Recruiting? Publish Your Salary Range, Already!

Liz Ryan Contributor
culled from:http://www.forbes.com
I don’t understand why every employer doesn’t list its hiring salary range in every single job ad. What are they trying to save, a few thousand dollars? Put the salary level in the job ad already! A job ad is the first way a lot of people encounter the organizations they end up working for.
They want to know how you roll and what you’re made of. When you keep your hiring salary range a secret, you fall thirty stories in a job-seeker’s estimation, because the salary is of course one of the most important elements of the job. Everybody wants to know what they’re going to be paid. It’s one way people decide which jobs to apply for and which to leave alone.
Are you going to cheap out and say, “No, we’ll let hundreds of people apply for the job who would not have done that if they knew the salary range! That way we play our cards close to the vest. We keep all our options open. We can decide on the job offer at the last minute. Maybe we’ll get lucky and we won’t have to pay too much.”?
That thought process is unethical, and it’s not good business either.
In this universe there is no control — only the illusion of control. You can say “We’ll keep our salary range a secret, and keep our options open” in case somebody walks in who’s perfect for the job and out of touch with current salary levels. Maybe it’s that, or maybe the perfect candidate’s compensation level is artificially depressed right now. There are lot of reasons that can happen.
So the job should really pay about sixty thousand dollars a year but the perfect candidate, George, doesn’t really know what these kinds of jobs pay. You make George an offer for fifty thousand bucks and he accepts. Are you going to high-five about that coup? If you do, you are seriously confused about physics, because as dear Isaac Newton reminded us, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
George sitting at his desk paid ten grand under the market is a risk factor for your business.  I have watched the scene play out countless times. Smart Manager thinks he or she can outwit Gullible Perfect Candidate and lobs in a lowball offer.