Job adverts without salary details

[stillnotworkingout]

I'm finding these infuriating and it's putting me off even applying for jobs that otherwise look a good fit for me.

It makes me feel that if the company can't be transparent about salary, what kind of organisation are they otherwise?

I don't want to apply for numerous jobs only to find out it would never be financially viable for me to take up an offer.

Is there ever a benefit to potential employees of this type of advert?

Am I missing something and being unreasonable to not even apply?

Its incredibly frustrating as it's the main reason you are applying for the role, I am sick of wasting time on filling out applications only to have an initial conversation to find out the maximum salary banding is 20k lower than my current salary. It actually happened to me today. As others have said jobs in my industry can range hugely in terms of salary banding for the same title so there needs to be some kind of indication.

Surely doing this also allows current staff to know whether they are being paid fairly or not?

I'd love it if my employer put a salary range on job ads.

I’m a senior manager and company director. We never provide salary information in job adverts as we find it just attracts money grabbers.

Pay is only one part of what makes an employer attractive in our view and we offer a fantastic culture and benefits package. We also tailor our salary offer highly to the candidate so giving a band would make no sense.

We need to focus our resources where they have most impact. We will push the boat out for John the sales director at a big competitor. Barbara on reception does not make a material difference to our performance as a business, so will receive an offer below market.

The "no salary on vacancies" position hugely disadvantages both women and those from minority groups, who statistically earn less (hence gender and ethnically pay gaps).

True! I hadn't even considered that.

wasted a day's annual leave

I had certainly considered this!

I’m used to it in my field so am happy to apply without seeing salary but not if it takes me more than 5 minutes to do so. I’m not filling in a complicated form and then getting automatically rejected because I’m asking for too much money.

I find recruiters ask me in the first interview my expectations anyway. I’m more focused on getting a number that I’m happy with rather than their maximum budget.

I phoned and asked about one recently - I said my minimum was £52k and got the response that the starting salary was £46k

So I said 'ah you're looking for a band below me' (it's NHS so specific salary bands)

And she said 'No we expect to get someone at your level for that'

I said 'good luck with that, that is the band I'm at and I'm either looking for the same or the band above'

It's 7 months later and they've still not recruited

Twats.

Barbara on reception does not make a material difference to our performance as a business, so will receive an offer below market.

Now this is telling, and why I wouldn't want to work for your company, nor would I want to work for any company who doesn't value their reception staff or anyone else who is front facing/first point of contact.

Yes, the EU is legislating on this too:
www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/pay-transparency/#:~:text=The%20Council%20has%20adopted%20new,gender%20pay%20gap%20exceeds%205%25.

If you pay your receptionists a below market offer, and thereby most likely a below living wage offer, you are not an attractive employer.

I want to work for an employer that doesn't pay (usually women) people in lower roles below market salaries, and pays (usually men) people in other roles above market salaries.

Where I currently work benchmarks all salaries against the market, because it values all its employees. They also do gender neutral interview panels, publish salary ranges to try to make sure women aren't under pitching themselves, and deliberately tries to employ a diverse workforce. Thats the fantastic culture I'm looking for.

And not just me, lots of very good, highly sought after talent in an industry where our specific skills are harder to come by. And we all, in our team, only applied to jobs that advertised salary ranges because we had no interest in companies that didn't publish them because they often are money grabbing companies who will will begrudge paying someone what they are worth aka at least market range salaries.

It's not money grabbing to expect to know whether it's worth you wasting your time on what can sometimes be hours/annual leave preparing for and attending interviews (e.g. giving a presentation on a specialist subject), while currently employed.

Your company sounds like the type to pay people the minimum amount they can get away with, instead of what is actually a fair amount for the role.

No wages on adverts, I would assume NMW.

Barbara on reception is the first point of contact for many clients/suppliers, both new to your company and existing, and I'd argue has a huge impact. I've often disregarded a company on first impression when I've called up due to bad customer service.

I would not work for an organisation that only values its fee earning staff, no matter the culture and benefits offered.

@Catchasingmewithspiders

Of course we value all employees. However we are a mid sized company punching above our weight in a competitive market. We have to focus our resources where they have most impact.

Attracting a sales director from a key competitor has the potential to bring in millions to the business so we will pay above market rate to attract them. With all due respect, a receptionist is not going to have that impact, so we pay a fair but below market salary in these areas.

it would daft to assume that I could apply for a job the company was only prepared to offer £25k for and expect to be able to negotiate them up to £60k

I'm involved for recruitment for teams within the Technology department of a major corporate technology provider.

