My company has multiple groups in different states including Colorado, and in anticipation of needing to post salary ranges for our open positions in Colorado, my group (with no positions in Colorado) preemptively bumped up everyone’s salaries to the midpoint of their pay bands to avoid anyone becoming frustrated if they learned they were in the bottom half. Despite the preemptive adjustments, a colleague of mine became angry and quit when they found out their salary wasn’t at the very top of their position’s pay range.
So pay transparency laws are having a big impact—not only in the obvious cases of candidates negotiating salaries in the states that passed the pay transparency laws, but also for average employees in other states who didn’t even need to do anything except learn how much their labor was worth.
If you’re mad at anyone, walk down to city hall and tell them to build more housing.
Uhh, surely I'm not the only one seeing the obvious flaw here, right? Is the inevitable outcome here that pay bands will now cover a range where nobody is actually in the lower half, ever? That lower half of the range will just be there as a sort of psychological buffer?
Every place I’ve worked for the past 10 years has had salary bands, and I’ve always been paid far more than the highest band offered. Because I’ve never been an employee, it’s simply never applied to me. I don’t get counted in the diversity statistics either, which is also great.
I guess transparency regulations take the feeling of pressure off those who aren’t competent negotiators, but if the goal is to decrease inequalities, they won’t accomplish that.
Such an elegant implementation of the 'no assholes' policy.
The only people who were upset were those who found out some people were way over the new pay band and generated a bit of gossip over how those people were way overpaid for the quality of their work
In other news, Microsoft to comply with a new law.
Microsoft is under no obligation to comply with Washington law outside Washington. That's what they're doing here.
[1] https://www.dwt.com/blogs/employment-labor-and-benefits/2022...
They want to streamline the job posting portion of HR. They don't want to have to worry about whether or not they have to post the salary range, so they just do what the most demanding law they deal with requires.
Now they only really have to deal with areas that have laws that contradict with laws in other areas. Then you'd default to the law that benefits you the most and deal with the contradictory areas explicitly. Since you have to do the work anyway.
For example, let's pretend that California had a really stupid law that forbid salary ranges from being posted on job listings. Now Microsoft has to be careful about how and where they post jobs. And since it's beneficial for them to hide the information, they'd likely only post the salary ranges where they were required to.
But absent that, don't do work you don't have to do.
In more concrete terms, I do think there are a fair amount of bots/paid-commenters on HN who push for anti-progressive agenda which helps maintain status quo.
Many commenters here are either currently on the employer side of a salary negotiation, or imagine that they will be some day.
It's just selfishness, not collective action.
This should be, by far, the top voted comment. I don't think MSFT sharing salary ranges is consequential in any way.
If more start to do it, it becomes an arms race. If a company is loading the compensation in other ways and coming in light on salary then their job posting becomes much less compelling for job seekers. So they have a choice: disclose the other compensation (in order to compete with the salary numbers of the other companies) or adjust their compensation to be heavier on salary so their numbers are in line with others.
Essentially this will push salaries up to match the massive inflation we've seen recently. Likely this will result in a homeostasis at some future point.
EDIT: just found out HackerNews is stripping out unicode emoji characters from comments.
I'm at a point where if a recruiter messages me "about an exciting opportunity" without any salary information, he/she will not get a response.
While there are some jobs that maybe I would consider a pay cut for, I generally want to make more money because that allows me to invest more so I can be free one day.
Bob contributes 1. I contribute 1.25. Units don't matter, I contribute 25% more.
It used to be maybe the salary band is $100k to $130k. Bob gets $100k. I get $125k. My employer gets a total value of 2.25 for $225k.
Now my employer has to disclose salaries and has 2 options:
1) Don't make out salaries the same, Bob quits, now the employer has only 1.25 when they need 2.25 and have to go re-hire ($50k or more in a lot of times).
2) Make our salaries the same, so now Bob also gets $125k and employer pays $250k for 2.25. This is what will happen in the short term and what attracts people, but in the long term what will happen is
3) Make our salaries the same but slow raises so gradually they go to the inflation indexed amount of about the average, so $112.5k more or less. Now employer still pays $225k for 2.25. But now I am subsidizing Bob the less productive worker for $12.5k every year.
A lot like unions, making things more uniform often comes at some expense to the top performers. I always sit near that top so I say no this is stupid and I hate it. I don't give a shit what Bob is paid and I give even less if it costs me money for him to get more.
1c) Bob gets annoyed and tries to leave, but all the offers aren't really better.
I'm not sure if this even works for devs as there is so many opportunities.
The reaction you'll get is hilarious in some cases.
I've been in the employer position (as a hiring manager) and in the Employee position. I know how much I am worth (or what I want to be worth), so I don't really care about playing games and haggling. I'ts ok, my value might become lower in a recession, or when trying to get into new verticals. When that happens, I'll adjust my expectations.
