I’ve had a dream lately that there is a new kind of job description. I’m specifically talking about the postings for hiring candidates, not the “I have a job, here is my description so I know what I’m supposed to do.”
Steve Levy wrote Pick Me…Pick Me! (Steve is one of my favorite recruiting bloggers) In his post he says:
As a job seeker I wasn’t astute enough to pick through postings and see the boring and generic… I simply saw a list of requirements and hoped to match my skills and experience to that list. So that didn’t bug me as much as it bugs people who are in-the-know.
I’ll tell you what did bug me. TO NO END. I hated, loathed, detested, abhorred (yes, I can use online synonym tools) seeing a job description that fit me “to a T,” but didn’t have any compensation information.
Many years ago hiring companies went from disclosing how much they would pay to not telling anything. The problem is, I might see a title and description that I’m well-suited for but not realize you are paying 50% of what I’m expecting to make.
Can’t we just cut to the chase and get that out of the way?
Let’s say that I have to make $80,000/year. I find three job openings that are practically identical, and somehow find out that one pays $50,000, one pays $85,000, and one pays $240,000.
The problem is that the first one is simply too low, and I can’t afford to live on that. I would like the job, but it is just too far off and I don’t want to get a second job to bridge the gap.
The third one is three times what I’m hoping to make… of course, anyone would love to make three times what their need is, but if I see you are paying $240k, and I’ve not made more than 100k before, I’m going to wonder if you aren’t looking for someone with a lot more depth of experience than I have. I can use this number to determine that I’m really not the right guy (but hey, I met someone who might be a perfect fit – can I introduce you?).
This now-secretive number makes it so much harder for a job seeker to look at a posting and try and figure out if it is even a possibility.
What if we could go back to the olden days and JUST SHARE THE SALARY RANGE!
I know, I know, it’s really too much to ask. But a guy can dream, can’t he?
Why is it that for the two most important venues of life (work & health care) the “customer” is so readily kept in the dark about the price of anything until after the commitment to deal with some entity?
So true Zee. Last year I was in the ER for an emergency gall bladder removal (I didn’t know it at the time), and in my research I found the cost of this, when you go to the ER, can be so varied. No one at the hospital would answer any financial questions until after it was all done and I was recuperating, and even then it was like pulling teeth to have anyone give us a straight answer.