Salary transparency at Stack Overflow
As someone in recruiting and hiring, I love the concept of salary transparency on many levels, and I hope more companies at least make attempts like this to provide insight.<p>That said, salary ranges and transparency can create two obvious issues.<p>1. Negotiations - I can tell you from vast past experience that when you tell an applicant &quot;the salary range for this position is 80-100K&quot;, in almost every case any offer below 100K is considered a slight regardless of the experience of the candidate. &quot;...but I thought you said the position paid 100K?&quot; is a common thing to hear. Candidates hear the top of the range, and apply&#x2F;interview with that expectation.<p>This is only an issue when a candidate&#x27;s true market rate is at the bottom of a range. A minimally qualified candidate doesn&#x27;t typically see himself&#x2F;herself as &#x27;minimally qualified&#x27;. So even if 80K is true fair market rate for this candidate, and 80K is offered, the offer still has a good chance of being rejected simply because of the emotional attachment to the higher number and the feeling of &quot;leaving money on the table&quot;.<p>2. Internal employees - Stack Overflow said this has been available internally for a bit, but when employees find out what others are making they are inclined to compare their own efforts&#x2F;abilities vs others. It can lead to people either asking for raises to match their co-workers, or perhaps feeling slighted and seeking other employers.<p>Being that it&#x27;s not easy to truly measure productivity in most environments - other than perhaps consulting (billable hours) this is likely to cause issues. The next step is being prepared for how to handle those issues when they arise.