should I interview for a job where the salary I want is technically possible but not likely?

by Alison Green on July 18, 2024

A reader writes:

Recently I have been looking for a new position because my current project was canceled due to a product decision.

I heard of a company from a friend of a friend. She said it was a great place to work. I looked it up and there were positions available with my skillset and in my expected salary range. So excitedly, I applied.

During the first-round screening with HR, the HR rep asked my salary expectations. I replied that my minimum was $170,000. Their posted range was $133,000-$200,000. I have been doing this level of work for five or so years and have a lot of experience in the industry in general.

She replied: “They like to start hire people at $150,000-$165,000 so they can grow in the role. It takes signatures otherwise.”
Me: “Well, my minimum is 170,000 so it sounds like this isn’t the role for me.”
Her: “165K is close to 170K.”
Me: “But it’s not $170,000. What would I need to do to be qualified for $170,000?”
Her: “If the interview goes great.”
Me: “But what would be the skills they’re looking for to make the interview go great?”
Her: “I don’t know, please talk to the hiring manager.’

Fair enough. I get scheduled to talk with the hiring manager. It goes well from my point of view and he asked if I had any questions at the end. I explained the difference between the salary range presented and the actual salary range. He says, “They like to bring people in at mid-range.” He says he’s never actually hired in anyone at a higher range but he knows that it’s been done. I then ask him what skills would differentiate for him between a mid-level and a high-level in the position. He’s clearly unprepared for the question and says the interview has to go well but also lists a bunch of vague skills that all people doing this work do, just at varying levels. I asked if the technical portion of the interview, which was the next step, would be able to differentiate this, and he assured me the answer was yes. That was a poor question on my part; I should have asked how.

As a woman in a male-dominated industry who has received multiple lower job offers than what I’ve applied to (always with the promise in six months that I’ll be promoted to the actual title), “if the interview goes well” feels like a vibe check rather than a proxy for skillset and experience.

They moved me on to the technical assessment but that would be hours of my time. I didn’t outright withdraw but I did ask HR whether the $170,000 was truly possible in my case. They have my resume, the hiring manager has met me, and I hope they know their rubric better than they’re communicating.

Next time should I just stop when they say they don’t want to meet my minimum even if it is technically possible? Was I wrong for wanting some indication on their part that I am in contention for my minimum salary before proceeding with the technical assessment? I understand the most likely outcome is them withdrawing the assessment, and I am fine with that.

I would handle it differently.

It was reasonable to start by asking what it takes to be hired at the higher end of the pay range. But when they wouldn’t answer clearly — and when you were hearing signs of resistance (like “we like to start people lower”) — at that point it made sense to just very bluntly distill the situation down to what really matters:

“I want to be transparent with you that I wouldn’t accept an offer for less than $170,000. Knowing that, does it make sense for us to keep talking?”

This isn’t foolproof. You risk them saying “yes, we should continue to talk” and then coming back and offering you less than your minimum anyway. If they want to keep talking, that’s not a promise that they’re open to the higher end of the range; it’s just an indicator that they want to keep you in the pool and keep their options open in case you end up being head and shoulders above all their other candidates, or in case they don’t end up with anyone else plausible. But you’ll have made it clear where you stand.

That said, the hiring manager saying “I’ve never actually hired in anyone at a higher range but I know that it’s been done” is not very encouraging. That’s basically saying, “It’s possible in theory, but unlikely in reality.”

So at that point you need to decide if you want to keep talking. There’s not a perfect formula to figure out if it makes sense to invest your time after that. Probably not, but if you walk away, it’s possible that you’re walking away from a job that would have offered what you wanted in the end. Frustratingly, at that point it’s really about reading the cues you’re getting — tone, hesitations, the exact way they choose to say something, the vibe you’ve gotten more broadly, what you know about this company in general — and that’s far more art than science.

You may also like:
{ 212 comments }

{ 212 comments… read them below }

  1. I should really pick a name*

    They like to start hire people at $150,000-$165,000 so they can grow in the role.

    I don’t really get this argument.
    I’d rather get $170 000 from the start and not get raises for a few years than start at $150 000 and get raises.

