To the HR people out there who write job descriptions, working with the people who actually will be supervising the new hire, carefully listing the requirements and expectations for the job, figuring out how many years of education candidates should have:
Would it kill you to give a salary range for the position?!!
"Commensurate with qualifications and experience" means almost nothing to me. Why do people do this? Is it to passively try to lowball potential workers so they don't have to be paid at the very top of the budgeted amount for the position? Do they not know how much money they have to spend on the position? I can't believe it's the latter. Do they think that giving a salary range reduces their bargaining power when it comes time to negotiate a salary? Or that giving a salary range would turn some people off who might think the salary is too low and therefore not apply at all?
I just don't get it. A few years ago I talked to some people on campus about a Lab Manager job, and in the end, I'd have to take a huge pay cut. It wastes both our time to have me even come in, when if the salary was posted, I'd have passed on the job. And I feel weird asking up front. Furthermore, I simply told them I had to remove my name from consideration, and didn't say why, because I thought it would look bad. Greedy. On the other hand, maybe I should have known, although for a job that's just called "Lab Manager", I imagine there's a large range of salaries. Yes, I know how to find those salary surveys online, it just seems like they're never exactly like what I'm searching for.
That's one thing I like about trying to get in with a government agency. It's all out there at the beginning. And, they'll pay for a person to have an advanced degree. No, I still haven't heard anything on the Biologist job. On Monday it will have been four weeks since it closed, so I should hear something soon, like how my qualifications compared to other applicants.
But I'm keeping my eye out for a variety of things, and figured out a couple more keywords to search on that return the sorts of jobs that I could do. I haven't reached an equilibrium point yet between feeling like I'm actively searching enough and feeling like I'm spending too much time checking and rechecking job sites. Hopefully soon.
The fact that the salary for a position is often kept a deep, dark secret has always struck me as really, really dumb. It's a big, fat waste of everyone's time. I could go on and on but obviously we're on the same page here (as would I assume all other intelligent ;o) people are) so I'll just stop.
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend! If you have any sunshine to spare, we sure could use some here in the upper Midwest!! We're starting to mold. No danger of forest fire though.