It has become a common practice to not disclose the salary in job postings. So just who are you trying to cheat?
I start with 2 presuppositions:
1. You have an approved job description. That means that you have defined the tasks you need performed and have convinced management and the board that they should authorize you to spend up to a certain dollar amount for this position. This is what the job is worth to the organization.
2. “The workman is worthy of his hire.” “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”
So, who are you planning to cheat?
The Applicant. You are hoping he or she doesn’t ask for what you are willing to pay.
Your Other Employees. You don’t want them to realize that they are being paid at well below the market rate, well below what they are worth, and well below what you are willing to pay.
Your Board. You have no clue as to what it will cost to fill this position. You haven’t done your homework. You haven’t thought out what the real functions you need performed. You have not looked at alternatives. You have not thought through the real applicant requirements (“licensed counselor”, “has a valid driver’s license”) and loaded it nice-to-have factors (“college graduate or 5 years experience”, “business accounting major”, “SSAN number ends in 1234” [implied]). Of course, the board has to be a part of this, letting you get away with presupposition #1 above.
Here’s what you are communicating to the applicant.
You know, the one you want. The one that is the passive candidate.
1. I don’t respect you. In today’s environment, the candidate must invest a lot of time and effort researching your company and tailoring their response to meet your needs. You are stating that their time is of no value to you, as they must invest without knowing if the effort is worth it.
2. I want to exploit you. The most common reason for not disclosing the compensation is the hope that you will be getting a bargain, i.e. pay less than the job is worth.
3. I exploit my current employees. Some will say that disclosing salaries will discourage their current employees. This is just admitting that you are paying them less than their work is worth.
4. This job isn’t real. If you don’t post the compensation, it might be because you can’t. And this raises the concern that the job is so unimportant that you have not researched the market or that you have not staffed through the proper management. Remember, the candidate you want will go through a Real-Win-Worth analysis before applying.
5. I don’t know how to negotiate. There is an old axiom that says that the first negotiator to state a number loses. However, as this article from Harvard Business School points out, anchoring has a much stronger effect. Hiding the compensation highlights your lack of skill.
By the way, you can always negotiate. The stated compensation only applies if they meet every requirement and perform the required tasks. Change any single word and it becomes a negotiation.
And don’t even start with the “we need to leave room to grow” approach. If the candidate meets the requirements and performs the duties, he should get the pay. If he or she doesn’t have the experience, then he doesn’t meet the requirements.
The applicants who ignore the above are more likely to be from the desperate-rejects category than from the valued-employee category. Yes, a lot of good people are now unemployed, but the superstars you want are not going to put up with sleaze.
Bonus Point
Many companies require the applicant to list their prior salary. To what end? Prior compensation tells you nothing about the applicant, only about the prior job and the prior organization. For example, I have managed several multi-million dollar organizations, but the compensation at the the last three total exactly zero. What are you going to do with that? The message you are sending is, “I am stronger than you and I can exploit you all I want.”