YHK - yet another hacker news clone

So what is the point of the law, if there are all these workarounds?

Even if the minimum does apply everywhere, it fixes the inequalities gap that is causing so much economic drag in the UK: white men earn significantly more than any other demographic today for the exact same roles at the exact same companies. If everyone gets the bottom of the band, at least everyone gets the same, and that’s been an important goal for multiple UK governments of different political stripes over many decades for reasons to complex to go into here (and no, it’s not “political correctness”, it’s far more complex than that).

I also don’t think it likely means average salaries come down, I just think it means the distributions narrow.

Example: https://www.enduranceenergy.com/careers/2af3b48c-4e20-420a-b...

https://westkite.com/careers-software-engineer

As an employer that ruins one of the classic ruses that has been going on for a while: take someone through multiple interviews and then lowball the candidate who seems the most desperate.

If you believe in free market economics I think we can expect this to be a mess for a little while and then within a year or two it gets relatively efficient at dealing with the inefficiencies it’s targeting: younger people just not wanting to play the bullshit game where employers dangle generous starting offers, and then rug pull them to 2/3rds of that number; and to fix the gender pay gap (and the smaller reaching ethnicity pay gap).

However that consultation said this:

>We propose to introduce this requirement [pay transparency in recruitment] through a delegated power, enabling regulations to specify exact requirements. For example, the size of a salary range.

The "complications" are basically employer and manager propaganda because the information asymmetry suits them better than people realising they are undervalued and leaving

Obviously it's not perfect. But as you say, it's a difficult problem. And salary ranges are at least something

It is your fault if you allow the recruiting process to get to the third interview without at least knowing if the salary range is acceptable.

If you lack confidence in talking money, here is what you say:

"I'm looking for $120K to $130K. Before we get further into the process I want to confirm that this salary range is what would be discussed if we get to an offer."

You might add:

"$120K is my minimum but I am really hoping to find a role at the higher end - $130K is what I'm aiming for, depending on the job."

If, after saying all this, you get lowballed, then you have good reason to be very annoyed, and express calmly but clearly that you have had your minimum salary on the table since the first phone call." At that point you withdraw from the process and go look for a job with a professional company.

Recruiters at big companies will be told to advertise the role within the payband (the min to max pay for that role at that pay band)

So if you see a top end number and think you’ll get that, you probably won’t it will be around the middle of the range.

At that point you go back to the recruiter and state that you would expect the top end of the range. They may agree with you but then keep in mind that may also impact your salary increase at the end of the year, meaning a smaller increase for you compared to your peers which over several years would even out and out you back in the middle of the payband like your peers. This is why the common idea is to jump roles every few years.

That is only about 50% more than full time minimum wage!

A company has a fixed amount of money it can spend on wages. Reducing wage inequality means paying less to the best employees and more to the others, which is great if you just want to slack off but terrible if you're already one of the highest paid employees.

It's very hard for people to accept that this might even be the case, many people just assume that transparency is better for workers.

At least the young women in UK are outearning (and outeducating) young men.

My first question to any recruiter is now always "what's the salary range for this role?" precisely because I've run into your first point earlier in my career. I'm not even particularly salary-driven (doing interesting, valuable work is far more important!) but it's the best indicator that the role is pitched at the right level for me.

From an employer's point of view, there's also the avoidance of future unpleasantness if (or, rather, when) it comes to light that some staff are paid significantly less than their peers.

Responsible employers don't need mandatory salary disclosures to do the right thing here but, sadly, not all employers are responsible so this sets a common baseline and ensures everyone plays by the same rules.

I've tried the opposite, paid everyone the same. But there were clear differences in ability and more importantly outside options. It became a problem when it came to retention and the business didn't have the ability to overpay everyone to keep the top performers.

It's why we require public companies to disclose their finances. How could a person, even in theory, know whether to invest otherwise? It's why we require sellers of houses to deliver an independent inspection report. Etc etc.

The converse is also why HFT companies make more money than croesus.

I usually reply to the brush-off with "I only ask because the seniority level is reflected in the salary, not the role or the advertisement."

I say that because it is, in fact, true: the seniority/skill required for the role and duties/responsibilities dictates the pay, the bullet points in the advertisement and the role description is often completely divorced from the level of seniority or skill required in the actual role.

IOW "We're hiring a Senior dev" might have me respond "That's a Junior pay-bracket".

Mandatory Gender Pay Gap Reporting (Conservative Party 2017)

Pay Transparency Pilot (Conservative Party 2022) - (Participating employers only) list salary ranges on all job adverts and stop asking applicants for their salary history during recruitment

if i apply despite not liking the range i can still say no and ask for more, but not knowing the range in advance is unlikely to raise the chance of that happening.

I was like, okay, fair enough.

I played it completely wrong though. I should have just reframed it and said, well, I paid this, but you're not competing against my current employer, you're competing against Meta, who I'm also interviewing with this week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number

Again, member states miss European deadlines, but since it has no practical consequences, I don't see a why they would do it differently.

Also “in the last year” means only ~50% of that time is covered by when enforcement started.

Some countries have yet to pass any legislation too, this happens quite a lot if you look into past EU declarations, so companies there might be using that as a loophole to act as if not yet be effectively covered (in theory they could be taken to court over it, but that is can be complicated, or at least expensive, when there is no local legislation yet, so in practise it is far less likely to happen). What action will be taken by the EU to push things forward, I'm not sure, presumably there is some sort of fine for extended non-compliance? The question of who you are advertising to and where from can get a bit complex if you are a company in a member state that has not yet enacted anything, especially when you operate out of more than one territory.

Most of the jobs in that HN thread do give a salary expectation (though a few with a very wide range, which might be outside the rules, but they were US anyway so not covered), I don't think I saw an EU one in my quick scan that did not (at least one UK one, but again those are not currently covered by such rules).

I've spent my entire career on the other side of hiring and I've yet to encounter a single valid excuse for not knowing, and subsequently not advertising, a salary range. Before you hire, you need to know if you can afford to hire. If you know you can afford to hire, you know what you can afford to pay. It really is that simple.

any CEO who says that is also just in it for the money and wants to exploit employees.

what do you expect me to do? work for free?

So few candidates so rarely have the power to negotiate above what the hidden range already is, that this is a non-issue.

We really shouldn't be deciding policy based on the outliers, besides which those people (the outliers) that can dictate a number higher than the range already set aren't hired from advertisements anyway, making the whole "but we can't do this because it would affect those who don't apply respond to job ads"...