    2. PineappleColada*

      I do think that’s also something for the OP to consider—even if they meet her at 170,000, they may not give her a raise for the next few years and justify it with “Well we started you at a higher level than we usually do…”

      So she should factor that possibility into whether she accepts the offer if they do come through with 170k.

      1. Sloanicota*

        It does sound to me like they aren’t aligned on salary and probably aren’t going to get there. OP should hold strong – she knows what she needs and what she can get. Her minimum is above their (actual) maximum. I suspect $170K isn’t really a number that she *wants* so much as what she’d be willing to take, based on what she’s saying. Really, shame on them for listing a range that goes up to $200K if that’s not a number that’s actually on the table at all. (I hate when people post salary bands and call that the hiring range but would never actually hire at the top of the band).

        1. Apples and Oranges*

          I posted this in another comment but we are legally required to post the full salary range for the position as in what anyone in that role within the organization is making (which can include some major longevity). We’d rather post the range as what we will actually pay as a starting salary but we can’t,

          1. Sloanicota*

            Jeez, I didn’t realize that. Can you post both? “An experienced X at our company can eventually expert to earn $Y-whatever range pending successful annual reviews. We are looking to hire new Xs at $Z-whatever range.”

            1. Apples and Oranges*

              I’m not a legal expert on these things but they may be hesitant in putting that in the text of the job posting because it might be seen as getting around the law or whatever. But we do share specifics about realistic salary expectations immediately in any screening

            2. sparkle emoji*

              And if you can’t would it be possible to phrase it like “this is the full range one could make during their time in this role, not just beginning salary”?

          2. Also-ADHD*

            Is that a particular state law? Or applicable to government orgs? (LW’s sounds like private industry.) I’ve heard some unis say they do this because of their unions, but they usually have a note on the ad noting that people start midrange.

        2. beepboop*

          Yeah my organization posts both the full salary range for the role AND the hiring range, it is nice to have that clarity! It looks like this in postings:
          HIRING RANGE: $60,396 – $75,495/year
          SALARY RANGE: $60,396 – $94,369/year

          1. anonymous anteater*

            my org does the same. Full range , and what the position is expected to pay.

          2. Infrequent commenter*

            Yes. I saw a place recently that posted their salary range and then followed it up with something like that they typically hire within this other range or a new hire can expect to be offered this other range.

            1. Infrequent poster*

              Here it is “ The full salary range for this position, {company) level 9, is $xx,xxx to $xxx,xxx but {company} does not typically hire at or near the top of the salary range. The typical hiring range for this role is $xx,xxx to $xx,xxx. The actual offer takes into account multiple factors including but not limited to education; experience; internal equity, and other organizational needs.

          3. COHikerGirl*

            I’m in Colorado where salary is (theoretically) required. A few companies (including a governmental agency!) has done this. It’s very appreciated, because my salary requirements are towards the top end of ranges and knowing the hiring salary is lower prevented wasted time on both sides!

      2. Artemesia*

        And if that is so then after a year she should start looking and she will be looking from a platform of 170 rather than 150.

      3. Hamster Manager*

        Yeah, my salary was MORE than enough according to my employers, who were ‘very generous’ if you ask them, as if I didn’t bring much more than my salary’s value to the company. Once I was told there was no room for raises ever, I immediately checked out. Why do employers do this, it is so dumb. Start me out a bit lower and build in raises for the first few years! I would have definitely stayed longer if they’d bother to offer any token of my increased value to them.

        1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          How can you trust them to make good on their promise to raise your pay?
          What if there’s a pay freeze?
          I was hired at a low salary but told that I could earn good money doing overtime and there would be frequent bonuses.
          Then the boss sold the company and suddenly there was no overtime and no bonuses. And the overtime I was owed, was not paid because there was “no proof” (I could prove every minute but they didn’t want to know).

        2. Fae Kamen*

          I don’t get it, why would you want to start lower and work your way up to X when you could be earning X the whole time?

      4. rebelwithmouseyhair*

        Then she can do a couple of years earning the salary she feels she deserves, then either get promoted based on her stellar work, or move somewhere else where they recognise her talent.
        If she’s hired at less, how long will it take to be bumped up to what she already deserves given her previous salary and experience? What are the chances of the company freezing all wages before that happens?

