alt Hacker NewsI have always felt that job ads should include salary information. The main reason is not to waste anyone's time. Often a narrow salary range or a clear link between requirements and salary are much more informative than a job description. I have experienced to apply to a job opening and go through one or more interviews only to find out that the company is actually hiring for a more junior position than the ad copy implied.
A second reason is to avoid discrimination. Applicants that feel disadvantaged, even if they are actually qualified, may hesitate to negotiate for a higher salary in the same way that a other applicants would. The consequence is that they start with a lower salary. This applies specially to women. Plenty of research shows that they are less likely to negotiate their salary.
Research[1] suggests that pay transparency leads to lower average salaries because employers avoid paying higher wages to any one employee to avoid costly negotiations with others. The effect is small, around 2%, and it disappears with increasing degree of unionization. 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.
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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.
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 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.
>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.
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.