AIBU to expect job adverts to include salary ranges upfront?

Job hunting at the minute and this is my biggest bugbear! It took three emails to HR of one local company to get them to finally disclose a salary band - after advertising it as ‘competitive’, turns out it was in fact minimum wage. I think it’s absolutely disgraceful behaviour.

On the job description? No salary shouldn't be there. Do you put your salary expectations on your CV? Whilst talking to them? Yes

I don’t apply for jobs if the salary is not advertised

True, you'll always get timewasters and dreamers - and probably also people who have been told that they need to apply for a certain number of jobs or face losing their UC; but they're much easier to discount instantly than all the 'nearly-rans' who are sort of in the ballpark-ish but not really in the frame for this role yet.

Absolutely agree 110%

it’s underhanded of employers not to, studies show people quote low when asked without a given range.

I’m looking around for my son at the moment , he’s in IT , if it says £40k upwards I will send him it, if it doesn’t mention I won’t ‘unless’ it’s via a recruiter - in which case he can come to the point without going to interview etc as they will have a good idea- he’s moving purely for salary progression this time as he’s very underpaid for what he does ( and in London too) and they are sticking to 3% rises despite doing well , so now he’s being paid around 20% less than what seems to be the going rate at lower end of scale - it is stupid not to be upfront and a waste of peoples time . At least print a range

Are former employers allowed to tell potential new employers though? Because surely being caught out in a lie would not be a good look.

But how do they or you know it’s competitive if firms are not transparent? They can only compare to what they’re on currently, or an offer from elsewhere. A firm’s reputation with its clients can be very different to its reputation with employees. I’ve been a hiring manager at a company with great clients/reputation and they appeared to think people should be happy to take less pay for the experience of working there - some people might but just be upfront. The EU are mandating pay transparency - I think it’s clear a lack of transparency only benefits employers. It likely disproportionately negatively affects women (how do you know what’s competitive if you’ve been out of the workplace raising children).

But how do they or you know it’s competitive if firms are not transparent? They can only compare to what they’re on currently, or an offer from elsewhere. A firm’s reputation with its clients can be very different to its reputation with employees. I’ve been a hiring manager at a company with great clients/reputation and they appeared to think people should be happy to take less pay for the experience of working there - some people might but just be upfront. The EU are mandating pay transparency - I think it’s clear a lack of transparency only benefits employers. It likely disproportionately negatively affects women (how do you know what’s competitive if you’ve been out of the workplace raising children).

Not including a published indicative salary helps maintain the gender pay gap surely.

I wonder how may women are ‘proving they’re worth it’ compared to how many men are bullshitting that they’re worth it to the PP who doesn’t disclose the range.

When I was job hunting I quickly realised that a huge amount of jobs advertised purely on LinkedIn or other job sites were either already closed or you’d get no response from them.

I started only applying if I could do that direct on the company website or email the recruiting manager direct, I think loads of stuff on LinkedIn is just nonsense.

Yep, and it also wastes the recruiting manager and HR team’s time because they end up with candidates who won’t take the role once they find out the salary, and the recruiting team spend time and effort going through the applications, shortlisting, interviewing etc when some people will drop out, it’s such a waste of everyone’s time.

By not indicating the salary, you select out the people in employment with lots of other options and select for the people that will fill out any advert.
I lived for a while in a country where it became a legal requirement to list the salary. It's suddenly quite straightforward to do. You would see adverts such as Salary with x years' experience in capital city: 80K; x years in small city: 70K, y years in capital city: 60K; y years in small city, 50K.
If the company couldn't list something like these criteria, they are just hoping to lowball applicants and don't care about retention. Especially as a woman, this isn't a great place to work when you have other options.

Always makes me think the company must be dodgy as anything. If they cant be upfront about wages what else wont they be upfront about.

what do they do with that data though? that always interests me.

This drives me mad too! Jobs on LinkedIn with masses of detail but no indication whatsoever of salary. If they’re prepared to waste people’s time and piss them around before they’ve even applied what sort of employer must they be?

that's illegal where i am - and i have been asked and my answer is always the same: what are you offering me?. Then i leave.

so you aren't putting a range on it so you can lowball someone?

in some US states (and other places) a range (and not one with a yawning chasm between them, as i saw yesterday $35-120k) is mandatory. It saves EVERYONE a lot of time.

This is standard in DH’s industry and it drives me mad. He had an interview last week - so a day off, a hotel the night before as the interview was at the HO (that’s another thing that annoys me - interviews absolutely miles away from where the job is) and then mid way through the interview one of the panel let slip, thankfully before he wasted time on second and third interviews, they their idea of ‘competitive’ is around 65k less than he’s on atm.

They seemed genuinely shocked by his current salary - which is standard in his current company and at two others in the industry (he knows from friends who work there). How can you call yourself competitive if you don’t know what others are paying?!

My rule is that if the salary is not clearly stated in the job ad then I won't waste my time applying.

I think it is lazy recruitment and a sign that the company does not want existing employees to be aware of how much colleagues could be paid and is also an attempt to get away with the lowest possible salary for the new recruit. Transparency is important.

. Surely it also works the other way: whereby if you advertise a range of £50K-£80K, you wont get a load of people who would be otherwise clueless about the responsibility level of the job, but who will thus know that even £50K is way above their league and won't waste your and their time by applying.

You'd be amazed. I advertised for a senior post paying £100k, requiring 10+ years of quite specific experience.

I got a number of applicants who only graduated uni the previous couple of years, with none of the experience the job spec asked for. Obviously they didn't get interviews

Yes, I think that a lot of companies are horribly dismissive about the time and effort that it takes for somebody to apply for a job with them. They just get a pile of forms on their desks or in their inboxes and don't for a second consider the human cost and investment that's gone in to every one of them.

It's a nasty thing to do, to lead goodness knows how many people to waste half of a day in carefully crafting a comprehensive application for a job with you when, if only you'd bothered to mention a basic salient point, they could have focused their time and energies on a suitable role.

I will not apply for any role where I'm not able to find out the pay level in advance. I don't mind if i have to ring the recruiter etc to confirm it but I'm not applying if it's a complete unknown. Job titles are very fluid and there are plenty of [shit] companies out there who will list a director level job spec only to offer a manager level pay.

I got caught out by this the other day. Role comes up that isn't to dissimilar to my role at my current company, actually got quite excited. I put what I thought I should be paid and they got back to me saying my salary expectations were too high.

What exactly am I supposed to benchmark the wage against without knowing what is on offer? More transparency makes things so much easier and can potentially reduce the wasted amount of applications.

"Competitive" = "We compete fiercely with you to get what you can offer us for the lowest price that we can possibly pay you".

I've no idea why it's portrayed as a positive thing to assert in your advert!

I think the companies who do this believe that it helps them to retain the upper hand; whereas in reality, the opposite is true, as quality candidates are deterred by the opacity. Yes, of course you're going to receive applicants from dreamers and chancers; but that's precisely why it's a long hiring process, and why people who might want the job can't just find your listing, click on 'add to basket' and turn up on Monday morning to begin.

It's interesting how companies protest that, if they give a range, every candidate will want the top of the range - and they as a company are also presumably not capable of negotiating on this and seeking proven assurance and justification that the candidate warrants the top of the range. Surely it also works the other way: whereby if you advertise a range of £50K-£80K, you wont get a load of people who would be otherwise clueless about the responsibility level of the job, but who will thus know that even £50K is way above their league and won't waste your and their time by applying.