    3. ClaireC*

      You’re absolutely right that it’s way better from a math perspective. But I can see it from the employer perspective. They want to hire someone that is going to be in that role for a while (at least 1-5 years), if they hire at the high-end range, the person is going to top out of the role (sometimes they call it being Red Circled) and the employer loses an easy way to incentivize staying (raising within the band already established).

      That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay people at the higher end when they’re great, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for more and it doesn’t mean there’s no room above that original band (but that room is harder to come by and involves managers using a lot of social capital to fight for it).

      1. Sloanicota*

        Just list that differently! Say “our hiring range for this position is $110-$165, with opportunity for advancement” if that’s the range an actual human could expect to be offered at hiring.

        1. Artemesia*

          In my experience there always seems to be that extra 5 to 10 K for the hire they really want who is usually a white guy with less experience than the woman they told the ask was impossible.

          1. Also-ADHD*

            You can go above the range though. The last two jobs I have gotten, my offer was actually above the posted range. Nothing prevents an employer for giving extra if they find a reason. (I’m not a white guy, but it just worked out that I was worth above the range to those folks.)

          2. Hannah Lee*

            Sadly, in many companies I’ve worked at, this, exactly.

            (not the current one, but enough of them to make it an actual “thing”)

      2. I should really pick a name*

        It might make financial sense for them, but it still isn’t a very tempting justification for an applicant.

    4. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Also, mid-range for $133,000-$200,000 is $166,667. Which is a gnat’s eyelash away from $170,000.

    5. Clementine*

      Every time I hear this, I want to provide mathematical theorems to disprove whatever nonsense they’re trying to pull with this.

      That said, I have been offered a job at a higher level and salary than was in the original ad, and that was with a very large organization, so it can happen to go better than you think if you keep talking.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I once had a truly odd conversation with a hiring manager for a public-sector job where he said I was qualified for level 4 and offered to hire me at either level 3 or level 4. I asked why he would offer level 3 and he said it would be less paperwork for him, and also I would be eligible for a promotion more quickly. What promotion? A promotion to level 4.

        I asked him to do the paperwork and hire me at level 4 with the higher pay band. (It was the first of several indicators that he’d decided to half-ass this whole “people management” thing he was apparently expected to do as a manager.)

    6. mreasy*

      The salary range should be the actual range the person will be hired at… not “the amount of money you could maybe make at some point in your career here.” It’s ridiculous and misleading of them to post that range.

    7. JS*

      They know the best time ot get a raise is at the start so they are trying to low ball people so they can avoid ever getting them to the higher range trough raises.

      or maybe that’s just Higher education.

  2. Sand Thomas*

    I think you are fine to ask for $170,000. It is within their range. The growth into the role means this is above the skill level needed for what you do currently; if this is a lateral move or a slight downgrade, you’re perfectly fine to ask for $170,000. The person you are talking to is not the final decision maker; I personally would not hang my hat on them. I would go to the interview and see what happens.

    1. Fatima*

      I would, too, but it sounds like the OP might be fed up already. If you can stomach it, OP, I’d recommend doing the technical interview and then see what you think.

      1. Also-ADHD*

        This kind of depends on if LW needs/wants this job. The recruiter conversation isn’t great, the hiring manager was not readily transparent, etc. Honestly, even if they met her salary at this point, is this an org she wants to work with? I think it’s worth heavily considering, depending on how much LW is truly interested.

    2. ferrina*

      Yeah, I think it depends on how much time you are willing to invest in this. If it were just a couple hour-long interviews, I’d continue the process. Since OP says the technical assessment is “hours”, I might not invest that time. I don’t like how cagey they are being about the salary. If OP is happy where she is at and willing to be picky, this company might be worth a miss. Something tells me that OP would need to fight to get them to offer $170K

      1. MK*

        But they aren’t being cagey. They were pretty upfront that usually new hires get 165k, and going higher was possible, but unlikely, if the interview process went exceptionally well. The problem is that OP doesn’t want to invest the time without knowing exactly what would get them to go higher (it sounds like she wanted a “if you score over X in the technical appraisal, you get 170k” response), while they can’t give her such a definite answer. I doubt they were trying to avoid answering, more likely it’s not such a specific skill, but more a general conviction that the candidate is worth it.

        1. Disappointed Australien*

          I read it as “I might be willing to acceopt as little as $170k if the job was excellent” meeting up with “we can pay as much as $165k if you are excellent” and there’s no overlap there.

