Salary. Hide or Show in the Job Description

I'm sure every one of you has experienced this at least once in your life:

You see a vacancy that catches your eye.

Your level of experience matches the job description. This is in the field in which you want to work. 

What's more, you see a prospect for you...

Everything is super...

You start to feel excited... 

You scroll down and the location is perfect...

lower and there's coffee and biscuits...

lower...

your heart sinks...

BUT, NO SALARY...😔

There are several reasons which are obvious to us: 

1. not publishing salary information will attract the best candidates
2. leave room for negotiation and flexibility in hiring
3. simply hide this information from their own employees

While there are fairly objective and compelling reasons for a company NOT to publish its salary level, there must be equally compelling reasons to do exactly the opposite. Isn't it?

We have chosen 4 reasons, which in our opinion are worth a closer look:

• There will be more candidates

In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, employees who will quit in 2021 cited the following three main reasons for leaving:

Low pay (63%)

Lack of promotion opportunities (63%) 

Feeling disrespected at work (57%).

If candidates want to leave their job (and their previous salary) in favour of a higher salary and you don't even advertise yours, why should they apply? Also, if you publish your salary range, the job applications you receive are likely to be better. A clear and direct statement of what you offer gives candidates a compelling reason to take the time to consider you.

• Candidates now value transparency

In the past, talking openly about salaries and earnings was considered taboo; this is beginning to change. There are campaigns around the world encouraging employees to publicly disclose their salaries to encourage fair pay and equal pay for equal work.

Here is an example of an organisation trying to normalise wage transparency and reduce the pay gap by encouraging employees from different sectors to talk openly about how much they earn. 

Show The Salary

At the same time, Dominic B., managing director of Flaschenpost Services AG, also criticises full wage transparency because so far he has had mostly negative experiences with transparent wages. Salary transparency should be a means to an end: should transparency create trust or fairness? Is it about ideology? "As we have not yet found a clear goal requiring wage transparency, we are not planning any changes.

Alongside this view, research suggests that around 62% of Generation Z workers said they would be more likely to apply to a company if its leaders were committed to pay equity, pay transparency can help employers reinforce their employer brand and create a more diverse and representative workforce.

• An economy of time. For everyone

If candidates don't know all the details of the job they are applying for, you better believe they will ask! Expect phone calls, emails, social media posts, all asking the same question. And can you blame them?  Wanting to know how much a job pays is a legitimate question, so save your precious time and your hiring team and answer it in your job ad. The same goes for interviews. If a candidate doesn't know how much a job costs before they get to the actual interview questions , this leaves the door open for a rather awkward scenario

• Salary transparency minimizes bias and promotes equity

We know bias has a way of creeping into your diversity hiring process at every stage. That’s why, from the moment you create the job description, it’s important to be conscious of the language you’re using and what you choose to include and leave out. 

Although it’s illegal to pay individuals different salaries if the only difference between them is a protected characteristic such as race, gender, age, or disability — subconscious bias can still come into play when making hiring decisions. 

In the following article we will try to give some tips on how you can include a salary in the job description.