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\u2019s wages on average 18% lower<\/a> than their male counterparts, and racial pay gaps still significant<\/a>, transparency can begin to create equal expectations, so we can start to achieve pay parity.<\/p>\n Women are less likely than men to apply for a job that they aren\u2019t qualified for, and less likely to negotiate pay. So if a salary isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019ve already put in a lot of time.<\/p>\n Using the ValueMyResume tool<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Doing this research means you\u2019ll get a benchmark range to start the discussion from when they do come up – and it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cI 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?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n If the salary offer is lower than you were expecting and what you\u2019re worth, be honest! It\u2019s up to you whether you continue. Perhaps it\u2019s a really great role in an industry you\u2019d 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\u2019s share scheme – remember that salary isn\u2019t the only form of compensation for a role!<\/p>\n Out of 50 states, 20 have laws in place<\/a> around salary transparency.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> for remote workers.<\/p>\n Colorado has the strictest laws on salary disclosure, but other states are starting to bring in laws to open up salary transparency<\/a>. Connecticut now requires disclosure of wage ranges even if the applicant hasn\u2019t specifically requested the information, before or at the time an offer of compensation is made – or on request, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n In California, the law requires employers to provide salary information on an applicant\u2019s \u2018reasonable request\u2019. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n With Microsoft publicly announcing<\/a> 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\u2019t going to come into effect until January 2023.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s important to highlight that they aren\u2019t including it in every role countrywide, and some of them also come with caveats such as \u2018this is an estimate\u2019.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t have been a supportive organization to work for. By asking the question, you\u2019re showing that you know and understand your worth and that you also don\u2019t want to waste anyone\u2019s time.<\/p>\n Your resume and cover letter are the places for you to show your passion for the role you\u2019re 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\u2019re keen to learn but also share your passion and expertise with them is what they\u2019re looking for – and if you make it to the interview stage then this is where you can prove it.<\/p>\n 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\u2019re ready for a new job, or you\u2019re interested to see if you\u2019re currently being paid fairly, you can use our ValueMyResume tool here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ready to kick off your job hunt? We\u2019ve got millions of live jobs on our site<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Visit our site<\/a>\u00a0to find out more about our campaign to #MakeSalariesMandatory on all job ads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019s going to be enough to live on? How do you Continued \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-2981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pay-benefits","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12225,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions\/12225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What should you do if you don\u2019t know how much you should be earning?<\/h2>\n
Which states legally require job ads to have salaries attached?<\/h2>\n
![\"?\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/11\/svg\/1f4a1.svg\")
\u00a0Read more: What is salary transparency and how does it vary state by state?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nWhich companies show salaries in job postings?<\/h2>\n
How to show you care about the role and not only the money<\/h2>\n
\u00a0Read more: <\/strong>How to ask for a raise<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\n