          Continuing with long, hard technical intervioews on the basis that later negotiations with non-technical people might result in the employer changing their process to allow for a higher initial offer seems optimistic to me.

        2. Also-ADHD*

          They are being a kind of cagey (an aggressive and annoying kind) because they didn’t say no outright and that they didn’t want to waste LW’s time even though she was willing to gracefully bow out on the first interview. They have kept indicating her goal is a possible outcome while also reinforcing it’s not. Mixed messages to keep her on the line.

  3. FormerLibrarian*

    Maybe it’s me, but this far into the process, I feel like maybe they’re close enough to stick it out instead of outright walking. If they offer $150-165k, $170k feels like it might be within a decent margin for negotiation.

    1. Parenthesis Guy*

      It’s not far in the process. This person spent maybe half an hour with HR and at most an hour with the hiring manager. They’d still have to go through a technical assessment (which can be anywhere from one hour to ten hours) and then probably have to go through some more interviews. The technical assessment is the time sink.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        It also requires the most prep time, if you haven’t done one in a while. Technical interviews are often their own special beast that are completely unlike a regular day’s work. I’ve been known to spend many hours prepping for each hour spent in the actual interview (and when I didn’t, I bombed).

  4. Goldenrod*

    This is an interesting puzzle. To me, it would depend on my level of excitement about the company and how desperate I was feeling – if I was really excited about working there and didn’t have other interviews/leads, I’d probably put in the time to do the technical assessment, figuring that I would just play my cards until the final hand.

    On the other hand, if I was only mildly interests and had other avenues I was exploring, I’d probably bail at this point.

    Good luck – give us an update!

    1. Tio*

      Same. What’s the cost investment of time mean to you? Honestly, if it was something I could do while “working”, I would go ahead with it. If I couldn’t, if it was an hour or less, probably just go through with it at this stage to see what they offered. If it was like 2+ hours of investment of my free time, I may bail since it sounds like it’d take a lot to get what you want.

    2. ferrina*

      Exactly this.

      I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here. It just depends on what you are willing to invest (time-wise) at this point.

    3. newfiscalyear*

      Depending on the length, I would probably do the technical assessment even if I wasn’t too excited about the job prospect. It would either confirm my expertise or help me find areas/processes I need to brush up on for the next interviewer.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        The best way to practice technical interviews is to do a bunch of them, in my book.

    4. All het up about it*

      Agree!

      I can’t tell from the OP’s comments if their project is canceled and they are unemployed, or if they just have an end date in sight.

      Even when I was employeed and job searching there have been times that I was SO desperate to leave, that I would have taken a pay cut to get out of there, so me in those situations 100% would not withdraw over fuzzy formulas that would equal 5ish K less than my desired salary.

      But then there were times I was just applying to see and was happy enough where I was, that I would absolutely nope out and not feel like spending more energy or time on it.

  5. Anon for This One*

    I ran across something similar last week! Job range posted was $120K-$165K (very senior level) and in the application when asked for a “desired salary” I put $150K.

    In the initial phone screening, I was asked again. I said $150K. I’m told by the recruiter, “This position is $120K.” “I said, “well, that’s low for me, and what I’m looking for is a number within your published range. What are the other considerations – bonus etc – that might bring things to $150K?”

    I received a form rejection a few days later.

    I am wondering if this is some ploy by employers who are simply looking for high-level candidates who are desperate enough to take a significant cut in pay?

    2. Dawn*

      Oh, very often, yes. They post what looks like an appealing range, but don’t actually intend to pay within it, or anywhere but in the bottom of it.

      If you ask them directly they’ll also often tell you that “they’d only pay that for the absolute top candidates” but they actually mean that they wouldn’t offer it if Jesus Himself descended and put in an application.

      1. Sloanicota*

        I never understand people who use evaluative ranges this way, where the top score is “something I would never ever give” and the mid-top is “blew me away and resurrected me it was so amazing, changed my life, I laughed and cried.”

        1. Adam*

          You should be glad you didn’t go to school in England! That’s how the grading system works here, and I also find it incredibly stupid.

