to think that job advertisements should show a salary?

[TheBloodManCometh]

Job hunting at the moment.
At least 50% of jobs I've seen advertised have had "salary negotiable" or "competitive salary".
Now for me a salary is indicative of the level of the job - i know that an admin job at £18k is too junior for me where a £30k would be too senior. (for example).
I'm always suspicious about a job with no stated salary as I presume that it is going to be really low.
I don't want to put loads of energy into applying only to find the salary far too low!
Even a vague salary would be useful!

YANBU. This is one of my major bug bears.

DH was job hunting a while back, and having no salary on adverts wasted a huge amount of his time (and the companies time) as he has a minimum salary (his salary now) that he didn't want to drop below.

DH is a retail manager, and the salary range for that is HUGE. Store manager roles typically range from £16k to £80k, and the size of the store is no real indication.

He once applied for a job for a very well known, large retail store with 'competitive salary' listed. He had a phonecall from the recruitment company and when he asked the salary was told it was 'variable dependant on experience' - not uncommon. But he was honest, told them his current salary and that he would only be looking for a job that was at least a £2k increase. The recruitment agent told him, knowing his salary, that he would not be disappointed with the package and the details would be discussed at the interview.

He went to the interview (3 stage, 5 hours, where the group was whittled down), was asked to wait for ten minutes afterwards and then was called back in and offered the job. Salary negotiations started and the interviewer said that he was so impressed with what dh could bring to the role that he was happy to go to the salary maximum...which turned out to be £8k LESS than dh was on currently. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to convince DH why it would be such a good idea to work for them, even though it was a lower salary.

Anyway...ridiculous waste of time. At the minimum there should be an indication such as '£30k-£36k, dependant on experience' listed.

YANBU - 'salary negotiable' basically means 'we'll work out exactly how little we can get away with paying you and then offer not a penny more'.

YANBU. Every time I see "competitive salary" I just think minimum wage!

Yanbu. Without idea of salary then an interview can just be a waste of people's time.

I agree, it's rubbish and for many jobs the possible range is pretty huge.

However, in some cases the salary isn't advertised because the company doesn't like to share their salary bands. I don't like this much either but can see the logic. OTOH, if it's also being advertised through recruitment agencies they almost always put the salary - and often cut & paste large chunks of the job spec so you can tell it's the same role.

Sometimes, for large companies, it's because of the unrest it causes among existing, time served employees when they realise that insiders are being bought in (literally) on higher salaries than them.

I applied for a salary not specified role, was told quite early on in the selection for interview stage and it was more than I expected it would be.

Unfortunately I didn't get the job.

Ive found it often to be the other way round too. I have seen jobs advertised at a certain amount then been told its less.

Yanbu, knowing the salary helps you work out how senior the position is too

insiders outsiders

I really hate it. It's surely a waste of their time too? Not many people would accept a job at significantly less then they were expecting.

It's not just interview time wasted it is time for lots of individuals to prep cvs and apps to find out the wage is one they would not expect or that they were punching well above their weight.

I agree it's to stop existing employees from knowing.
A good recruitment agent looking to build a long term relationship with the employer will filter out applicants where the salary is not right, but a lot are unscrupulous and just try to get as many applicants to interview as possible.

Hi TheBloodManCometh
Companies generally have a salary range in mind, based on content and requirements of the role, but I agree it is very frustrating not to have any clue what you think they might pay. Sometimes the job description for the range of salary you have given (£18 - £30K) is a reasonable indicator of what they might pay (for example, if they mention having staff working for you, or they ask for specialist skills beyond the average MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc).

If the job is advertised through an agency, then the Agency staff should be able to tell you an approximate salary range, because they will have taken on the role and visited the company. But sifting through line after line of similar sounding roles is like "Needle in a Haystack" isn't it?!

