Salary transparency is important for creating a healthier work culture, as employees know what salary is on offer and how it benchmarks against their colleagues.
Without salary disclosure, it makes applying for and accepting jobs so much harder – how do you know if it’s going to be enough to live on? How do you know if your colleague is being paid double for the same work? How do you know if you’re being discriminated against?
The main reasons companies don’t include salaries in job ads
There are many reasons why a company won’t include salary in job ads – but none of them make it any less frustrating when you’re looking for, and applying to, the roles. One of the main reasons companies don’t include it is to entice people that may have otherwise not seen it. This means you can have much higher qualified people applying for the role, alongside junior and newly educated candidates. You may think that this would just make life harder for the recruiter, however by finding out the candidate’s level of skills and their expectations of remote working or a specific location, companies are able to benchmark the salary expectations of a role to an individual. The salary for the same position for a candidate working in a large city may be much larger than for a candidate working remotely in a small rural area.
Job title, the company’s reputation, and the candidate’s ability to negotiate depending on experience (DOE) means human resource departments can change the salary and benefits packages offered to each candidate. This also means that companies can look at hiring someone junior at a lower salary, usually someone newly out of education, and spend more resources on training and support for them to grow into the role.
Non-disclosure agreements companywide are also a factor to avoid internal competition and ill-will, especially If you see your position being hired for on a higher pay band than you – though of course if there was fair pay and a supportive work culture within the organization, this wouldn’t be a problem.
Why should companies share salaries in job ads?
Your salary at the beginning of your working life has been shown to have a long impact on your future earnings, especially for women. So, making sure you’re advocating for yourself and getting the salary you deserve is so important. Looking for jobs with companies that are disclosing salaries makes understanding what you’re getting from the outset so much easier.
A disclosed salary also helps bring awareness to bias and pay inequality within organizations. When salary is no longer a secret, staff can talk about their pay without it feeling like a taboo conversation. With women’s wages on average 18% lower than their male counterparts, and racial pay gaps still significant, transparency can begin to create equal expectations, so we can start to achieve pay parity.
Women are less likely than men to apply for a job that they aren’t qualified for, and less likely to negotiate pay. So if a salary isn’t advertised they could be asking for well below what an employer is happy to pay. If employers want to encourage more equity, they must share salaries.
What should you do if you don’t know how much you should be earning?
Make sure you do your research before you even apply for the job. Thinking about salary should start at the beginning of the job application process, and not during the interview stage when you’ve already put in a lot of time.
Using the ValueMyResume tool is a great first step to figuring out what the value of your resume is, so you can start to benchmark against job vacancies. If the calculator is below your expectations, think about how you can change the wording of your resume to showcase your skills and experience. Then put it through again.
Similarly, when using Adzuna to search for a role, always look on the left-hand side for the average salary. This allows you to see what salary you should be expecting based on geography, as well as other statistics such as how much salaries have gone up year on year, the top companies hiring in the area and what industries currently have the most live job ads.
Doing this research means you’ll get a benchmark range to start the discussion from when they do come up – and it’s important that it is a range. Never put a specific number down first. The first conversation about salary is just that – a discussion, and not a negotiation. Negotiations will come further down the line when they are seriously considering offering you the job.
Before applying to a role that has not disclosed a salary range, ask the employer where they are at. You could open this with a question such as “I am currently looking for a role in the salary bracket of X to Y, is there scope for this role to fall within this bracket?” Rather than spend time on applications, tailoring your resume, and potentially interviewing for a role, do what you can to find out the salary range.
If the salary offer is lower than you were expecting and what you’re worth, be honest! It’s up to you whether you continue. Perhaps it’s a really great role in an industry you’d like to transition into. In this case, ask questions about bonuses, salary reviews, and promotion potential. You can also suggest that you would be open to an alternative benefits package such as entering a company’s share scheme – remember that salary isn’t the only form of compensation for a role!
Which states legally require job ads to have salaries attached?
Out of 50 states, 20 have laws in place around salary transparency.
In 2018 Colorado passed a law which requires employers to disclose salary and any other compensation information in their job ads. Though this is a huge step forward in open and fair pay conversations, it has also had a backlash, with some companies avoiding advertising in Colorado for remote workers.
Colorado has the strictest laws on salary disclosure, but other states are starting to bring in laws to open up salary transparency. Connecticut now requires disclosure of wage ranges even if the applicant hasn’t specifically requested the information, before or at the time an offer of compensation is made – or on request, whichever comes first.
In California, the law requires employers to provide salary information on an applicant’s ‘reasonable request’. It’s a similar situation in Maryland, where employers must provide a salary range to job applicants on request. Meanwhile, the law in Washington now states that employers must provide a salary range for open positions – but only after an initial offer of employment.
Read more: What is salary transparency and how does it vary state by state?
Which companies show salaries in job postings?
With Microsoft publicly announcing that it will start to include the pay ranges of all its US-based job listings, this is hopefully the start of a disclosure precedent – though their policy isn’t going to come into effect until January 2023.
There are few other companies who have publicly started to include salary into their job ads, including Amazon, Comcast, UPS, FedEx, United Airlines, Publix, and USA Truck – though it’s important to highlight that they aren’t including it in every role countrywide, and some of them also come with caveats such as ‘this is an estimate’.
The jobs with salaries on display from these companies are also mostly blue-collar jobs, with very few white-collar jobs included in the salary disclosure.
How to show you care about the role and not only the money
Asking about salary before you start the interview process may feel daunting, and you may get some negative responses – but if you do, then that probably wouldn’t have been a supportive organization to work for. By asking the question, you’re showing that you know and understand your worth and that you also don’t want to waste anyone’s time.
Your resume and cover letter are the places for you to show your passion for the role you’re applying for, going into detail about why you love the industry, the role and what you see for yourself in the future if you were able to stay and develop with them. Showing a company that you’re keen to learn but also share your passion and expertise with them is what they’re looking for – and if you make it to the interview stage then this is where you can prove it.
You now have the tools to understand your first steps when it comes to valuing your resume and understanding how to work out what salary you should be aiming for. If you’re ready for a new job, or you’re interested to see if you’re currently being paid fairly, you can use our ValueMyResume tool here.
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Read more: How to ask for a raise
Visit our site to find out more about our campaign to #MakeSalariesMandatory on all job ads.