          1. CoffeeOwlccountant*

            This exact situation happened to me during a study abroad semester in Gloucestershire. I got a 74 on my first paper turned in, immediately panicked because that is a BARELY passing grade in the US, went to the professor holding back tears and looking for feedback on how I could very quickly improve my writing, only to be told I had received the highest grade in the class and and very respectable A. Worldview shattered.

            1. Sloanicota*

              I suppose I can see it in english or something subjective, but surely in something like math(s), 100% is an A-plus. You don’t need to hit 110% percent, or 120%, to get the grade!

              1. Disappointed Australien*

                It depends a whole lot on the marking scheme and whether scaling is used. Back in the dark ages in another country I scored ~73% in my external maths exam… and that put me in the top 1% nationally. But the previous year I’d managed 100% on the actual external exam, revealed when I requested my paper be returned. That got scaled into ~80% final mark.

                OTOH I’m more comfortable with that than “you’re our best performing employee, management love you, our customers recommend us because of you, I can think of nothing further you could do for us. So you get a 1% pay rise and in the unlikely event a promotion becomes available you’ll definitely be considered for it”.

              3. Tau*

                Back when I did my maths degree in the UK mumblemumble years ago, yeah, this was how it worked – 70 and up was an A, and I pretty much never saw anyone get above 80 max 85 in a remotely subjective subject, but in maths it was possible to get 100 just by the nature of the exam (they did try to make the exams harder to pull the grades down, but there was a limit). Since we were still working under the grading scheme where 70 and above was an A, some people ended up in the weird situation where their average for the previous years was so absurdly high by UK standards that the only way *not* to get a First would be to outright fail the year.

                I’m still not sure WTF was up with that grading system, honestly. It just seemed so weird to have, like, the top 15% of the range just there for show in the vast majority of subjects. Just admit you’re grading out of 85 and call it a day? (Certain salary range givers could follow the same principle.)

            2. Sharpie*

              For some reason this reminds me of a story on the Learning page of Not Always Right, with an American student being yelled at by her DD for only getting 73 on a paper. It took the tutor to explain that in the UK, university papers are marked against a strict metric and everyone stands individually rather on a bell curve and a 73 is pretty much perfect and a First

              In fact, the day I got a paper back with 73 on it was a great day, I’d been consistent at around the 68/69 point, which would have garnered me a good 2/2 if I hadn’t got bored of essay writing and dropped out.

          2. linger*

            As a student in NZ, the minimum criterion score for an A was 80%.

            As an instructor, I found Japanese universities gave similar guidelines. Minimum marks for grades were: C 60%, B 70%, A 80%.

            However, in both cases, there was considerable variation among individual instructors as to how much effort was needed to reach those criterion marks. And standard external exams for secondary-school subjects often needed to be wildly scaled. Maths papers were less immune than you’d imagine (e.g. when one calculus paper contained a typo that made the requested proof impossible).

          3. Sharpie*

            I prefer everyone being marked against an absolute scale to everyone being marked against each other on a changing bell curve. Because it means that everyone knows where they stand and they not dependent on the best people doing badly or the worst people doing well.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        “While ‘turning water into wine’ and ‘resurrecting the dead’ are nice skills to have, we’d only pay the top of the range to a really impressive candidate.”

        1. coffee*

          “Sure, you rose from the dead yourself, but I’ve checked your sick leave balance and it’s at zero, so we can’t give you credit for that.”

    3. Parenthesis Guy*

      If it was a ploy, they would have asked for your desired salary, and told you that $150k is in their budget. Then when they made an offer, they’d offer $120k and tell you they can’t go higher and hope you’d take it.

      It’s a bit weird that the salary was $120k and the range was $120k-$165k, but the recruiter told you the actual salary in the initial interview.

    4. Apples and Oranges*

      We are legally required to post the full range for a position (which includes people currently in the position who have a ton of longevity). This isn’t necessarily the same as a range for starting salary but we aren’t allowed to do that.

      3. Tav*

        I live in Colorado and they require a salary range in the job posting. I see a separate hiring salary range posted alongside the full range pretty often. Like I think my current job said something like 55-80k salary range with a 55-65k hiring range. I see that for a lot of in-state job postings (though not all of them). Maybe other states have different requirements though.

      4. Anon Attorney*

        This is the opposite of what my state’s salary transparency law requires. I would be shocked if that was the case.

