yours." (https://antipaucity.com/2013/05/21/publicizing-compensation-...)
I've written about this a few times on my blog and on Quora.
In short, "your" $90k and "my" $80k are different for more than just the money. Maybe I have more vacation, or better 401(k) contributions, or any of a number of other factors.
It would be great if employers would list their vectors of compensation in their first offer to you (https://antipaucity.com/2013/03/25/what-to-offer-to-be-the-b...) - but what I get offered, and what you get offered for the same position will probably be different: our experience is different, so our value to the company will be different.
Of course if your company's tech team lives for free in a seaside expat compound, or a ski-in/ski-out chalet, then definitely lead with that.
I just hate the conversation that always ensues with the recruiter; after refusing to name a number, "but we have great benefits, and options! Options!" Options that I am going to value at $0, recruiter. Especially when I haven't had 6 months of experience at your company yet to really see how things internal tick — or don't.
The only consideration is, how much rent can I pay? How nice of a place can I get, for how much commute time?
And then maybe, does this salary-location pair give me any hope of owning a condo similar to that apartment, and if so, how many years will it take to save?
I've never thought about compensation in any terms other than housing, because it seems like every tech job would meet all of my needs except (maybe) housing.
This might be less than they are getting at the moment for the same job, leading to demands for increased pay.
On a similar note, kudos to employers who list a salary range specially in the whoishiring posts. I always upvote every post that lists a salary range.
been there before... wasn't happy
One interview I had people adding on expectations and requirements during the interview. She talked about how they were looking for someone who knew big data in a mobile job, which is not something normally expected. And that salary is lower for people who don't meet those expectations.
ex: https://angel.co/stripe/jobs
1) Engineer San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
2) Engineering Manager San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
3) Security Engineer San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
4) iOS Engineer San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
5) Frontend Engineer San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
6) Site Reliability Engineer San Francisco · Full Time · $100K – $180K · 0.0% – 1.0%
That said, public-sector positions often do state ranges (In the USA, anyway).
It's the companies job to post how much are they willing to pay in today's values.
Developers are not commodities, being a good developer requires study and hard work to keep up to date. Good developers should be rewarded for that.
I can't even remember the wasted time me and companies did only to halt all negotiations because of the salary range or other details that could've been disclosed right form the start.
For example, the federal wage schedule and pay tables: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
Salaries of every public California employee: http://transparentcalifornia.com/
edit: forgot to preface it with "public employees"
As a job seeker, even if you do click through to see the job, what are you thinking you'll be able to get? In my case, I look only at the higher range, and if it's anywhere close to what I desire or expect, only then I click it. I completely ignore the lower range.
By that notion, isn't such a large range meaningless? Shouldn't the salary transparency be represented as just 1 number with a +/- %age and a note on what will allow for a + and what will account for a -.
Ex: For the 2 examples - 100K +/- 15% based on experience, 115K +/- 15% based on skillsets.
1 - The high number is the only thing many candidates hear, which can lead to lost deals even when the offer is fair. Tell a candidate the range is 110 - 130K. Even if the candidate is "worth" 110K, an offer at 110 feels like a slight to him/her, as if he's left money on the table.
If there had been no range given in this case, the candidate might not have had the negative emotional response to the offer.
2 - There isn't a range because the company would be willing to accept a range of candidates, and a range of salary would not be useful. If you're willing to consider 2-7 years of experience, it's not all that useful to list 60-120K as a salary range.
Most of my clients never gave me a range.
Curious.
1) Approximately what %age of your clients gave you salary info?
2) In cases where they provided salary info, was it a range, or a fixed number, or a fixed number with "Negotiable" or something else?
Your answer will help me with my niche job board.
Thanks in advance!
Part of the reason I didn't get ranges was probably because my clients trusted that I knew the market, so if candidates were priced appropriately they were typically open to seeing them. I imagine junior recruiters probably got ranges from companies (and perhaps even the same companies I worked with) more than I did. I could be wrong.
Good luck with your venture, feel free to reach out directly.
This depends on a few things, but the main points here are that:
1 - The company is willing to hire a range of skill levels and qualifications for this position, and the compensation will vary depending on the actual qualifications of the candidate.
The company might set out looking for say, a generalist senior engineer, but end up interviewing a machine learning expert. Alternatively, the company posts a listing for a senior engineer but end up deciding that they need someone more junior.
In both cases stating a compensation range upfront will cause difficulties - the domain expert is dissuaded from applying because the range seems low, and the junior has an acrimonious negotiation because the stated range is above what they are being offered.
There is always a lot of uncertainty when companies set out to hire, and companies very often end up hiring someone different than the initial job posting's description.
This is the nice-sounding and reasonable-sounding reason, here's the less-nice reason that is also true:
2 - Tech employees suck at negotiating. For two people of equal skill, one may accept a quarter the compensation of another - this is not an exaggeration. I've seen engineers making $70k a year while their peer at the same employer makes $250k, without a significant ability gap.
The company doesn't want to pay someone more than they have to, so in a market where a large percentage of employees have no idea how to negotiate, obfuscation around compensation is an advantage to the company.
This is true even on HN - every time compensation/salary threads come up people continually are shocked that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of generalist senior engineers making $300k+ at major companies all over the industry.
Not true in all cases. In fact many big corporations and tech firms have specific roles slotted into specific tier, and each tier / job title has a very specific salary range. I once tried to negotiate my base at an IT shop (IT Division of Large Bank) and was shown an HR document that had various tiers and the low and high end of salary ranges. I thought I was getting stifled, but found out it was common knowledge within the company and was posted on the intranet (as I later discovered once I joined the company).
