No they don’t consider if they are wasting anyone’s time. That has been my experience. I have gone on interviews where the pay was not stated and it always turned out to be a waste of time. So I developed the processes asking what the salary range was before coming in for an interview. I always made it a point to assure them that I was concerned about wasting their time. But I did not want to take time off work loosing pay and waste my time for a job that I would not consider.
A few examples in my life.
When the store I was working at was going to close I had my pay rate $32.26 an hour. And the fact that I would be forfeiting a severance package of $20,000 if I left the company before it closed the doors. I received one call that they were excited about my resume and could I come in tomorrow only during working hours. I explained my position about needing to know the pay rate before I wasted their time or took time off work. At first she said that they would not discuss the pay scale until after the interview. I refused to come in. She agreed to call me the next day with the scale. She called the next day “with your experience we are willing pay you more than our other employees, $22 to $24.” I asked an hour? she corrected me no that is a month. That comes out to $12.00 to $14.00 an hour. After I stopped laughing I apologized because I must have missed read the ad, I thought they were looking for an Engineer. She claimed they had good ones working for them. I explained no I mean engineers who fix things not just work on them then call a contractor.
A second job was at an Data Center. We never got to the wage level. He kept stressing that there would be a lot of over time and I would need to be on call when not working, and could I handle that. I kept saying yes I could if I was properly compensated for the on call time. After about 15 minutes of back and forth he asked what did I mean by properly compensated. When I explained that traditionally in my profession on call pay was half time pay for every hour on call. The interview went very cold from that point on. He said he would call and he never did. But that was OK the plant was in such a mess from hiring below scale people that I did not want the job unless they were paying top dollar.
Third job looked good. At a Hotel in Santa Clara Ca. After two sets of interviews they made me an offer of $70,000 salary a year. I resume had my wage on it. I was making just around $70,000 a year plus overtime if over 40 hours. The new job was a Chief Engineer’s job on salary no OT and having more responsibilities. I countered that it would have to be at least $90,000 and discussing benefits before I could consider. Wasted two days of my time, two days of the Chief’s time, and an hour of the hotel manager’s time. Just because they did not read the resume.
I make few exception to the need to know the wage before I go in for a interview.
The salary range for the title I held was $27,000 - $105,000.
On the other hand, it made it easy to be coy when they asked about my expectations before they were willing to tip their hand. “I’d expect the position pays somewhere within that range.”
Doesn’t hurt to interview. See if you like them. Get a feel for the job. If you like them, see where it leads.
If you end up talking money, just be straightforward about your real requirements. They can either meet them or they can’t. Oddly, many places that indicate they can’t, can. Negotiation is a funny thing.
I had a long pain in the ass panel interview with 7 interviewers who really wanted to hire me but they wouldn’t offer an amount beyond (confident nod) “it’s pretty good.” They were so shocked that I wouldn’t accept their “offer” and terminate my other leads and devote several months of my life to complete training and probation to discover whether “it’s pretty good” would have been enough to live on.
I worked one time with a true professional HR person. Took some classes that she taught at San Jose State for Employees. She said that any professional who does not include his experience and pay in his resume was not truly a professional. And any company that did not include in an ad for a job the expected qualifications, experience and pay range had amateurs not professionals in their personal or HR department. And if you worked for them expect to have administration problems.
I know a very professional headhunter who is dead set against you giving out your salary, on the grounds that you should be making what you are worth to the employer, not some small percentage above what you are worth to someone else - someone you clearly want to leave.
For many jobs the salary depends on experience, so putting it in the ad might either cause problems with inexperienced people who want the bigger bucks or drive away experienced people who might qualify for the high range. It is different after they see your resume, though.
And I loved your stories.
Not putting the pay rate in the ad can backfire. By not putting the pay in the add you get the wrong people applying and the right people sometimes don’t apply. The department chain that I worked for did not put the pay in any of their adds.
We got plenty of handymen applying for maintenance engineer’s jobs. It would take 3 to 6 months to get an application from someone we would consider and then it was usually accepting the best of the unqualified hoping that we could train them quickly. And hoping they did not make too much of a mess while learning.
We lucked out on one guy. He had just moved into the area, had worked as an maintenance electrician, and needed any job. He applied because if he got the job it would pay the bills until he could get a real job. Being a department store he though the pay would be sub pay. In the interview when he was told the job was 25 he thought it was a$2500 a month. He was shocked to learn no it was $25.00 and hour. He found that out on his first pay check. He asked me about the pay and told me he almost did not apply for the job because he thought the pay at a department store would be below scale, so he applied thinking it would be temporary. He quickly picked up on the other parts of the job and worked his way up to Chief Engineer before the stores closed.
If you don’t post the pay and benefits in a job as many qualified people are going to pass over your ad. And many unqualified people are going to apply land you are going to waste time going through them.
I think you can do about as well if you post the job title with the right buzz words - senior, junior, chief, whatever. Of course if the pay is way off for these titles there will be problems.
Our ads - always on our website, never on job boards - have very specific technical requirements - and we still get tons of resumes from people who can’t even spell the TLA.
But if the salary is absolutely set for a position, unlike for ours, posting it can make sense.
If you are looking for another job, get an initial interview to see if you are both a good fit for each other. Salary and compensation discussions will come later.
If you are going to be all pissy about having to do that, then you are probably not a good fit.
Also glassdoor.com is your friend.
When I pre screen potential candidates- I’ve reviewed their resumes, and depending upon their previous employers and years of experience, I know who I will contact and who will accept the salary range I’m at. In some instances I move up the salary expectation question from second to last to second or third from first if I need to cut to the chase and I don’t want to waste my time or theirs in a 8-10 minute phone interview.
Applicant tracking systems is what is used by recruiters and HR to hoard all the resumes of folks from somewhat vague job ads. It allows you to establish a pipeline of potential candidates for the current position or future job openings.
Glassdoor.com and Salary.com are also useful to help suss out pay scale and to hear from current and former employees what its like to work for said company.
The ads Read maintenance engineer, Facilities Engineer, or maintenance. and they are looking for everything from a fully qualified journeyman engineer to someone who can find the front door. The pay scale will be from $12 per hour to 45 per hour. There is no way to tell but by looking who the employer is, and the industry, and in which city.
There were a lot of ads that I did not answer because a swag said it was a waste of time. Some I did answer if I could e-mail my resume. But I always wondered why anyone in HR would contact someone that they did not really look at their resume. But they do and often.
What I ended up doing was to write to the NGO under a pseudonym as a potential candidate for the position, asking for them to give me the salary range for the reasons I mentioned to you. They responded to me quite quickly with the figure, which was a good one-third less than I am currently making. So I won’t be pursuing this one any further. But I am very glad that I asked. It was a bit sneaky of me to use a pseudonym, but on the other hand I think it was somewhat disingenuous of them not to state a salary that is so far below the industry standard in the ad. Anyway, no harm no foul.