      5. Bast*

        Regardless of what I think, I understand that for many jobs to get the top range you basically have to be their unicorn (which is to say, 99.99% of people will not get that range, even if you’re absolutely fabulous) but I can’t get behind posting such a wide range when people have no hope of anywhere near the top, or when you really only mean one number. So if you say 100-150 but no matter what the person is getting 100, it’s a bit deceptive. I may figure going in that I am not going to get the 150 because I know I am not a unicorn, but I figure I can at least finagle up to maybe 120 or 125. If 100 is the only option no matter what my experience, talents, etc, and I knew that from the get go, as a mid-career employee I may figure it’s not even worth applying, particularly if other places in the area are starting fresh grads/close to fresh grads at 100. If it’s a foregone conclusion, it’s such a waste of time. And I realize some companies have policies and such that make it out of HR/the individual manager’s control, but I have a feeling many good candidates are lost this way, particularly if they feel they have been deceived.

    5. TeapotNinja*

      I would report them to whichever Government agency enforces the salary transparency regulations. They are so clearly in violation.

      1. Llama Identity Thief*

        Based on what Apples and Oranges is saying, depending on the state and locale, it might actually be that this setup goes with the salary transparency regulations, where they’re required to list the LIFETIME salary range instead of the HIRING salary range.

        1. avocado lawyer*

          No state or local pay transparency law in the US is actually phrased that way. (Source: am a lawyer specializing in pay transparency. I’ve read them all.) That is almost certainly a misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what the law actually requires (if they’re in the US–can’t speak to internationally). These laws generally require a “reasonable good-faith expectation” of the hiring range – not the entire range that all existing employees in similar roles are receiving. In fact, employers have been cited for posting ranges that are too wide. Narrower, more realistic ranges are a better practice both legally and practically!

          1. Apples and Oranges*

            Could be! I’m not a lawyer or HR so it could just be how they’re interpreting conservative compliance

            1. Rosyglasses*

              I wouldn’t pin this on conservative compliance, it’s more like malicious compliance to post an entire available salary range.

            2. Statler von Waldorf*

              I’m with Rosyglasses. This interpretation of the law allows them to advertise that they are paying more money than they actually are for a role while providing plausible deniability if anyone calls them out. The company clearly benefits from this interpretation of the law in the form of higher-quality job applicants.

              This isn’t conservative compliance. This is loophole abuse. Sadly, it’s not illegal under any of the Canadian pay transparency laws that I’ve read. As an HR person, I have beef with those laws. The goals of the laws are admirable, but the execution has loopholes you could drive a double-decker bus through. I’m far too cynical to believe that is accidental.

              1. Anonymous Educator*

                This interpretation of the law allows them to advertise that they are paying more money than they actually are for a role while providing plausible deniability if anyone calls them out. The company clearly benefits from this interpretation of the law in the form of higher-quality job applicants.

                I wonder if part of this is also not wanting to be publicly embarrassed for paying less than peer companies? If they list a wide range, people can imagine the top of the range is possible. If they post only the actual range they’d hire for, say they post $100k-120k and their competitor company posts $110k-150k. It looks, then, to applicants that the competitor company pays more. If they instead list $100k-160k, it doesn’t look as bad to applicants at first glance, even if the company never intends to pay more than $120k.

          2. Dawn*

            That’s kind of what I was thinking, that doesn’t sound like something that the law would actually require (although heaven knows stupid laws exist,) but it might be something that management would claim that the law requires.

          3. Clementine*

            If companies are cited for too-wide pay ranges, why does Netflix get away with posting ranges like $170,000 – $720,000? (That’s from a random Netflix job ad on their site.)

            1. Project Maniac-ger*

              Probably because nobody’s alerted the authorities to that posting yet. Or they’re gathering evidence for the citation and that could take months. Or Netflix’s lawyers are doing a whole lot of stuff to derail so Netflix can get away with it a little bit longer. Unfortunately, most labor laws require someone to get wronged and report it retroactively for companies to get in trouble. Very few government entities are going to employ someone to surf indeed for egregious salary bands.

          4. Statler von Waldorf*

            No pay transparency law in Canada is phrased that way either. BC, Ontario and PEI all have provincial pay transparency laws, none of them require the wage for all existing employees, they all refer to the wage range that a person applying for the job would receive. The Manitoba legislation is the same, though it has not passed and it is not actually law yet.

