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Comment by breakpointalpha | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this comment many times before, in Colorado and more recently in New York City.

Laws can be passed to make this painful for companies.

Department of Labor, either at the state or federal level, can enforce companies trying to play a game with their numbers.

Also the collective pressure of the market would have a mitigating effect. Game theory comes to mind, would you apply to a job listing like that? Would you apply if every other job listing has a more "honest" range posted, or would you spend your time applying to companies that are cooperating with the state government?

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Yep, I would 100% look at a company trying to skirt a true range like that and think "absolutely no way I want to work there."

Same here. In business you learn to stay away from price sensitive people (cheap asses) real quick. It signals many bad things. They are going to be difficult to please. Perhaps litigious. They probably feel entitled and are willing to exploit. Totally unprofessional. Perhaps the business is on the rocks. In any case, they are oblivious to the signal they are sending...which is a clear indicator that the above mentioned possibilities are more likely.

Agreed, the example I gave was absurd, but finding a threshold will be interesting. What's _not_ absurd? $50K? $75K?

Even the tighter bound of $75k-$250k is not a job posting where you will get a good quality applicant pool. It reads as "this job is worth $75k, but if you really impress the interviewer, you could earn $250k." You will get a lot of people currently earning $60k in your applicant pool, which might be fine if you think the job is really worth $80k.

But if you think it's worth (say) $200k, you will not get a good view into the labor pool at that level because your posting looks like you don't value the job at $200k, so $200k-worthy applicants will not apply.

Either way, you will get too many applicants who are not a fit and take longer to fill the opening. Plus, your firm will build a reputation for dishonesty.

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