Should Employers Be Required To Include Salaries In Their Job Postings?

• Not including a salary in job postings wastes both employers’ and applicants’ time. 
• Putting salary ranges in job advertisements may give employers a competitive advantage when trying to attract candidates. 
• Colorado now requires employers to disclose hourly wages or pay ranges in all employment listings, with fines for not complying between $500 and $10,000 per violation.   

It takes a fairly compelling job posting to attract above average candidates. But there’s a lot to convey in that short space – what’s expected of a candidate, why the company is ideal, etc. 

Yet so many organizations still fail to include the one thing that can be the biggest motivator: salary information. 

Many have argued that not including a salary in job postings wastes both employers’ and applicants’ time. It also perpetuates wage gaps, discourages people from applying, and it minimizes the important financial aspect of work. 

In their job postings, why should companies include salaries? 

1. The best candidates are likely to be selective in which jobs they apply for because applying to jobs takes time. Listing salary information makes it clear what’s in the offer, and if the offer is attractive enough, it will give those top candidates a reason to spend some of their time on an application. 
2. Putting salary ranges in job advertisements may give employers a competitive advantage when trying to attract candidates. 
3. Disclosing salaries improves the gender pay gap. Pay transparency actually closes that gender pay gap because women are less likely to negotiate and more likely to be penalized for asking for higher pay. 

Studies show that job seekers value transparency when it comes to job posting salaries 

According to research from LinkedIn, which asked 450 users to look over an example job advertisement and then generated a heat map based on what captivated them, pay and benefits information immediately attracted a majority of the respondents (not surprisingly). 

Job seekers primarily want to know how much they’ll make, what they’re expected to do, and whether they can get the job.  

Other crucial areas of a job ad include the job’s title, location, and required qualifications, according to the LinkedIn heat map. Information about the company—like its mission and culture—is what candidates care the least about, according to SHRM. 

“When people are looking at job descriptions, they are looking for the details that drive their motivations when changing jobs,” said Monica Lewis, head of product for LinkedIn Jobs. “We found that over 70% of professionals want to hear about salary in the first message from a recruiter. With 59% of candidates stating that salary was the leading factor that contributed to feeling fulfilled in their career, understanding pay and benefits is clearly top of mind during the job search.” 

A study from Glassdoor echoes this sentiment. Money is the top motivator for 67% of job seekers and employees looking elsewhere for career opportunities, according to a survey of 1,100 workers and job seekers.  

When asked what would make them more likely to apply for a job, respondents said attractive benefits and perks. 

Rob Green, vice president of marketing for the Lebanon, N.H.-based firm, said that there’s a direct relationship between the number of benefits, such as health care and dental insurance, employee discounts, and paid time off mentioned in the job ad and the apply rate.  

“Organizations that listed at least four non-cash benefits found a 20%-plus improvement in the effectiveness of their online recruitment advertising,” Green said.  

HR professionals explain why they might not include a salary in a job description   

“In traditional corporate environments, the salary is often hidden because it’s a game of cat and mouse trying to figure out what salary the candidate is currently on, what they’re expecting, and what the company is willing to pay,” said Tom Harmsworth, the UK managing director at property-technology company WeMaintain. 

This lack of disclosure does not benefit workers, because knowing the expected salary upfront lets a candidate understand whether a job will be financially viable for them. It also streamlines conversations later in the hiring process. 

According to a 2021 report from Seattle-based compensation data company PayScale, only 12.6% of global companies published the pay range for a role within their job ads last year.  

“Employers don’t want to publicize how much they pay, in part, because it’s going to create resentment among organizational members,” said Eddy Ng, the Smith Professor of Equity and Inclusion in Business at Queen’s University, Canada.  

Shelly Holt, chief people officer at PayScale, said that much of the hesitancy around salary transparency comes from companies that lack both formal pay structures for their roles and confidence in their salary bands, often due to market fluctuations. 

The best way to attract talent is to be upfront about salaries 

In the end, now more than ever, companies want to attract the very best candidates available. In order to do this, the most appealing aspects of the position, including compensation, should be highlighted in the job posting.   

In Latvia, a new law that came into effect in 2019 makes it mandatory to post expected salaries on all job advertisements.  

In the U.S., Colorado became the first state to enact a law similar to Latvia’s earlier this year. It requires employers to disclose hourly wages or pay ranges in all employment listings, with fines for not complying between $500 and $10,000 per violation.   

There’s a growing global movement to make salary transparency not only a new norm, but also the law.   

This is due to the increasing body of research that shows that companies who are forthcoming about their wages can attract better, more diverse talent – making salary transparency an actionable way of creating a more equitable workplace.