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Comment by willmadden | Hacker News Reader

That will never happen, unless some overreaching government makes it mandatory (e.g. CO). There are at least three reasons:

1) A candidate's expectation for salary might be lower than the advertised range, but if they see the range, they'll expect more money.

2) The company might be able to convince a good candidate to accept a salary below their expectations if they can sell the company and culture. These candidates won't apply if they see a range below their expectations.

3) It makes the company's salary ranges public, which little startups will use to create comparison websites, driving even more candidates away from smaller companies to the tech giants and monopolies who can afford to pay above market in order to kill their competition.

Overall, I'ld say it would be convenient at first, but a horrible idea in the long run if it's made mandatory. It should be up to individual businesses.

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1) So what? In your example, the candidate doesn't know what the fair market salary is (precisely because these data aren't transparent now), but once they're hired and they find out, they'll instantly become unhappy and more likely to move. "they'll expect more money" == "employer won't be able to screw the employee over".

2) Oh these poor poor companies who won't be able to screw their employees out of their fair compensation.

3) Do you mean the startups that get crazy stupid valuations? Or those startups who pay peanuts and have little benefits? People already know the risk they're taking with the latter, and the former can afford to pay competitive salaries or sell the other benefits harder.

No, it should not be up to individual businesses. You are clearly comfortable with exploiting people for the benefit of the business.

If your business can't afford to pay for top talent, then perhaps it's ok if it doesn't get the top talent. Businesses should purchase what they can pay for, just like we do when we go to the store.

> A candidate's expectation for salary might be lower than the advertised range, but if they see the range, they'll expect more money.

A client expected price for a product might be higher than the advertised price, but if they see the price, they'll pay less.

I do not say this is a good idea, but I do not think it is obvious that this particular issue is a reason for it to fail. This is how selling products work so, why wouldn't it work for the job market?

In fact, in enterprise sales, the product price is usually hidden behind a phone call step, for precisely the reason that it enables customer segmentation and price discrimination. People complain about this, but it’s not going away, as it materially benefits the business.

It doesn't aid them that much, especially for new customers. People still shop around - you're just making it more of a hassle for them

Shopping around addresses only a small part of the purpose of “call us” pricing. It’s not so much about hiding the price of a vendor relative to the competition, as it is about hiding the price offered to one customer relative to other customers. All vendors are incentivized to price discriminate, the better they can do so the better they will do in the marketplace. Importantly, there’s a set of skills and tactics a salesperson will bring to that call to strike a deal that leaves the least amount of money on the table. Eg, a good salesperson will listen to the customer’s needs and tell a compelling story tailored to those needs justifying the product’s price (not unlike a recruiter trying to close a candidate at a salary lower in the range, by talking up other ways the opportunity is a great fit for them).

> Overall, I'ld say it would be convenient at first, but a horrible idea in the long run if it's made mandatory. It should be up to individual businesses.

You start off saying it will never happen because unless it's mandatory. And you're probably right about that. That's why it should be mandatory.

Point 1 sounds like a great issue. People getting paid more sounds good.

Point 3 just means small companies will have to have some explicit additions to salary (profit sharing for established companies, more equity for smaller ones).

I don't know how to respond to your second point. What does "sell the company and culture" even mean? It's doing a mission you would accept a paycut to be at? Great, that's not hurt at all. It's a company with a lot of future growth? Great, spell out how (via equity or other ways) I participate in that growth. It's a fun place to work?

I do agree we would want some more compensation information than just a dollar sign. You offer free laundry and hanggliding on your lunch break?

I don't know, maybe things are different in the UK but I'd say that about 50% of the job ads I see have a salary range.

Is there any point in applying for a job without a good idea that they can match your salary expectations?

Everyone who is interested in earning the most money (without the startup gamble) is already driven toward the top tech companies. Everyone in tech already knows (at least roughly) which companies are in a market apart from the rest.

You can list benefits alongside salary to try and make up for anything you want, but mandatory salary postings won't change anything except waste fewer people's time on interviews for offers they won't accept and make people working for too little money aware of the fact.

I disagree that it’s overreaching. It improves the power dynamic and information asymmetry between employer and candidate/employee.

Mitigating these is the whole point. We should be making it harder for companies to underpay people.

To your 3rd point:

First off, the bigger tech companies are already known for having much higher salaries/compensation, hence the whole FAANG goal that many applicants aim for.

Generally, people have an incentive to pick a startup vs a big tech company for several reasons, such as preferring the startup work environment, the fact that their equity has the potential to grow in value much faster than equity at an established tech company, etc.

On top of all that, even with big tech paying the biggest salaries and attracting talent, they still have a finite number of positions. All the applicants who aren't FAANG level will go to work for those other companies that don't pay as high.

Adding transparency to job posting salaries is a net benefit.

>It makes the company's salary ranges public, which little startups will use to create comparison websites, driving even more candidates away from smaller companies to the tech giants and monopolies who can afford to pay above market in order to kill their competition.

This may not always be the case. If startup funding sources know that salaries are more transparent and there's more competition, they know they need to offer more to the companies to be able to hire the talent to actually ship. I personally have no qualms about increasing funding amounts that go directly into developers' pockets.

If a number of large companies are paying that salary that's not "above market" that is the market.

4) You will lose out on candidates who are disappointed by the upper bound. Under normal circumstances, there might have been room for negotiation, but once an upper bound is set, that goes out the window.

Then a company should raise their upper bound to lower the risk of that happening.

Then you're creating expectations and setting people up for disappointment. This all seems like tricky business.

You can have the opposite problem with no information — If I see a job advertised without a salary range I presume the upper bound is lower than my expectations & don't apply.

Even if a company would happily hire me & pay more than I'd expect, I haven't even gone into their funnel at all.

It already partially happened in California where job interviewees are required to get salary ranges.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/California_Equal_Pay_Act.htm

“Pursuant to Labor Code section 432.3, upon reasonable request, an employer shall provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment. Recent amendments define a reasonable request as one made after an applicant has completed an initial interview with the employer.”

Most job offers I see have a maximum salary listed and most of the time is not clear what that depends. I’ve even once had it that it is the maximum for the role and that you need to “grow” into it....

None of your points seem like a negative for potential candidates. Is your argument that under paying devs is a requirement so startups can be competitive so that innovation happens?

So business has much more power that us employees have why are you taking their side here?

Who cares what's good for the companies; I care about what's good for labor.

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