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Comment by bananarchist | Hacker News Reader

If they share a salary range, and then hire a candidate for a salary outside that range, does that expose the business to a lawsuit?

Is there any concern about the fact that posting a salary range (ie, setting the initial reference point for negotiations) weakens the candidate's bargaining power?

I personally expect (or at least hope) that these measures finally end the goldrush and bring tech salaries down to reasonable levels. What kind of lifestyle must one lead to worry if a developer job is _remotely_ within their range?

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> If they share a salary range, and then hire a candidate for a salary outside that range, does that expose the business to a lawsuit?

In the context of HN, the problem is that as soon as you even have to think about this question it's a non-starter for a lot of posters.

Once you have to get the go-ahead from legal and HR just to share job listings, a lot of people are going to stop. Then it's just the biggest companies and/or professional recruiters with the time and resources to push the posts through, which isn't really what I want out of that thread.

I posted this elsewhere in this thread but it applies here as well: The way the Colorado law is written there is nothing wrong with posting what you think the salary range is and then actually hiring someone outside of that range _if you can justify it_. Someone didn't meet a required skill in the posting, feel free to offer them less. Someone is severely overqualified for the position you posted but you still want them, feel free to pay them more.

It also only applies to companies with at least one employee in Colorado.

Who do I have to justify it to? What makes said entity qualified and competent to evaluate my justification? What criteria will be used to determine if my justification is valid?

Exactly, Colorado should have kept the law nice and clean. As long as the job offer is above the minimum pay advertised, then the employer has nothing to worry about. The market would have sorted out the rest (forcing employer to list "appropriate" salary ranges). If it did not force employers to list appropriate salary ranges, then that is a sign to not sell that type of labor.

That or refuse to offer a candidate the max in the range and invite all sorts of speculation as to why.

Ultimately it's just going to end up with salary tables that are based on objective and easily defensible metrics. Which is fine too, the world will keep spinning.

For "Show HN"? I sure hope not, this website has no power to create laws O.o.

If you're asking about Washington, Colorado or the EU; well, those laws will probably have specific details about that in each of their implementations and isn't the topic of this thread. There was a topic on this on HN yesterday, though.

> Is there any concern about the fact that posting a salary range (ie, setting the initial reference point for negotiations) weakens the candidate's bargaining power?

No, more information only makes the candidates bargaining position stronger.

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