“Competitive salary” - is there anything more annoying when job hunting?

[Shirleyphallus]

I’m looking for roles at the moment and do a job where, depending on the industry, you could be paid £30k or £150k which is a ludicrous range and so it’s a huge waste of time to send your CV off if it comes back that the salary banding is way off your requirements

Why do companies do this? Seriously what’s to be lost by publishing salary banding?

Agree!

Always makes me think the salary is actually really poor.

It's just shorthand for "the pay is crap, don't bother applying" to me.

I'd love to hear from recruitment types about how this affects the applications they get. I never apply for a role if it doesn't quote the salary. As you say, so many job titles could have such a wide range. The only reason I might apply is if I was really desperate for work or to leave my current post and surely, on the whole, those are not the people the companies want.

I agree, and I’m seeing it more and more.

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

@idontlikealdi

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

This. 100%

@idontlikealdi

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

That makes some sense actually, especially for senior roles. It might not be that the salary is low but that it's high enough to put noses out of joint. It must adversely affect the candidate pool though.

@idontlikealdi

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

This makes sense, but they must really be limiting their pool as who can be bothered applying for stuff unless they know the salary

Most job search engines allow you to only search for specific criteria such as salary, the job advert will have a salary banding entered (most don't allow you to publish one without it) but it won't be publicly available. So it's likely that if you are seeing the job when searching, then it's in the right band for you.

It is super annoying, but I can understand why companies don't want the salary to be common knowledge.

It very rarely seems to mean an actually competitive salary though. I was recently contacted on Linkedin about a role which sounded very similar to what I do now and the recruiter said it was a "very competitive salary". So as not to waste their time I asked what this was. It was 15K less than I currently get paid! Ridiculous.

@Cailleach

It's just shorthand for "the pay is crap, don't bother applying" to me.

Yeah this. And that they'll do everything in their power to avoid paying you what you are worth.

I interviewed for and was offered a job like this before. They asked me what my ideal salary was and when I told them (based on a lot of research) their jaws dropped. They said “just for reference we were thinking [£half that amount]”. If you know what salary you’re offering then save everyone a lot of time and advertise it!!

(Although I did get my requested salary for that particular job so it’s always worth asking.)

It's done because companies don't want to either pay people more than they need to, or miss out on really great talent who might want outside the salary band and be put off from applying. But I agree, it's outdated, lazy and ultimately risks leading to discrimination.

It’s so they can get away with paying you the absolute minimum they can get away with. It needs to be banned and we need full pay transparency.

Absolutely hate this, and I would never apply for a role that doesn't publish the salary. I wonder if these roles recieve fewer applications.

I think it's either 'we'll pay you as little as we can get away with' or 'we can't say as we don't want staff, that have been here for years, knowing you'll probably start on a higher wage than they're on'. Or a combination of the 2.

I've literally never seen a job in my field that did advertise the salary although I got my own job through word of mouth.
I always think it means they'll pay as little as they can get away with.

@Jammysod

I think it's either 'we'll pay you as little as we can get away with' or 'we can't say as we don't want staff, that have been here for years, knowing you'll probably start on a higher wage than they're on'. Or a combination of the 2.

I work in HR and it's usually the latter in my experience - not wanting existing staff to know the huge variations in salary people are on.

It drives me crazy both as an applicant, employee and as an HR professional. As an job seeker I've spent hours filling in on line job applications that turn out to be offering £20K less. Or I have to deal with grievances when longer serving staff find out they are earning less than a colleague that joined 6 months ago (because sometimes people do actually talk to each other about salaries). As an employee I've found out colleagues were earning lots more than me (though once it was the other way around because I'd learnt how to negotiate by then).

From an HR & recruiting manager perspective it's frustrating to get lots of candidates pulling out when they find out the maximum salary is too low. And it leads to lack of transparency that nearly always leads to morally uncomfortable equality and fairness issues (including a gender/race pay gap).

But virtually every time I try and convince senior managers and MD's to be more open about salary bands in adverts they get twitchy and back off. People think it's an "HR" issue but it's not, it's a leadership issue, usually from the very top.

The exceptions tend to be public & not for profit sectors and companies with proper job evaluation systems, pay points and market pay links. Oh and ones that recognise trade unions. But these structures can be too rigid and you end up with loads of market pay supplements to get around pay bands that are too low to recruit people with the right experience and skills. Or people leave as they want better salaries.

No right answer.....

YANBU. It really irks me when job ads don’t put the salary, or at least salary band. I mean, are we working for love?

Completely agree!

I applied for a job recently with a British retailer (based at their head office in London). Job ad said “competitive salary”, I was later told by HR the salary was 22k. In London?! They didn’t even offer remote working.

Clearly “competitive salary” was used to hide the fact they pay their staff peanuts. Wish I hadn’t wasted my time applying

I work closely with our head of HR, and she said it's for 2 reasons. (A) as mentioned already, that they don't want existing employees to know what is being offered, and (B).... this was news to me, but made perfect sense the second she said it, so that competitors don't know what we're paying, so they are less likely to come and poach our staff.

@Cailleach

It's just shorthand for "the pay is crap, don't bother applying" to me.

This!

@idontlikealdi

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

In which case it's an awful company to work for so again, I wouldn't apply for a role there in the first place.

@idontlikealdi

My theory is so that current employees don't find out in black and white what similar roles are offering to new hires.

That would at least make sense.

Which is why colleagues speak to each other about such things. I discovered I was being paid £25k less than any of my team in one role when appraisals showed we were doing the same work to the same standard and once I knew this I could get senior management to increase my salary to the appropriate rate. Transparency is in employees' interests in general but not those of the executive so I would never apy to a company that would not even advertise a band as a guide. Who has that kind of time to waste?