Like many others, I’m jobhunting. When I respond to an advert with an advertised pay range, does it help me or hurt me to say that the low end is acceptable?
Only if you have some experience in salaries for the position. The employer likely does, certainly the employer knows how much they are paying their present employees. BUT… sometimes the employer will put in a very low salary just to see if people will take it. That isn’t a game you want to play.
So, if you know the salary range for the position, say from previous interviews or prior knowledge, and the lower range is still reasonable for the field, setting your salary requirements close to the low end is fine if that is OK with you. But don’t do so solely on the basis of the employer’s stated range.
In general, unless you have current knowledge of the employer and the field, figure out what it takes someone of your age and skill level to live in your area and go with that. To me, that is the only way for a candidate without current job experience in the field and area to know what to ask for. Note that it is more than the cost of living in the area. It is the availability of your skills in the area as well. If there is a shortage of system administrators or graphic artists or whatever in your area, the salary will be higher. Yet another reason for everyone to keep tabs on people in their field in their area. So, if you are applying for any position, be aware that there are lots of people in your area that qualify. If you are applying as a skilled painter, you would do well to know how many painters there are in your area.
As an example of knowing the employer’s situation, we hire for government contracts. Our salaries tend to be lower than what companies offer for private businesses. Our candidates need to understand that I can’t offer 80K for a 60K job if my customer won’t pay the higher amount. It is sometimes a hard concept to get across. At the same time, it doesn’t do me any good to hire someone willing to take 40K to do the job. Almost always, we get what we pay for. The salaries might be lower, but the work requirements tend to be high. sigh. So we offer as much as our customer lets us. It isn’t in our interest to hire at a lower salary. The few times we have done that, the employee left as soon as a better offer came along. We were not well served “saving” 10K.
as you might notice, this subject has gotten a lot of my attention lately…
Good luck on your job search. There are positions out there, it is just hard to match employees to requirements. Anything you can do in that regard will help in the hiring process.
IME whoever mentions salary first loses. If you know their range before they know how much you are looking for it gives you the upper hand and vice versa.
Me: Experienced manager with many hires behind me.
I put those bits in the ads (Salary Range: XXX-YYY) or ‘Respond with salary requirements’ to provide a strong first filter to the applicants. I don’t want to go any amount of the way through the process only to have it collapse due to salary expectation disparities. It’s a waste of time.
But if a candidate went out of his/her way to stress that he/she would accept the bottom end of the stated range I’d smell desperation and that is a significant minus on the hire decision. Nothing makes me feel more hinky about a possible hire than the feeling that they don’t want my job but ANY job.
So I’d say it’s not a good idea. Or, look at it this way:
I, hiring manager, have stated my salary range. You are interviewing. If I say I’ll hire you and you say you’ll work cheap what incentive do I have to offer the mid-range or upper-range?
I just hired a new AA - I didn’t participate in the salary negotiations, but I am privy to the results.
Where I work, there is a range for junior AAs I believe it’s between $16 and $24/hour. However, given the current job market here, we NEVER hire at the bottom of the range. Like NEVER.
Someone with almost no experience can come in and start at $19. This is not because we’re super generous, it’s because that’s what this type of work is worth in this market.
This didn’t happen when I was interviewing, but if a person had come in and said they would start at the bottom, it would be a black mark against them I think. If I’m willing to pay a range and I have a person who says their services are worth $19/hour, and someone else who says their services are only worth $16/hour, I want the $19/hour person. This person is still in the range but I assume there skill set is better if they demand the extra $3. Undervaluing your skills only makes me - potential employer - think that you’re skill set isnt’ that good.
It’s unlikely to help you unless there is something unusual about the situation, like relocating from an expensive labor market to a cheaper one, changing fields, or moving to public/nonprofit sector. Even then, talking about salary isn’t quite the way to go, it’s emphasizing why you want to relocate/ change industries/ work for a specific organization. In general, when large employers publish a range they’ve been approved to pay anywhere in that range and will hire someone for whom that represents a small/moderate bump up from their last job.