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Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Can a company make an offer outside its stated range?

E.g. What if Microsoft has a job opening with a range of $110k - $170k, and the candidate they selected used to make $180k and would like $200k? Will Microsoft offer him or her the 200k they seek or offer 170k and lose their candidate?

If salary ranges can be bypassed, then they are not really useful, and if they can't, by law, companies could skirt the law by offering higher bonuses and more stock, or else lose on talent. Or the company could close the job opening, and create a new posting with an updated range for the sole purpose of being legally able to hire their candidate. Which would still invalidate the spirit of the law.

I'm not sure these salary transparency laws are good for workers or companies alike.

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> E.g. What if Microsoft has a job opening with a range of $110k - $170k, and the candidate they selected used to make $180k and would like $200k?

If I was reviewing job descriptions, and the max of the posted range is less than my current salary, I'm probably not going to apply.

Another situation: You make 160k, the max range is 170k, but you'd like more than the max range. In the old world, this would work. You would gain more comp, and your new employer would acquire your talent. It's the free market at work. In the new world, neither of those will happen. I'm concerned about the consequences of that on economic growth and innovation.

Are you saying that the employers won't give 170k+ if the disclosed max range is 170k? I highly doubt that, the only change here is that the range that was previously only visible to the hiring managers within the company is now also visible to the candidates. If they could go beyond the internally visible range before, they would surely be able to do it now. The only difference is that before the candidates would have no idea whether they're already maxed out on the given range or if there's still plenty of room to negotiate.

I don't buy it either. I think overall more people will be lifted up, than some guy that wants 200K and the highest paid employee is currently 160K, will be held down. In fact, I think that's blatantly obvious. Companies are going to lose with this because this industry has so much exploitation going on, that San Francisco alone isn't counterbalancing it or even close.

Salary bands are tied to title. If the max range of the listed position is $160k, and the company wants to hire you for $200k, they will just hire you into a more senior title (which has a higher range).

This is how it happens now, and how it will still happen. Disclosing the initial range target does not prevent it.

> If salary ranges can be bypassed, then they are not really useful

Sure they are. With common sense and fines for clear ongoing breaches it will do as planned.

There are always exceptions so if occasionally a salary is bypassed to match the candidate, higher or lower this is going to happen and be reasonable.

If 30%+ of candidates get paid less than the advertised role there is a clear case of bait and switch for authorities to show a court type deal.

I feel you need to approach this from altitude rather than individual cases.

> E.g. What if Microsoft has a job opening with a range of $110k - $170k, and the candidate they selected used to make $180k and would like $200k? Will Microsoft offer him or her the 200k they seek or offer 170k and lose their candidate?

They can also negotiate seniority/level. So if they really wanted that person, and they were originally planning on hiring as a Level N Engineer, they could negotiate to hire at a Level N+1 engineer that has the desired salary.

Probably easier to have multiple reqs for the same job under different titles to cover a broader range or throw perks of hard to define monetary value at the wall until something sticks than to go through whatever process would be required to offer outside the range.

Or $170K is the most they're willing to offer for a particular position. And, if someone wants significantly more, they'll just pass. Companies will find ways to make exceptions for someone they really want--including creating a new position for them. But companies won't always salary match.

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