So when these corps put out a job listing, their HR and Hiring manager knows well ahead of time what is the max they are willing to pay as base salary (excluding other "benefits", 401K match etc which is standard across the board, with little difference again based on your tier / title) and in 9 out of 10 cases, they won't budge from that range.
Just that most such corps also go through recruiters and middle-men to do the hiring and these middle-men mostly withold the information and not tell you till the very end, when, like someone else has mentioned here, the candidate has invested a lot of time and efforts in the process and will likely accept a base salary at the lower end of the said salary range for the job title / tier.
Even these cases are highly variable, because companies often end up hiring someone into a different role or tier than the specific job they applied to.
You applied to a Tier 5 job with Team A, but upon interviewing they decide your skillset is that of a Tier 4, and Team B has an opening for a Tier 4. A premature statement of salary range here will simply compromise your ability to close the candidate, who is expecting Tier 5 pay.
Heck, even singular job reqs frequently change levels depending on interview. You post a job for a Tier 5, but the person interviewing winds up assessed at Tier 6 - the hiring manager does some maneuvering to raise the tier of the position to close the deal. This happens daily.
The compensation is always negotiable. Wrapping compensation around strict tiers is a common practice in BigCo, yes, but that doesn't stop people from negotiating. Instead of "I need $150k", it's now "I need this position to be a Tier 5".
Companies may claim that their postings are tier-locked, but that is practically never actually the case.
Your response should be something like:
"I'm not comfortable/allowed/whatever-excuse-adjective-you-want with/to disclosing my salary, but I want to make $x. Is this sensible?"
(Disclosing your salary gives the recruiter implicit permission to low ball you.)
If they say no, you walk.
If they say yes and then rescind at the offer stage, you DEFINITELY walk. They'll likely come back to negotiate at that point because letting a candidate with an offer walk is money left on the table for that recruiter.
From my experience a lot of companies will agree to the desired range but later still make a much lower offer. I have made it a rule to walk but it's still a lot of wasted time.
An employer will have a compensation range in place before hiring. Before even thinking about it (Projects rather are x-ed or delayed into next year than exceeding that range).
Its tempting to have by chance some applicants demanding even less. Lowered pay expectations out of lack of knowledge are a main driver for non-disclosure.
Therefore it may be helpful to realize a moral compass among developers: not just don't apply there, but make it publicly shameful to even try to lure other developers into it.
But: Hiring is time consuming. And a process which you want to pass smoothly. And even more important: finishing it. Upfront transparency takes away the upper hand you may need when things get out of hand. Like when choice#1 applicant lied about how he'd love to work at your company and walks off in the middle of your process.
If an employer names a range, all applicants would be demoralized if they don't reach its upper end. Probably expecting to reach that pay-grade sooner or later, somewhere else if need be.
Also applicants are different in skill level and almost always applicants will either exceed or undershoot in certain job qualifications. Qualifications that are prioritized. Your applicants are mixed bags, your job offering is. Having the ability to ponder while not aggravating them makes intransparency reasonable.
As a compromise: Why just not make the lower end of that range public?
I don't know how much I believe this. It sounds like common-sense, but when I think about it and my own experiences this has not been the case. When last interviewing for a job, I took the lowest pay of the three offers I had. Company is small and cash-strapped and I happily signed on knowing I'm "worth more."
Further, they were looking for a more experienced dev than I, but they were lucky to afford me. Had they said, we have 10k more we were prepared to offer someone more experienced but you are not at that level. I can't see my disposition changing towards the company one iota.
Transparency makes me trust a company more, not less. I don't think I would feel more demoralized by a company for being honest with me. Additionally, how many people have walked away from salary negotiations wondering if they should have pushed for more?
On average I can't see changing the way this works being anymore demoralizing for the employee. In fact I think (on average) it would be less demoralizing and instill greater loyalty and good-will in employees.
If an employer names a range, many applicants would be demoralized if they don't reach its upper end.
- if the ranges honestly reflect how high the company is willing to go, existing employees making well short of the tops of those ranges are likely to become disgruntled when they realize some of their co-workers are making significantly more for the same work.
- if the the ranges are toned-down so as to not enflame the current employees, they are likely to be scoffed at by golden-handcuffed candidates from other A-list companies.
I practically canceled the interview on reading these reviews. I went to the interview to probe them on salary, which they brushed off and said there were two more stages of interview. This seems like a lot of hassle just to get to a stage where I'd possibly turn it down, so I goofed around in the interview to get rejected.
A few years later, this company publishes salary range on job posts.
They paid above average salaries for the country, great purchasing power. But most of their hires were Europeans, who got comparatively very low salaries. Basically they just screwed themselves by obscuring the salary, because they weren't meeting expectations for some people, even though they were already paying above expectations for others.
I created http://www.ceilingbuster.com/ to try to remedy this, but I never wrote a script to automatically scrape listings and thus it hasn't been updated in months
Yes I know a lot of non scummy recruiters. I only deal with local recruiters and I form relationships with them before I'm actively looking.
- companies like a good discount and, on the whole, engineers are terrible negotiators,
- you'll get WAY more shittier candidates looking for that green, and
- Compensation != salary, so $200k comp + equity can mean a lot of things (for example)
Personally, I like playing salary poker. You can win big if you aren't afraid of walking or awkward situations.