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I think you're ignoring the massive power differential between employers and applicants. It's a game of incomplete information when the applicant doesn't know the possible salary range.

Your company might be benevolent, but it doubt most are, and when companies use information asymmetry to pay less, it hurts the very people they will turn around and pretend to care about, culture, "we're a family!", all the corporate platitudes we all know.

> At the end of the day, I really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself.

This just isn't true. Should, in an ideal fantasy world, maybe. In the real, "I need to make money to eat and pay rent" world, you're competing with every other person applying for the same role. If you don't get a job, it's your life on the line. If a company misses out on a good applicant, well better luck next time, nothing really changes.

Bottom line, keeping pay bands secret/undisclosed only hurts individuals, and helps companies. Given the inherent power differential between the two, there's no good reason to tilt things even more in favor of employers.

> I think you're ignoring the massive power differential between employers and applicants. It's a game of incomplete information when the applicant doesn't know the possible salary range.

This is repeated all over the thread, but makes little sense. You don't need to know this to come to agreement. All you need to know is what you want/expect to be paid, and the lowest number you're willing to accept. The company, in turn, doesn't know this information, and wants to discover it. You're equally matched. You both have exactly 50% of the information required to come to agreement.

Moreover, the company has invested a great deal of time and money to get you to the point in the negotiation where it actually matters what you're willing to accept. You have power!

The one thing that this does is (maybe) savesyou the effort of interviewing when your salary expectations are wildly out of line with the employer's willingness to pay. But that rarely happens, in practice. When it does happen, it's at senior levels, where your value to the company is disproportionately large. If you're at that level, you can usually tell going into the interview if the company has properly identified the value you believe you bring.

Stupid example: if you have 20 years of experience as a software engineering lead, manager, senior engineer, and so on, and you're interviewing for "Javascript Developer 1", then maybe you should be worried about pre-filtering on salary expectations.

You're missing that the company has the same information from a pool of other existing employees or candidates, and you do not. The information is not 50%, because you're in the dark about the state of the market - you're highly likely to be leaving money on the table. It's similar to why insider trading is illegal: one party is playing with non-public information.

No, I'm not missing that. First, you're not "dark" -- it's pretty easy to get a sense of what the market will pay. There are tons of resources. The average company is not getting better information than you are about regional salaries, which is all you really care about. If nothing else, you can find this information by just going out and negotiating a few times.

Second, the big companies will (sometimes) pay for salary data, but this information falls in the "what the company is willing to pay" bucket. Again, that's 50% of the information to make a deal, and you don't need to know it. From your perspective, it doesn't matter if they got their salary band by consulting a survey or a magic 8 ball. Maybe it affects the level of faux outrage they show when you ask for more, but then you're just back to negotiation.

Said differently, if you know you're worth $X, and the company believes that the statistical average human cog in Barnsville, Nebrahoma is worth $Y, what do you care why they believe that? Your job is to find the highest number between $X and $Y that they will accept, based on your unique value. Their job is to convince you to join, and maybe get that number closer to $Y. Their justification for $Y is not your concern.

My first question to any recruiter is "what is the salary range for this position." It's not worth investing my or your time if the range does not work for me. THIS is the reason why posting the range is so important. Withholding the range means that I would be putting in lots of time to interview, only to find out that you were never going to pay me a standard market rate with little benefit. Maybe you'll find some people that are desperate for work that way, since they'll be seeing things as a sunk cost? At the end of the day, you get what you are willing to pay for.

As an applicant, I understand that whatever you put at the low end is what you are going to want to offer me assuming I just minimally pass your bar. To get the higher end requires negotiation. However, if you are willing to pay my x+5, why bother with the games at all? Just make your best offer and let's get things off on the right foot. Why do we need to feel like we each "got the better out of each other?" It also levels the playing field for people that just aren't good at negotiating.

I'm an engineer, not a sales negotiator. What does my ability to argue for a higher salary have to do with my ability to build product. Probably nothing. And if you think this is some coded way of measuring ability to convince people in a discussion, maybe you should explicitly be asking that during your interview process instead.

> Why do we need to feel like we each "got the better out of each other?"

Because both of you are parties in a deal and have your own best interests in mind

> I take into consideration a lot of factors that center around how much worth someone brings to the table

This is the heart of the matter. It's pretty well-studied that some less-represented groups are systematically underpaid for similar work than more-represented groups of employees. Empirically, that "worth" calculation is not objective.

> I then work out a range I'm comfortable offering

Employers frequently pretend they do not have a range in mind by saying comp is "DOE." But it usually isn't solely DOE, it's f(abstract role, person in role). So a entry-level data entry role isn't going to be worth $800k annually no matter how much experience. The employer has a range in mind before they see a single resume. I don't see the issue with publishing that range as part of the job description.

I actually think there will be a follow-on benefit to companies in reduced turnover (the hires that jump too soon because the job doesn't really pay enough but the candidate was too invested in the process to back out by the time comp was discussed) and reduced load on recruiters (by having people self-select out before the interview process). Every company aims to do these things when marketing offerings to its customers, I fail to see how it would be a bad thing to do when marketing to potential employees.