    6. mreasy*

      Correct, they want people to get engaged then the sunk cost fallacy mixed with ‘needs a job’ kicks in. (I will say I have done the opposite version of this as a candidate in the past!)

    7. Green Goose*

      I applied for a role that had a range of $99k-$144k and then the recruiter told me that they wouldn’t offer above $130k. Then why put the high end in…

  6. Miette*

    I hate this kind of BS. If they will only hire at the midrange of that salary band, why not advertise it that way?

    1. Nobby Nobbs*

      They’re probably deluding themselves that if course they’d go to the top of the range… if a literal unicorn clip-clopped into the office with a degree two levels above the requirement and a century of experience, and managed to convinced them that it had good reasons to take a job so far below its experience and wouldn’t leave for greener pastures in six months. And could fly.

        1. Carol the happy*

          Loved that one! I can hear it now, though- the unicorn is great, but its farts still don’t smell like cotton candy!

      2. Dawn*

        That, and they’ve discovered that if they post what they’re actually willing to pay, they don’t get good candidates, because the market pays more than that for that job.

        1. Sloanicota*

          This is what I feel when OP states her *minimum* is 170K and the other person said, “well $165 is close to that!!” So … your plan is to talk a good candidate down below their lowest possible salary.

          2. MigraineMonth*

            I tried to work with a recruiter who got me an interview at an extremely sketchy business. (“What have you changed since being convicted of fraudulent and discriminatory business sales practices?” is a fun question to ask in an interview.) I somehow still got an offer, which I would have declined even if it weren’t $10k below my stated minimum.

            The recruiter was really upset I didn’t accept the offer anyway. I decided to stop working with them instead of attempting to explain the concept of “minimum”.

    2. Kevin Sours*

      Because then fewer people would apply. It’s the same logic that previously led companies to avoid any mention of salary in job listing or early stages of the interview process. They hope to get the candidate invested in the process before disclosing disappointing salary info.

      1. notagirlengineer*

        A few years ago, our state started mandating salary bands in job postings. The non profit I volunteer heavily with stated that they are spending far less staff time on hiring, and they’re still able to hire the same level of qualified candidates. Before the state law, they spent a LOT of time trying to sell the non profit mission to candidates who simply couldn’t or wouldn’t take the offered salary.

          1. Dawn*

            Haha, yes, this exactly.

            Things are very frequently done in this world which are not actually clever.

          2. notagirlengineer*

            Oh, I wasn’t arguing your point- just happy that at least one employer was able to clearly see how much better the process went when they were up front with salary

  7. 12345*

    I recently had a similar situation. The recruiter (HR internal) said they like to hire people at mid-range, but that would have been a lateral move for me that I was unwilling to do.

    One big difference from your story is the hiring manager right away told me that she wanted me to continue interviewing and give her the opportunity to “be creative”.

    Ultimately I got a great offer that I accepted.

    If I were you I would keep going with the process. But I’d also really watch what the hiring manager does here. Not just for your immediate offer but also as an indicator for whether they’re actually going to go to bat for you in the future, or if they’re just going to toe the line. You want someone who has the will and ability to be creative.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      The problem with continuing is it sounds like the next step is a technical screen that a considerable investment of time and energy. It’s on clear it’s worth the effort on the off chance they’ll show flexibility on the offer despite being cagey to date.

    2. RedinSC*

      Really good point about the going to bat for you in the future. For sure something to keep in mind.

  8. Seen Too Much*

    I’m in HR and I have this fight every time we post a job. The request will come to us with a range of $100,000 – $130,000 – and a target range of $110,000. I always recommend changing the range to be closer to what they want to pay. Why put a number you know you won’t pay? In my company, each position has a low, mid and high range. We can hire at the low range without any sign off. If we get to the mid-range, it depends on what the person who this position is replacing was paid, and what everyone else in the position is paid. So if everyone is paid $104,000, I can’t pay someone new $105,000. If we need to go to the high range, it has to go to the executive committee for sign off. Everyone knows this. But some managers think that they will find the unicorn perfect candidate that will magically get approved for the highest salary.

    So, maybe something like this is happening. Some department head thinks they can finagle a higher salary. Or maybe, they really don’t know. Before we came up with the ranges, it was a free-for-all.

