First example I’ve seen of why not to do this, that I have considered a legitimate point. Thanks!
Big companies posting official job listings can make sure they comply with all of the relevant laws simply because they have HR and legal teams to do all of the legwork.
If you're a startup who really just wants a wide range of enthusiastic candidates to apply, you either:
1) Don't participate at all, lest you accidentally violate the rules or, worse, the law.
2) Post a huge range of salaries (This position pays $80K to $500K) so you don't exclude any candidates, but then your risk angering the readers.
3) Break every listing into multiple positions with different salary bands (Software Engineer I: $100K - $150K, Software Engineer II: $150K - $200K, Software Engineer III: $200K - $300K and so on). This barely provides any more signal to the reader, but it complies with the rules and laws.
Personally, I'd be most afraid of making it complicated enough that HR has to get involved. I'd rather allow engineers to post up generic invitations to apply to a company, not change the rules to require highly specific job postings or nothing.
Hiring managers / business owners simply do not want sellers of labor to know the minimum they are willing to pay. Naming the minimum is a loss of negotiating position for the purchaser of labor, and that is why employers do not like the idea.
Employers also do not like the idea of having to increase their current employees' pay if market prices are rising. I know, because I have benefited greatly from paying different people different amounts simply because they do not know what I am willing to offer other employees.
Right! Which is completely useless and would just clutter the thread.
The proof is employers excluding Colorado residents from their job listings.
If buyers of labor were not going to lose anything by putting $50k/year to $1B/year, then they would be doing just that. But they correctly calculate that they would lose big time if existing employees are easily able to find out what the real time minimum market prices for labor are.
FYI this happens because they don't want to risk legal action in a remote state that contains less than 1% of the workforce anyone.
Excluding CO from the job listing is the quick and easy way to ensure you don't violate Colorado law.
It really doesn't make sense to add another state's entire legal requirements to your startup unless you have to. It may seem simple, but it's actually a pain to bring in yet another legal code you have to understand and check just to do anything.
It would have been better if the CO pay disclosure laws were simpler and only came into play if applicants are bamboozled, i.e. if they apply for a job and then are offered lower than the minimum advertised.
Also, what about the converse - what if the range is actually wider? Does anything prevent them from putting something narrower?
As a hiring manager, I wouldn’t want to waste my time interviewing a candidate when our salary expectations are completely misaligned.
That doesn't sound like a little company that doesn't have an HR and legal department. That sounds like a bureaucratic headache of a big company. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it, too.
Why do you try so hard to make it sound so complicated? If you can't explain the job responsibilities in one paragraph with a salary range, you are broken. Admit that you are broken. You aren't afraid of HR. You are afraid of looking like you don't know what you are doing because you don't know what you are doing.
If your company is hiring a software engineer, but doesn't know:
A) what salary you can afford B) what skills level you need (SE I, SE II, SE III)
I would be worried about your company. If you feel you could pay up to $300,000 for someone with the right qualifications the problem is easily solved:
> Software Engineer - Salary range: $100,000 - $300,000 dependent upon skills and work experience.
BOOM! Super simple!
If for some reason you have a posting for a position with the salary range moving between $80k - $500k, I would think you don't know what it is you're looking for in a candidate or what type of position you're trying to fill. That would really lead me to question the leadership of a company and wonder about the longevity of it as well.