Hiring Managers, Could You Just Please Talk Salary Upfront?

“Woohoo! I just love, love, love being on a job search!” said nobody everrrrrrrr!

People don’t job search because it’s fun. Job searching is tough. It's brutal. It's exhausting. It takes a huge toll on one's mental and physical well-being. Job searchers are also under pressure to find something quickly, either because they’re unemployed, know they’re about to be unemployed or are in a static or toxic work environment.?

It shouldn't be the job seeker's responsibility to have to bring up compensation during the interview at the onset. It's difficult enough for most people to talk about their salary requirements because, culturally, we're raised not to talk about money. Add to that the fact that even in a candidate-driven market, job seekers are at a disadvantage, information-wise.

A recent Payscale report reveals that we have a long way to go when it comes to pay communications and transparency. When asked the question “When do you share pay ranges with prospective employees?”, 24% said never,?22% said “in the job advertisement”, 21% on the initial phone screen, 12% once offer is provided, 11% during the onsite interview, 8% said “we don’t have pay ranges” and 3% was at the first employee review.

That’s just not acceptable. It should not be the norm, and it’s high time we change things.?

Please, hiring managers. Do yourself and everyone else involved a favor and talk money upfront. It says a lot about your company culture if you do. It tells people that you respect them enough to not waste their time by setting expectations early on. It also says that you’re grounded, you're strategic enough to actually have done your research on what fair and commensurate wages look like, and don’t have your head in the clouds about what’s realistic and what’s not (yes, I'm looking at you champagne-on-a-beer-budget types who want a purple squirrel for half a nut).

If you wait till the end of the interview process to discuss comp and it's lower than what a candidate is looking for, you're going to have a very pissed-off candidate who isn't going to have too high of an opinion of you or your company, and in the age of social media, word spreads and stays spread.

I get the hesitation to disclose comp early on. I really do.? Mainly, it stems from pay disparity issues or the fact that your range is not where the current market value is at, for whatever reason (I love working with early stage startups, so I know firsthand the challenges of building a team from scratch, especially in the pre-Series A stage, and there's not much of a runway to begin with). There are those of you who are hoping that the candidates will have been so invested in the interview process that they’ll just say yes to your offer.?(Uh, that’s not respect. That’s called Stockholm Syndrome!) There are also those of you who fear that if you disclose it, candidates will expect to be the high end of the range, in which case you really need to do a better job of explaining how your salary scale works (I always say, “Our range for this role is set at a base of $XX,XXX to XX,XXX, DEPENDING ON THE EXPERIENCE LEVEL”).?Also, sure, it’s more comfortable to be in the position of being at a negotiation advantage if the candidates have less information, but just how comfortable are you going to be, when after wasting precious resources on the interview process,?the candidate eventually takes another over yours or worse, leaves within a few months because he’s received a better deal??No, it shouldn’t be about money, but let’s face it, being paid a competitive wage is also important. People can’t pay their bills with passion.

For those of you who are job searching, think of it this way:?if a company tries to obfuscate and sidestep the salary/compensation question at the onset, consider it a red flag. Seriously, what are they hiding??If their offer is competitive, why the cloak and dagger??

Obviously, you don’t want to just blurt out “Hey, how much does this role pay?” as your opening salvo because that’s just crass, but once the interviewer has given you an overview of the role and he or she hasn’t included any mention of the salary range by then, when you’re asked if you have any questions, have it be the second question you bring up and say “Would you be able to share a general salary range for this role?”.

While it will feel awkward and intimidating for most (I work primarily with people who are early talent and career pivots, so Imposter syndrome and the fear of never getting another job offer looms large with many of of my clients and students), don’t let it get past the 2nd interview without addressing it.?Your time is valuable, and you can’t take your time back especially when you’re job searching. Better to know right off the bat than to get to the end of the process and find out they can’t afford you.

Got any topics about career success, recruiting, talent acquisition or job searching? Send me a LinkedIn inmail or shoot me an email at [email protected] and I'll add it to my list of articles to write!

Dezzi Rae A. Marshall (Career Coach Dezzi)