Bob

but it is a load of crap...nothing wrong with putting a salary range down related to experience because only a total tard would look at that range you stated and get the wrong impression of their worth, but clearly you could have advertised a junior and senior salary range....

Steerpike

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then!

ugacrew

Dude I have to disagree with you there. I NEVER put down salary requirements until a job has been offered. Even if they ask for it. I don't want to undersell or greatly oversell myself. I normally let the interviewer put forth the first salary range. Then let the negotiations begin. Hopefully with my next gig I'll get at least 15%-20% more than what I'm making now. So far that's been the trajectory that I've been on.

Bob

As an employee, you never give your range first, but I was talking about the employer.

In the UK your more often see the job range posted with the job, it's happening less now, but it's one way of saving time, why bother going for a job that isn't in your range etc.

Steerpike

Where the F*** have you been?!?!? Welcome back! Are you here to stay or just passing through?

Again, each side wants to see the hand of the other side first, and moans about being forced to show their hand first. Your argument could just as easily be applied to the employee - as an employer, why can't I ask that my applicants tell me what they are looking for, so I can rule out the ones that are out of bounds. Since there are hundreds of applicants for each job, makes sense that I get information that enables me to rule out as many as possible up front.

There really isn't a right or wrong. Ultimately, though, I think it is in BOTH parties interests to keep salary out of the discussion until the end. If an employer really likes a candidate, salaries can go higher than expected.

md95065

Well, don't trust your instincts too much then ...

While I don't know the exact details of either your qualifications and experience or what those surveys were really measuring, a salary in the $135k - $165k range would certainly not be out of line for an experienced senior engineer in California. It is, however, probably a bit on the high side for somewhere like Georgia.

Bob

That's the thing, your a nice chap and aren't out to screw someone over, but more often than not, it's just a tactic to screw someone over. Employer already has most of the cards, so stating their range does save time for them as well because people who wouldn't be interested in the range wouldn't even bother submit if it fell well short of their expectations.

Steerpike

If only applicants were so sensible! One reason we have to use recruiters to screen resumes is that people completely ignore any stated requirements and apply for anything that moves. In this day and age, people setup 'agents' to auto-respond to all manner of jobs (on sites like Career Builder, Monster, etc) based on keyword matching, so you get inundated with applications that bear no relevance to your requirements (other than a keyword hit).

The situation may be different with lower-paying jobs, but in 'professional' positions, I've long felt that you get what you pay for and nickle-and-diming an applicant on their intro salary doesn't do you any good. If you under-pay someone, they'll keep looking and bail the minute something better comes up, which has a huge 'cost' to the organization in terms of training, etc. Every person like myself who is in a 'hiring' role is also an employee and has gone through this from the applicant side. But yes I'm sure some companies are dumb and are just trying to save a penny in the short term.

veryfunny

What state? go to salary.com

Dan725

While I understand what you are saying, I still don't agree with that philosophy at all (and Bob has said exactly what I think). The only time that not stating a salary range is not harmful to the candidate is when said candidate already has a good job that they enjoy, and therefore has leverage of their own, i.e. they won't move unless terms are good. For an unemployed candidate, not knowing a salary range is a truly hellish situation and abuse is rife in that area right now.

As Bob was saying, I'd rather see a salary range posted (as would, I suspect, 99.999% of the population) - because if it fell below what was workable, I'd not even bother applying. Heck, I'd go so far as to say I ideally want to see a 100% set in stone your starting salary will be $x, no negotiation, no messing about. That way, the employer would know what it was going to cost them; the candidate would know exactly what they were getting. Then, everyone could concentrate 100% on seeing if the position is a right fit.

Dan725

...and this kind of plays into my 100% set salary ideal. The company should offer the absolute non-negotiable max it is willing to pay for the position, fairly state it, and then concentrate on hiring the right person, without either side having to worry about the salary pissing contest. To do anything less can't be seen as anything other than company penny pinching, IMO; "Wiggle room" is only of benefit to a company, as it is the company writing the check, not the candidate.

Bob

There are plenty of "dumb" companies that do that...some seriously large names in fact because all they see is the bottom line for the following quarter.

The problem is, you might be hiring, but accounts/HR have final okay on the go ahead or not and they do weird things to make their books look good because they don't look at the whole picture but what affects them.

Steerpike

This would suggest that employees are interchangeable commodities that perform 'units of work' interchangeably like robots. Jobs duties are not etched in stone either - if a more capable candidate presents him/herself, they may be able to take on more duties and thus, be worth more money.

I've hired dozens of positions over the years (techie/programmer types), and in all cases, the final salary is based on the specific mix of skills and experience the candidate has. I've had conversations along the lines of "candidate 'x' is more experienced, and will cost more, but he has specific experience in java beans and will help us pull that project through faster and be able to train others - let's hire him even though he's more expensive".

Ozzidoc

In the last job I had in human resource, we quite often asked the candidate what their salary expectation was if we were considering interviewing them. This was because the company had quite strict & equitable salary levels, and it was a right PITA to interview someone who wanted £25K when our absolute max salary for the job was £20,000, and the usual starting salary was 17,500.

Some people said they wanted say 15,000. We'd still give them the 17,500. It was just one way of making sure that we weren't wasting everyone's time.

Steerpike

I want to add - I'm talking about working for 'forward thinking' software companies in Silicon Valley. I've been here 27 years, and worked for several great companies. These companies are focused on getting stuff done. I, as a manager, need to get stuff done and it is in MY interest to hire the best people. I always push for the most money for my team because I want them to be productive and focused on work (I also fire people who don't perform - works both ways). I have almost always gotten my way in terms of hiring at high salaries (and getting raises for them later).

Now, once a company I worked for was taken over by a big company from Atlanta, where the management structure was very rigid ... everything suddenly took ten times longer, budget processes became painfully detailed (for no particular benefit), and so on. In THAT situation, I was given very little flexibility in hiring and it was a pain. After a few months of fighting with this bureaucracy, I quit. That company went down the tubes years ago.

Nowadays, I don't even consider working for a company that is not an aggressive startup, not ONLY because I want the challenge (and potential reward) but also because being a manager in such a company is a pleasure because everyone is geared towards success, and there is generally very little red tape. That's one reason why I think you are much better off in the Bay Area - there are a LOT of people who think this way at various levels of management in many companies.

YMMV ...