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Eh I'm not sure this argument holds up.

You can post a job ad targeting the top people and list the top of market salary band.

If you can't find such a candidate, you can delete the job ad and post the ad targeting the "average person".

You may even be able to post the two ads simultaneously.

And what, everyone who encounters both of them will conveniently silo themselves into the appropriate bin?

If the roles and expectations are actually thought through before posting, perhaps. If not, the first contact can gently nudge them towards the appropriate slot.

If an employer can't write a concrete job description that communicates the difference between junior and senior and staff/supersenior, that's on them. Get better at it before you waste the employee's time (or pay people for interviewing).

The interview process will determine if the candidate's skills are suitable for the position and if they are not, they don't get hired. If there is a more suitable position open, the company can offer to hire the candidate for the other position.

This would take double the time but also assumes that the same people are on the market during phase 1 and 2 which won't be true. In some cases I have s time constraint and just need the best available person. If they happen to be a top performer then do much the better.

> The worst case is that I say I can't afford you.

Actually, the worst case is that they employer lies and after 4 rounds of interviews and maybe take home assignments, the employer says "actually this job will be paying much less."

(this has happened to me once, it wastes everyones' time)

You should always ask for your expected hourly rate for take home assignments. If they think it's too much, obviously they will low-ball you. And if they agree, at least it's not a total waste if they low-ball you anyway.

I just don’t do take home assessments anymore.

I completely agree. I would never ask someone to do work for free, but take homes are the best way of simulating actual job performance and can be enlightening for both sides.

Yes, so why did they do it? I guess it depends on the type of job and company. In this case it sounds like they didn't have the budget or wisdom to hire a high performer but we're trying to net one through trickery. There will always be bad actors. A salary range wouldn't stop this as they could do the same by baiting you at the top of the range and switching to the lower end.

> Yes, so why did they do it?

They were trying to rip me off by paying me less than I was earning at the time. The ceo of the company tried to sell me hard on why I shouldn't let the low offer hold me back and how the equity comp I was going to get would more than make for it. That was 4 years ago and the company is still not publicly traded.

Even if your argument is sound, as an employer, it is in your rational self-interest to oppose this regulation for all the _other_ unfair advantages it gives you. Thus your argument is already suspect because apparently, you're at a minimum non-committal about the unfair parts and want to hold on to this presumably more fair advantage, as well.

However, even the case you mention is unfair too. You're basically preserving your negotiation advantage to give you cheaper access to higher-performing talent.

Indeed, the very argument you make for candidates -- "just tell me your expectations" -- can be turned upon you -- "well, just tell me what you'd pay a top performer", and surprise, you don't want to, because it lessens your advantage.

This is exactly why this regulation exists -- no employer can justify the asymmetry in a candidate-positive way that holds water, so the government has to step in to correct the power imbalance.

Which other unfair advantages? Another way to look at this is that the employee is selling the employer a service. When you buy something from a shop do you expect to name your price, or do you expect see a price label? In that case the seller almost always names their price first. Do you like going into shops where their are no prices listed?

Shops are just one model of transacting.

But there are plenty of cases where sellers don't list their price and they have worked fine - think about the auction model for one.

As an aside.. when do we use auctions? We don't use it for commodity items (no sense in buying a pack of candy in auctions).

> Which other unfair advantages?

If you're unaware of how this issue negatively affects salaries for women and other minorities, I respectfully suggest you do a little more research on this topic. Here's a quick google hit, but there are many, many more resources: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220929-the-us-push-fo...

> Another way to look at this is that the employee is selling the employer a service.

Which would be a pretty ideological/libertarian way to present it. This isn't an auction; it's how people eat and put a roof over their head, and they have no choice but to play.

> The worst case is that I say I can't afford you.

There are many possible bad cases. Possibly much worse than this is that the candidate lowballs themselves. Another bad case is that they price themselves out when they might have been willing to take a lower offer after learning more.

The candidate has just as much uncertainty as the employer. There's no reason the burden should be on the candidate to be the first to name a number.

I don't say that the candidate has to be the first to name a number, just that they can. In fact, in most negotiations the results ends up closest to the first number named, so candidates should be happy to name the first number.

It doesn't make sense that top people return many times what the average does but you are only able to pay them 50% more. That kind of thinking is why salary ranges should be posted before top people waste their time applying.

I completely agree that it doesn't make sense, but that's how it is. Anyone who's ever hired a top performer will feel like they're getting the biggest bargain ever. I guess that psychology artificially limits the top of the range for salaries.