I am not sure I fully see how this is a problem, any minimum wage job says pay range (or a specific rate), any job for dish washers or line cooks say $18 a hour or what not, a tech job with a six figure salary should at least say a range, since it varies based on skill and department.
I haven't read a single response that I agree with as to why this is a negative? Can someone provide some insight in to why people seem to be against this? Also the silly comments about well $5 to $5 million is a range are just silly. They are going to provide a range like $42k to $55k. Because it is based on skill to some degree (7 years in the industry should pay more you more than 2).
For example, let's say a software job is listed with a range of $200k to $250k comp. And you want more than that. But will the employer be willing, or allowed, to negotiate with you an amount over $250k? After all, the job posting says $250k is the top of the range. Maybe it would be illegal to pay you more! But at a company that does not list salary ranges, maybe there is more wiggle room.
Transparency is good for people who are average at their jobs and get average pay. For other people, the benefits are unclear.
Why? Its like prop 65 cancer warnings being on 100% of the products and buildings in CA. Its just a thing you do so as to avoid liability. Now, we have these useless warnings pasted everywhere that have no meaning beyond compliance. Is CA better off with these warnings? I can't imagine so. Will companies post very broad salary ranges? With certainty, whats the downside? Will the ranges correspond to reality? Probably not. Are we better off forcing companies to do this? I'm not sure.
Regulations are an integral part of a free society.
"An employer cannot post a $70,000-$100,000 range for a junior accountant position just because it pays senior accountants at the high end of that range. But it can post $70,000-$100,000 for an accountant if it does not limit the posting to junior or senior accountants, and genuinely might offer as low as $70,000 for a junior accountant, or as much as $100,000 for a senior one."
https://cdle.colorado.gov/equalpaytransparency https://cdle.colorado.gov/sites/cdle/files/INFO%20%239_%20Eq...
Without this broad range, someone new to the industry, like a college grad, has no idea what the low range is. This at least prevents those people from getting lowballed and finding out later.
I’ve seen smart techies who are bad or oblivious to money subjects get way under paid, only to learn later, huge discrepancies in pay with the same or lower grade position due to other factors like gender, race, etc.
Everyone is better served by accurate ranges, it avoids both sides wasting time because of mismatched expectations.
Will someone applyling know if they are a level 4 or a level 7 dev? How?
On the other hand, some folks will be happy about that bottom since it will be either more than they expected or more than they are making now.
Source: my company does recruitment advertising for many other companies, and including salary is something we coach our customers to do.
For instance, whereas before when salaries weren't explicit, a weaker candidate with some good qualities who was on the bubble for consideration might be able to get a job if the salary was more favorable than the company was initially planning. With explicit salary ranges, if the candidate isn't deemed good enough to warrant hitting that predefined range, they might be unemployable in that field and not gain the experience needed to progress. In the past, a weaker candidate might have been able to go for a lesser salary range, get the job and gain more experience, and maybe make it up down the line. Maybe that's no longer a path forward for a lot of people on the bubble.
And stronger candidates who are perfect fits and world-class performers might be lost for a lot of companies because the company has the excuse of a pre-defined salary range. So maybe firms miss out on some genius, perfect fits, because the bean counters can't be bothered to assess everybody's merits individually.
This is why we have different types of skill levels. If you can't hire the person as a medior but you have a junior position open, surely you can tell them with the associated benefits. If its a problem, surely you can justify given the requirements.
Hiding information only to waste people's time upfront isn't helpful when society expects job searching to a part-time job on the side of another job. Maybe this is too aggressive a measure, but getting "competitive" as an answer sure isn't helpful either.
>And stronger candidates who are perfect fits and world-class performers might be lost for a lot of companies because the company has the excuse of a pre-defined salary range.
I doubt you're going to pass a great candidate because they exceed your mentioned range when internal budget can still be stretched. At worst you could argue the high earners aren't going to pick your job because your range is too low, which can be solved by simply adjusting your range. If budget can't be stretched, odds are you weren't going to hire them anyway.
There are potential solutions. There are so many job levels at big companies like Microsoft. A candidate who is weaker could interview for software engineer 3 (made up title for example) and be offered a software engineer 2 position with the understanding that the company sees potential, but wants to start the person at what they see as an appropriate level.
The high performing candidate may ignore a job listing for a position which doesn't have a high enough top end to the range, but perhaps if they are being recruited rather than approaching the company, the recruiter could recognize the value of the candidate and find a higher role which would have a more competitive salary range.
Some companies can only hire specific advertised roles, but in many cases they advertise for one role/level and end up hiring candidates for others. Big companies could also have open reqs for more levels than they think they need, and then slot the candidates in to the level which makes sense.
Another approach they could take is to make the published salary ranges more broad than the are in practice. Hotels in many places have to publish the room rate, but typically this is an insanely high number which only happens when there's a special event or something.
Because that is pretty much what happens now, except now the applicant doesn't know the range.