We always have openings for the right people at different levels within the organisation. The job ads that are published are not usually specific. The same ad runs pretty much all the time. There is almost always some wiggle room if we think someone has promise, to slot them in at a more or sometime less senior role depending on the candidates that come forward.

One reason we do is, is exactly to encourage women to apply. It has been shown in research experiments that the exact same role description with a higher salary will attract predominately make applications, on a lower hand, more women apply.

Clearly, this will work to increase the gender pay gap.

It's not fair if it's below market.

It's also, going by your casual use of a female name consistent with women over the age of 50, directly discriminatory towards applicants by virtue of their sex and their age.

Other adverts that annoy me are the ones that state the salary is competitive.

What does that mean…. Minimum wage, living wage or bung 20p an hour on top?

It shows lack of respect for applicants because you know they are working for money not for the sake of somewhere to go each day!

Below market salary is not fair. It's below market. If you cannot afford to pay someone a fair market salary then you do not have a fantastic culture or benefits package.

Your receptionist is often the face of your business for many of your customers and their first impression. You might not think that adds value but it does.

never mind the fact that the average wage for a receptionist is around 23k in the UK. So you are actually quibbling over what is likely to be a small amount in the grand scheme of things. A large impact to the employee especially in a cost of living crisis but a small impact to you if you are also paying huge salaries to tempt people away from your competitors. So it's a really small minded move.

Perhaps John the sales director earning the big bucks isn't as valuable as you think he is if he isn't bringing in enough revenue to pay all of your staff fairly?

Barbara on reception does not make a material difference to our performance as a business, so will receive an offer below market

I agree that this is a really mistaken view. I hope it's just the poster's misunderstanding rather than actual company policy.

When David Brailsford took up the challenge to change the England cycle team from their 'never been on the podium' to their annual wins as #TeamSky, he paid particular attention to every single touch point, looking for the half a percent improvement at each and every possible point.

He advocated for starting the day with a daily 'check in' with the team, and very soon widened that approach to include the reception staff, who were the first contact of the day he said they set the tone for a really productive day.

I'm not sure why this causes the angst it does because I've e-mailed a few times to ask the salary or failing that the salary range. I haven't applied so there aren't any talks of what I'd be willing to settle for, and if the salary turns out to be ridiculous I've not wasted any time other than a quick e-mail which is nothing really in the bigger scheme of things. For this purpose I even have a completely different gmail account so they don't put two and two together if I do end up applying.

Exactly! General casual sexist and ageist assumptions like this are enough to put me off a company. And they are often easy to spot too.

Most businesses know that not publishing pay scales contributes to the gender and racial pay gap. So it's pretty obvious that plenty of companies that don't publish them have bigger issues

As a mixed race woman in a traditionally male role heading rapidly towards middle age that's a hard swerve from me. Not because I'm money grabbing, but because I believe in fairness and equality.

I just ask in advance of the interview if they can tell me the salary range it's not a difficult question so ask away!

We don't advertise them because it gives us flexibility, applicants don't all have the same level of experience and someone with 10yrs experience will be offered a higher starting salary than someone with 1 yr experience but who shows willing to train and has good prospects.

Generally we have a banding that we are willing to offer for example between £40-50k dependant on the applicant.

Because a company that doesn't advertise their salary can mean one of a few things:

a. They are really bad at giving pay rises to their current staff so new staff come in on a higher salary which always gets found out and means that you are resented and that you then won't benefit from payrises once you are there

b. They try to pay everyone as little as possible including new hires which means they also probably undervalue their staff in other ways and treat them badly

c. They think people who care about salary are money grabbing despite the fact that we all go to work to earn money and often those at the top who earn a lot of money have lost sight of the fact that a 5k difference can make a huge difference in life quality to someone at the bottom of the hierarchy

Of course you can just ask. It's just a red flag for a company for me. In my case I'm lucky enough that I can be this picky though.

Don't apply. Massive waste of time and the more people that don't waste their time on this the less adverts of this nature there will be. Ime when I used to fall for applying for these, every single time they were trying to pay as low a salary as possible. Who wants to work for a company that does that.

I just don’t apply. I don’t know anyone who applies for jobs without a salary