> ...e.g. could be $130-160k. We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range.
I hope you can see the hypocrisy in this statement: you want the candidate to take on the risk you're unwilling to, in a situation where you hold all the cards.
What if a candidate said $110k? Would you still offer them $160k if you felt they were worth that? Or would you take advantage of this newfound information and offer them less than what you thought the job was worth to you?
Because of this - as a candidate - when someone asks me "what salary are you looking for?" it's an immediate turn-off for me. I pretty much refuse to answer the question or ask what the salary range is for the company.
My favorite thing that a company can do regarding comp is to publicly state what their roles, titles, and salary ranges for those are. Then specify in the job description what title they are hiring for and link to that information.
This absolutely is great for the already-working employees as well as candidates. Knowing what title I am, how much I can expect my compensation to be upon promotion, etc. is beneficial for everyone. You can also publicly state the trade-offs your company has chosen to make regarding compensation and attract candidates who appreciate those things.
Perhaps your base salary is lower than the norm, but you offer other things that make up for it. Examples of things worth more to me than base salary:
* More vacation time
* 100% remote
* 100% medical coverage
* 9+% 401K match
* ESPP, RSUs, ...
* Very short vesting times
* Paid child care (possibly on-site)
The list goes on. I guarantee - unless you are grossly underpaying your employees - that if you just publicly list title : salary, heavily promote your other benefits, and have recruiters link to that, you'll end up being much better off.
> What if a candidate said $110k? Would you still offer them $160k if you felt they were worth that? Or would you take advantage of this newfound information and offer them less than what you thought the job was worth to you?
I will answer from the things that I control, but yes I would offer what I believe their value is to me. The number given to me by a candidate is just the conversation we have to ensure we are in each other's ballpark. If my budget is in range and your performance in the interview is good to excellent you will be getting good to excellent pay in my organization from my say on the matter.
But there are absolutely things I don't control. E.g. my company participates in regional pay adjustments on salary.
Negotiations provided other competing offers are things HR have effectively full control over, at best I can recommend an uplevel for exceptional talent here to keep in budget for a particular role, but this is determined sooner at the evaluations stage.
The process to uplevel may require input from other managers in my org, my manager, and my skip (maybe even my skip's skip which is pretty much C-suite) to approve depending on experience so its an uphill battle even for me to do this.
Lowest friction is to bring you in at the level I have approved and then get you promoted within the year, but this would likely not be ideal for the candidate as on-hire package items would not be adjusted. OTOH, given a certain level of visibility and impact, you would be eligible for special awards and extra bonus pay which would likely exceed the amortized scheduled of an uplevel on its own for a single year.
I hope you can see the hypocrisy in this statement: you want the candidate to take on the risk you're unwilling to, in a situation where you hold all the cards.
What if a candidate said $110k? Would you still offer them $160k if you felt they were worth that? Or would you take advantage of this newfound information and offer them less than what you thought the job was worth to you?
Because of this - as a candidate - when someone asks me "what salary are you looking for?" it's an immediate turn-off for me. I pretty much refuse to answer the question or ask what the salary range is for the company.
My favorite thing that a company can do regarding comp is to publicly state what their roles, titles, and salary ranges for those are. Then specify in the job description what title they are hiring for and link to that information.
This absolutely is great for the already-working employees as well as candidates. Knowing what title I am, how much I can expect my compensation to be upon promotion, etc. is beneficial for everyone. You can also publicly state the trade-offs your company has chosen to make regarding compensation and attract candidates who appreciate those things.
Perhaps your base salary is lower than the norm, but you offer other things that make up for it. Examples of things worth more to me than base salary:
* More vacation time * 100% remote * 100% medical coverage * 9+% 401K match * ESPP, RSUs, ... * Very short vesting times * Paid child care (possibly on-site)
The list goes on. I guarantee - unless you are grossly underpaying your employees - that if you just publicly list title : salary, heavily promote your other benefits, and have recruiters link to that, you'll end up being much better off.