Frustrated Woman Demands Companies Publicly List Their Salary Ranges On Job Postings
"Why bother to ask for an applicant's desired salary if you're going to disregard it?"
Ground Picture | Shutterstock When it comes to job hunting, most people find the process to be both excruciating and tiresome, but one particular challenge is job seekers trying to figure out their worth when applying to different companies.
Clear salary ranges can help with that, which one woman pointed out should be a nonnegotiable when companies are advertising job positions on various platforms and job boards.
She demanded that companies publicly list their salary ranges on job postings.
In a post to Instagram Threads, Jess Goodwin shared her frustrations with the lack of pay transparency that exists in the corporate world, especially for job seekers who are applying.
She explained that during a recent application process with a company, Goodwin experienced first-hand why it's always better to be honest with how much a company will pay a potential employee.
"A couple of weeks ago I applied to a full-time remote job and was asked to include my desired salary. There wasn't a range in the listing, and at this point, I usually don't bother applying if there isn't a reasonable pay range," she wrote. Despite Goodwin's instincts, the job sounded genuinely fun and interesting, plus the application itself was relatively short and to the point.
Goodwin decided to apply, which she pointed out ended up being a good reminder that there's really no point in applying for a job position if the company doesn't implement salary transparency.
After applying, Goodwin received an email from the head of HR asking her to complete a Google form with a few questions about her experience, her approach to certain situations, and other questions along those lines.
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"One of the questions was whether I was comfortable with the budgeted salary, which was nearly $30K less than what I listed in my application," she continued. "I genuinely don't understand the thinking here. Why bother to ask for an applicant's desired salary if you're going to disregard it? Why not include the salary in the job description to begin with if you're going to mention it in the next step in the process?"
Goodwin sent a polite email back in response, letting HR at this company know that she wouldn't be filling out the form at all and let them know the exact reason why because she didn't want to just ghost them altogether. It didn't take long for her to get another reply from the company, approximately three minutes, according to Goodwin, where they alerted her that they'd moved on to another candidate.
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In the end, Goodwin admitted that it was just "baffling behavior" all around and issued a warning that prospective job candidates shouldn't be afraid to ask for salary transparency, and if it doesn't align with how much they think they should be paid, then there's nothing wrong with walking away from that application.
No one should have to work for less money, especially if they believe their value is more than that.
Pay transparency continues to be on the rise for many job seekers as it is.
According to Indeed Hiring Lab, in August 2023, 50% of online job listings advertised salary, up from 18.4% in February 2020. The growth was mostly attributed to recent pay transparency laws enacted by states and municipalities.
New York, for example, became the latest state, following California, Colorado, and Washington state, to adopt a pay transparency law. Employers in the state with at least four employees must make a “good faith” salary disclosure in job postings.
However, there are some companies whose biggest fear is that wage transparency will hurt recruiting and speed up turnover rate because employees and candidates see how much more they could earn elsewhere.
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To this, Lulu Seikaly, senior employment counsel at Payscale, a compensation data company in Seattle, told the Society for Human Resource Management, "If you’re a smaller company, post that you offer pet insurance, fertility benefits, unlimited PTO and remote work."
"Those other fringe benefits are really important, especially for younger employees who may not be hunting for base salary as much as they are the total package."
Advertising transparent pay from the get-go can save both employers and job seekers so much time when deciding to go through an application process, and because job hunting is such an intense experience, just one thing to help the process move smoothly can make a world of difference.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.