> I then fully expect that person to counter, because I feel that it's on them to do the market research to determine how much they're worth. That's what I've done through my career and I've been happy with the result.

Can you imagine why many others cannot or do not want to negotiate like this?

No. I really think that people aren't taught to do this, or they feel that they're not allowed to. If someone brought this concern to me, I'd tell say: it's your life, define your goals and determine how you're going to reach them. Don't rely on an employer or anyone else to get you to where you want to be. They can't read your mind. If you're uncomfortable asking for more, then tell a future employer that you're uncomfortable asking for more, but you'd really like to discuss that possibility. Honest communication is key in those situations.

> I feel that these types of rules tend to place companies in a negative light - like their primary goal is to focus on company profits and screw over anyone that might be getting in their way

Assuming that "screw over" includes staying within the bounds of the law, isn't this approximately correct? Companies try to maximize profits and not get in any legal trouble.

I don't think companies are black and white like that. Even the big ones. Sure management focuses on profit and loss and they keep an eye on legal hurdles. When I hire someone, I want their skillset (otherwise I wouldn't be offering them the job). My goal is to be fair with their rate while being mindful of the fact that I need to pay my other employees, and give enough room to hand out raises, pay for benefits, file for new patents, order parts, etc, etc, etc. I know that the person I've just interviewed is capable of getting a job elsewhere and may have other offers on the table, so it's in my best interest to give a fair offer that's within my comfort zone.

Having said all that, business does boil down to a lot more than just profits. Those are important but so is the livelihood of the employees, along with their expertise and tribal knowledge. I know those feed into profits, but I'm thinking beyond that. It's my job to ensure that my employees are able to take home the pay they've earned. Often, I have to put on more of a social worker hat and help out some of my employees with personal issues. That may be loaning a car at no charge, or giving a low interest loan to buy a house. In the past, I've paid for weddings and funerals. All of that goes with the job of being an employer. That doesn't mean every employer has to do those things. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can help out in those ways, so I take advantage.

I think this highlights the point I'm trying to make: too many people focus on businesses trying to maximize profits and they push to enforce rules to help out the little guy. If businesses do that, then that's too bad. If you work for one of those businesses, then talk to your manager about it and if necessary, find a company that shares your outlook. Not all businesses are like that though - in fact, a lot of them aren't. Most businesses really do try to be fair and understand there's competition out there that may be trying to lure in some of your star employees.

There is an information asymmetry between a prospective employee and employer, which favors the employer. It is sensible to even the playing field a bit by forcing the employer to be the first one to throw out a number to anchor the negotiation.

I agree with that. When I've interviewed in the past I approached it from two ways. First, I asked them to throw out a number - normally that didn't work and they threw it back to me b/c the person I was talking to was really just trying to fill out a field. So then I went on to my next step (which required some research before talking w/ the person). I threw out a number that was two brackets higher than the one I was applying for. I knew it was too high, but I figured if they wanted me that badly, they could give me that price or show their hand and tell me what they're willing to offer. That tricked worked every time.

Can I ask how you know how much expertise, self-learning ability, attitude, and flexibility to juggle diverse tasks a person has before they work for you? How you're able to tell how they _really_ work versus how they happened to do on the day you interviewed them? I'd also love you hear you how prevent allowing unconscious bias to slip into your evaluation of this person when you're deciding how much money to give them.

Yeah that's a good question and like most things in life, things aren't black and white. In terms of unconscious bias, I'm not sure how to answer that. I look for talent, professionalism, and attitude. That's it.

In terms of what a person can do vs how they happened to interview - that's a fun challenge. I tend to be extremely honest with a candidate, letting him know exactly who we are, what we do, and what types of challenges to expect. As I'm talking through that, I can usually tell if they have that engineering spark. If I really have a tough time trying to decide if they know their stuff, I'll draw a problem on the board and see if they can solve it - usually a problem we've recently solved ourselves. I also call references, which sort of helps. Hiring is a gamble and fortunately in my case, it tends to work out. It's rare, but every so often I misread someone and find out after they start that they aren't as far along as I thought. When that happens, I provide them with a mentor or offer to be one myself - or I relearn their skillset and then write proposals that highlight their abilities. In the extremely rare cases an employee can't/won't grow, I'll have an honest and polite conversation with them and then part ways.

When an employee starts here, they join a "work family." We look out for one another and push each other to learn. I tend to focus on my employees interests and skillset, then design customer solutions around those. That has worked really well for decades now and customers keep coming back!

"senior management position" "really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself"

-> capitalist that wants to underpay people and justifies it through a lengthy verbose convoluted articulation

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

-Upton Sinclair

Think what you will, but like I said, it's served me and my company well over the years. We're still in business, employees are happy, morale is high, I give bonuses/raises when possible, and customers keep coming back. Am I a capitalist, sure! I want to innovate and offer the best product possible to try and convince a consumer to buy or invest in that product. When a customer is happy, they pay their bills. When they pay their bills, my employees get paid. After all that happens, I get paid. Any extra is applied to future projects. That's how it works.