If the job is in the local paper, you could try ringing up the contact and asking if the role is of a junior or senior type - even if they can't tell you the salary over the phone? Normally, jobs advertised in the local paper will probably be somewhere between £18K and £30K because if it was a more senior role, they may prefer to use an agency (if it is more specialist etc).

Another possibility is, if you like the sound of the job, could you highlight your current salary level in your letter/email application so they know not to waste your time if they are only paying £18K and you are on £23K?

Are you searching on-line? I guess they use different 'rules' which I'm less familiar with.

'Competitive salary' usually = shit salary.

Sorry a bit long-winded there!

In a nutshell, a bit of 'up-front' digging around - targeting the jobs with the most interesting or relevant description - could be better that the demoralising traypse to interviews that aren't a good match with your skill/salary expectation

I agree beccajoh - what the hell do they mean by "Competitive" - if I was advertising a job and didn't want to give the salary, it's the last word I would use, it doesn't mean a thing its bollox they aren't competing

Better to say "salary level according to existing experience" - because no company will pay £30K to a school/college leaver, but they are likely to be prepared to match or exceed if you are on £28K and have 2 years on the job experience for example.

They used to say "according to AAE" (age and experience), but that's definitely a NO-NO nowadays

YANBU this also contributes to the gender pay gap

I find agencies are even worse at disclosing salaries than actual employers. The agencies I regularly search just state that the salary is between 0-30k, which is a bit of a wide range (and in the part of the country where I live it covers most salaries, because salaries here are low).

This is a personal hatred of mine, because one of my first employers when I was straight out of university and was naive refused to disclose my salary until after I had accepted the job and had resigned from the training scheme I was on. It was only after accepting that I found out that the salary was about half of what my guaranteed earnings were if I had completed the training course I was on. But I had told the employer that and they had assured me they could offer similar terms. And it was all a lie, and then it was too late.

YANBU at all and it drives me nuts.

I'm in an industry where job titles can be the same across hugely varied roles, and pay varies hugely across companies. There are no industry standards or grades. While job descriptions help, I don't want to waste hours of research, prep, and reading to prepare a CV only to be declined because my current salary is already beyond their range.

It's a huge waste of time. It also makes it impossible to figure out if any given role is paying fairly because agencies won't share salary info, especially if you haven't yet applied for the role.

YANBU. I know many jobseekers can't afford to be choosy about what they apply for but when I've been jobhunting (while already in employment) I would never consider applying for a job that didn't state the salary. My thinking is:

• it's a huge waste of my time if it's too low
• if it was a good salary they would advertise the fact so it's likely to be 'competitively' near the minimum wage
• it might be something you have to negotiate over and I'm not really a negotiator so would end up being underpaid for the job due to my negotiation skills (when they aren't relevant to how well I actually do the job)
• the company doesn't have a transparent, fair pay structure where men and women get paid equally for work of equal value.

YANBU. I once rang up an employer to ask about the approximate salary for a job that was being advertised. The dopey/patronising woman on the end said, with apparent disapproval, "Are you only interested in the money then?" No, I pointed out, but I was already earning a salary and had a mortgage dependent on it, so I was not going to waste my time applying for a job that was paying less. So I didn't apply, as love and intellectual fulfilment do not pay the bills.

If they were being honest, they'd say: "Salary as low as we can get away with" on the adverts.

Any employer that is treating its employees fairly and paying people at a level that they can totally justify based on their skills and experience has no reason to hide its salary levels. As a previous poster has mentioned, the secrecy around pay contributes hugely to the gender pay gap.

Sometimes, it's just to stop competitors knowing what they pay, and also other staff knowing how much people senior to them are earning, but generally it's just about trying to get people to say what they want, if you can get 2 equally qualified candidates, one who wants £10k less, that's an easy way to make a choice between the two. If you put in "£30 - £36k" - everyone who applies is going to want at least £30k, whereas if you don't put it in, some people when asked might say £27k when asked what they want.

YANBU. It just smacks of trying to get people on the cheap