By Emily McCrary-Ruiz-EsparzaFeatures correspondent
AlamyRecruiters say jobseekers are misinformed about what salary ranges represent, which is leaving some applicants confused and frustrated (Credit: Alamy)After seeing posted pay ranges, some workers are frustrated by what seem like low-ball salary offers. Recruiters say candidates are reading the numbers wrong.
In October, Mary submitted an online application for a communications job at a large multinational firm. She satisfied or exceeded all the requirements for the role, so she requested a figure in the top quartile of the salary range listed in the job description. Within 24 hours, Mary had been notified of her rejection with an automated email.
A few days later, she got a private tip from an acquaintance in the company's recruiting department: the desired salary she wrote was too high, and the company had no intention of honouring the full range it listed in the job posting. The algorithm used to screen applications had simply eliminated her.
Since 2020, seven US states and several localities have enacted pay-transparency laws, which require employers to publish salary ranges for open positions, or make them available upon request. More than a dozen others have proposed similar legislation. Lawmakers have pushed for salary transparency laws in the US to discourage pay discrimination by holding companies publicly accountable to specific salary ranges for all candidates. These laws may also help streamline the job-hunting process for workers, potentially eliminating rounds of interviews before salary even comes up.
Jobseekers have welcomed the changes, but many employers have expressed discomfort with – or even distaste for – the new requirements. A 2023 survey from job-search platform ZipRecruiter showed 44% of employers worry disclosing pay ranges discourages applicants from submitting CVs when their competitors advertise higher ranges, and just as many believe that such publicly available information limits their ability to negotiate starting pay with candidates.
Amid these concerns – and a patchwork of state and local laws, all of which set different standards for disclosure and accountability – many employers have exploited the vague language of pay-transparency legislation, which gives them latitude with how they interpret disclosure rules. In some cases, this has meant salary ranges so wide they're practically meaningless; in others, job applicants have found the listed figures shrink once they reach the interview stage – if they even get past the algorithms that screen their answers at all.
Candidates are angry. Recruiters say they're merely following standard practice.
'A learning curve'
Firms aren't trying to be deceptive, argue some recruiting experts – it's that candidates often don't understand what a salary range represents on a listing. It's common for companies to list the full pay scale of the role, not the hiring range, says Bonnie Dilber, a recruiting manager at automation-software company Zapier.
For jobseekers seeing salaries communicated for the first time… there is a learning curve – Bonnie Dilber, ZapierFor instance, if the range published in the job description is $70,000 to $100,000 (£56,4000 to £80,550), a new hire may start the job at $85,000 (£68,500), but make up to $100,000 as they earn raises and bonuses throughout their tenure in the role. In short, the company never intended to hire a new worker at $100,000 – that's simply where it caps pay for that position.
She says most companies aim to hire in the middle of the advertised range, which leaves room for raises as employees prove themselves over time, and that "it's not intended for everyone to reach the top of a range", only strong performers.
"I find that anyone who's done some hiring themselves and been involved in compensation-setting, which many hiring managers have, understands this," says Dilber. "Whereas for jobseekers seeing salaries communicated for the first time… there is a learning curve."
Keirsten Greggs, a former corporate recruiter who now runs her own recruitment consultancy in the Washington, DC, area, agrees this approach can be opaque for people who haven't worked in recruiting. It often leaves applicants misinterpreting the figures on a listing.
And now that pay transparency laws are on the books, many workers feel deceived when a job offer is extended that doesn't reflect the posted range.
Theresa McFarlane, a technology project manager in her 40s, in Vancouver, Washington, has been on the job hunt for several months. After being burned in almost a dozen interviews, she now expects to be low-balled. If a job is posted for $50 to $60 (£41 to £48) an hour, she estimates she'll be offered far less – as much as $5 to $10 (£4 to £8) below the listing.
AlamyMany workers find out deep into interviews that the pay range listed isn't always a reality for a starting salary (Credit: Alamy)McFarlane says companies that publish unrealistic salary ranges take advantage of desperate job seekers.
"It's a red flag of a low-quality employer that doesn't have their act together," she says. "It's unprofessional. It's very frustrating at times. It can be depressing when it happens with employer after employer."
LinkedIn is rife with posts by similarly angry jobseekers, who have learned during screening calls – or as late as the offer stage – that at least the top quartile of the advertised salary range was never on the table. Many say they were never told why the full pay range wasn't available, and it's driving some workers to write off companies or lose faith in salary transparency laws.
Alongside these posts, however, are recruiters who insist published pay ranges are misunderstood, and that applicants are simply expecting too much
"This is neither bait-and-switchy nor under-handed," wrote one talent-acquisition professional. "The salary band provided - $68.1 to $93.7 - is the salary band for the position. Not a starting salary band .... In many companies, going above the midpoint requires additional levels of approval and additional justification."
If she were in the market for a new job, Zapier's Dilber says she would want to see the full pay scale, not just the hiring range. "If I would need the top of the range to take a job, that's probably not a job I would apply for because I don't see any room for growth."
It's a red flag of a low-quality employer that doesn't have their act together – Theresa McFarlaneAs an employer, if you're going to list the pay scale rather than the hiring range in the job posting, then make that clear, she says. Zapier added language to its job postings that indicates the range published is not necessarily what a new hire can expect, explaining that the top half of the range listed is "typically reserved for individuals who have consistently demonstrated a high level of job knowledge and skills for their current role and level while at Zapier".
Nebulous new laws
As much of a problem as the misguided expectations can be, the murky nature of the laws themselves only piles on the frustration.
California's law requires employers to list in the job description "the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position"; in New York, the requirement is "compensation or range of compensation" for a "job, promotion, or transfer opportunity". There is no federal mechanism that either standardises or enforces what a salary listing should or should not be.
"In many of the paid transparency laws is a lack of specificity," says Llezlie Green, a professor of law and director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Georgetown Law. "If you can provide a range that's $100,000, it's not really providing a lot of information to applicants."
Some laws, like Colorado's and New York's, contain an "in good faith" clause, which ostensibly means that the range published is what the employer expects to pay for the job. But as for language like this, "it doesn't mean very much until it's defined", says Green.
Until the agency designated to enforce the rule – which varies for each law – issues more detailed guidance to employers or a lawsuit is brought that alleges a law has been violated, the meaning of "in good faith" is open to interpretation. And so far, there have been no major challenges to the nation's nascent pay transparency laws. Green says, "It creates a bit of a loophole for the employer in terms of their having to provide information that's useful to the employee."
Greggs says some companies are listing ranges so wide that the intention could only be to satisfy compliance laws, not set realistic expectations for applicants. She argues not only is it easier to list the full pay scale, but it also makes the role look more attractive. The solution is simple, she says: post a range that the company genuinely expects to pay a new hire.
For now, jobseekers can only modify the way they apply if employers aren't going to define the way they list compensation ranges, whether voluntarily or by law.
Project-manager McFarlane now only submits applications for jobs whose published pay ranges are well above her target. Mary – who let her friends know about her experience – also changed strategy. She's more discerning about the jobs she applies for, and is now less likely to list a specific ideal salary when asked.
Instead, Mary plans to be vague herself to avoid getting pulled out of the applicant pool. "Something within the range listed" could do the trick – perhaps giving employer a taste of their own opacity.
Mary's surname is being withheld due to career-security considerations
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