The only thing that can happen with this is that people who think they're worth outside the range won't apply. And this isn't that much of a problem.
If the employer finds they aren't getting the quality of applicant they desire, they have an option: increase or change the range.
There is a lot of information asymmetry in hiring and most of it benefits employers.
At some places I've worked, level was determined after the decision to hire. A position would be open to levels I, II, & III, and a panel of people would determine which level they felt the candidate would come it at.
Including salary could let applicants avoid underpaying companies before they embark on a lengthy application process, which is beneficial, but don't companies already have strong incentives not to exploit people in this way since they'll only leave shortly afterward and those onboarding costs would be false economy.
It tries to solve pay equity problems. https://hr.uw.edu/comp/pay-equity/salary-setting-guidance/
The kicker is "similarly employed". I've seen people with the same job title earn a differential of 3x, but that's simply because one negotiated better and was more economically valuable (had about 1.5 more decades' experience) than the other, yet they had the same job title. I guess we could argue to control for years' experience, but I've seen people who were better at a job after 6 months than those in the same job were after 10 years. There are even jobs where people get worse over time, which isn't intuitive but easy to find examples (e.g. you forget documentation if life gets busy for a year or two, and you're less effective because of that).
I suspect "similarly employed" is indefinable in any realistic sense. I'm not against trying, just very sober about the probability of crafting a policy that outperforms the imperfect but free-ish market.
What? I'm going to go through some bullshit interview process that includes some esoteric algorithm problem that has nothing to do with the actual position in question and, even if it did, I could "npm install"/google my way out of only to find out later on that the job pays the same (or less) than what I make right now?
That's just a waste of everyone's time.
I did a Codility test, followed by four interviews with four US based teams.
I got an offer which is 5 to 6 times what they pay in US.
I live in a country in Eastern Europe, and prices are a bit lower. I would have expected a lower offer, but not that much lower. It was less than I already make so I had to wish them good luck in finding another person and was feeling sorry that I lost so much time in the interviewing process and also invested a lot of energy.
What we need is just a certificate that proves competency, so we can remove all these exams, quizzes and foolishness. Typically, that was a computer science degree, but there wouldn't be enough degree holders to fill all the roles, and wages would skyrocket. So some sort of interview meatgrinder it is I suppose.
As a result of all this, I wouldn't do this career path over again, and won't be recommending it to my kids. Companies will have to reap the rewards for their downward pressure on wages by going to India. They will continue to have to hire there for the next 20 to 100 years. And once the Americans are out of the industry, I think the Indians won't always take things lying down like we do in the US. I suspect they'll unionize and make life hell for these corporations. I hope the Indians become insanely wealthy from it, and US corporations will deserve it.
E.g. What if Microsoft has a job opening with a range of $110k - $170k, and the candidate they selected used to make $180k and would like $200k? Will Microsoft offer him or her the 200k they seek or offer 170k and lose their candidate?
If salary ranges can be bypassed, then they are not really useful, and if they can't, by law, companies could skirt the law by offering higher bonuses and more stock, or else lose on talent. Or the company could close the job opening, and create a new posting with an updated range for the sole purpose of being legally able to hire their candidate. Which would still invalidate the spirit of the law.
I'm not sure these salary transparency laws are good for workers or companies alike.
If I was reviewing job descriptions, and the max of the posted range is less than my current salary, I'm probably not going to apply.
Sure they are. With common sense and fines for clear ongoing breaches it will do as planned.
There are always exceptions so if occasionally a salary is bypassed to match the candidate, higher or lower this is going to happen and be reasonable.
If 30%+ of candidates get paid less than the advertised role there is a clear case of bait and switch for authorities to show a court type deal.
I feel you need to approach this from altitude rather than individual cases.
They can also negotiate seniority/level. So if they really wanted that person, and they were originally planning on hiring as a Level N Engineer, they could negotiate to hire at a Level N+1 engineer that has the desired salary.
As a result, some companies have started explicitly excluding CO from their job postings. I'm not a lawyer, but I think there's probably latent lawsuits there. Especially if they employ anyone in CO already.
I hope not. We've got states trying to regulate things like abortion rights across state lines, too. I prefer states not have the same reach as the federal government, because some of them are especially crazy.
As with all negotiations, once you've stated a number you've put a lower (or upper, depending on the side you're on) bound.
As you mention, if they really wanted to be transparent, it would be global, but I doubt they want to expose those differences.
Salary is almost always in a tight range at Microsoft at a given level -- but external candidates can get anywhere from peanuts (a so called "tier 1" offer) to jumbo stock allocations (a so called "tier 3" offer).
edit: not sure why the downvotes. Making information public increases market efficiencies, but market efficiencies don't always transfer to the workers. See: the last 30 years.
Be careful what you wish for.
Also, such large pay bands will raise eyebrows, as they are indicative of discrimination. Why such wildly different wages for the same role?
Let’s consider the range of compensation for the “CEO” role.
