Two questions, same answer. First of all:
I’m hiring my first direct report, and I live in a position with pay transparency. My HR department informed me that, legally, you must post the entire potential salary range for the role and you cannot limit it to your preferred hiring range. This puts me, as the hiring manager, in a difficult position because candidates see the $75,000-110,000 range and immediately believe one of two things:
1) They can start at $110,000 if they meet the basic requirements
2) The role automatically starts at $75,000 and I’m a terrible hiring manager for keeping the price so low (yes, I got that comment on the job posting)The reality is, $75,000 is for someone who will barely make ends meet and will need it Very Training/hand-holding and $105,000 means you have many years of experience and are at the absolute top of your game with no room for growth. I don’t even make the top of my salary range. Are there better ways to explain this on a job posting, or is it just that?
the second one:
I am 100% in favor of salary range transparency. I’m in Connecticut, where employers are required to share the salary range at some point during the hiring process, but we have made it our policy to do this from the beginning as many other states now require. In general, this has been good in ensuring that we are spending our time on strong candidates who are comfortable with the stated range and in the end the mismatch of expectations has been significantly reduced. But, I am encountering an unintended consequence that I’m not sure how to deal with.
In education, salary is generally determined by the years of relevant experience and degrees the teacher holds. Our school enjoys some autonomy in terms of salaries, so merit has increased and in positions that are difficult to fill, teachers earn more, which means we have no set salary schedule to publish. So when we post a position, the actual range, for example, could be $50,000 for a brand new teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no prior experience, up to $120,000 for an experienced teacher with a master’s degree. If this is the range we publish, candidates assume they will be able to negotiate to the higher end. We have thought about publishing a larger range like $70,000-100,000, but then that would be too high for new teachers and too low for experienced teachers who might choose not to apply.
How can we be authentic and still set clear expectations when we often only have to enter a numerical range and we can’t offer much context or a public salary schedule?
In both cases, and all such cases, the way to handle it is to build on the transparency you’ve already started with and take it a step further by clarifying what you’ve explained here.
For example:
“The salary range for this position is $75,000-110,000, the lower end of that range for candidates who match the lower end of the listed experience range and where we would expect to make a significant investment in your training and the higher end for highly experienced candidates (doing Y for
Or:
“We are open to many different versions of this role – junior, mid-level, or senior. For the junior role, we are looking for (List Qualification) With a salary cap of $AB. For a mid-level role, we are looking for (List Qualification) With a salary range of $CD. We are looking for a more senior version of the role (List Qualification) With a salary cap of $EF. If you meet any of these profiles we encourage you to apply.
Or:
“The salary range for this position varies greatly based on experience and education. A candidate with no prior teaching experience typically starts at $50,000; an experienced teacher with a master’s degree can earn $120,000.”
You can also address this openly when you have your first conversation with candidates, such as on a phone screen: “For candidates with your experience level at Then they know and can decide whether they want to continue or not. In fact, you might even include a line like this in your job posting, following the language suggested above: “If you are unsure where you might fall in that range, please apply and we will discuss it early in our hiring process.”
No matter how specific you are, you will always find people who are convinced that they should get to the top of your range without any particular basis but by spelling it out that way – and especially by giving them tailored information about where They This will be at your limit right at the beginning of the phone screen – you’ll be cutting a lot of it out.