    1. College Career Counselor*

      Yes, but the ranges actually have to mean something in reality, as you point out. I’d rather see $90k-$110k than have $20k just “not available in the real world.” This is essentially operating in bad faith on the part of the hiring manager to try to pull a more/better qualified applications in.

      That said, sometimes you get an organization that seems to do everything right by the candidate. A family member just went through a job search (wasn’t particularly looking, but got recruited to apply). After a very thorough and intense, yet fast-moving process, she was offered the job. They said, “we normally bring people in at $155k for this position, but with your experience and interview performance, we have decided to offer you the max at $170k.”

      Two other things stood out with this organization’s hiring process (something like 2-3 weeks total):
      1. In every single instance, they clearly communicated their communication timeline–and then responded earlier than their own deadline.
      2. Family member said that she’d felt more appreciated, acknowledged, and supported during the *interview process* than she had in the entirety of her current role.*

      *Doing two C-suite jobs for the last 15 months while the CEO refused to hire a replacement (700+ applications during that time).

    2. Velawciraptor*

      I think there’s something to posting the full range available for the position so people can see what growth potential is, but ONLY when there is also a posting of what the hiring range/target range would be. Transparency about how people are placed within the range is also important.

  9. Dawn*

    If I were you, I’d still finish the technical assessment as you’re going to be in a stronger position to negotiate once they’ve made up their mind that they want to hire you, but not gonna lie, it’s not sounding great.

  10. pally*

    I’ve always been confused over whether the salary cited in any job ad is the “hiring salary range” or the “salary range” for the position.

    Because more than one recruiter has gotten angry with me for citing a salary at the higher end of the cited range in the job ad (this would be at the beginning of the interviewing for said position). Some tell me that I have to “leave room” for future promotions. Does that imply this is the salary range? I’m not sure.

    Yes, I’ve asked for clarification from the HR interviewer. I don’t recall any clear responses to this inquiry. Some don’t get that there is a difference.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Which sounds like a BS reason to me. If the company wants to promote me in the future, it should pay me what I’m worth now and then promote and pay me what I’m worth in the future.

      If they can’t do that, the solution is to wish me well in my job search when I reach the top of their ladder, not to try to convince me to start at the bottom for no good reason.

    2. Decidedly Me*

      I’ve seen some job ads that specify that the range listed is the total for the role ever and most people start at the lower end of the range. However, short of that, my assumption is that a salary range listed is the starting range for the role.

  11. Mrs. Whittlebury*

    If the range is $133k-$200k but they only bring people in at midrange then their range isn’t to $200k. It’s $133k-$165k. I don’t see what anybody has to gain from this deception.

    1. Dawn*

      They don’t get good candidates if they post the real range, because the job pays more than that.

      1. Dawn*

        That’s not to say that they’re ethical or justified in doing it, just, that’s more than likely what’s happening there.

        1. Mrs. Whittlebury*

          But if they can’t entice those good candidates to come aboard once they find out the salary then it’s a lot of wasted time. Hoping to find an excellent candidate with low self-esteem instead of just being transparent seems foolish.

          1. Dawn*

            Again, not saying it’s not foolish, just that it’s probably their reasoning.

            Nobody ever said it was clever but it is how a lot of people think, because it turns out that a lot of people are unclever.

            And, regrettably, probably sometimes it works.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              Screening their hires so they’ll only get poor self advocates and sunk-cost-fallacy adherents who will be reluctant to leave?

      2. Anonymous Educator*

        They don’t get good candidates if they post the real range, because the job pays more than that.

        They still won’t get good candidates if they lie to those candidates and lowball them.

    2. Apples and Oranges*

      Our state has laws around this and in order to ensure compliance with the law we have to post the full range that anyone in that position makes even if it’s not our range for target stating salary.

      1. Happily Retired*

        Can you not also post the actual hiring range? As in does your state law actually PROHIBIT posting both ranges?

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Would you (or anyone in a state with the same law) be willing to share the state? Because that’s a terrible law.

  13. Flavor Flav's Clock*

    That they don’t have specific criteria they can point to for where a person would fall in that range is problematic. Isn’t that how pay gaps between men and women, and especially women of color, doing the same work still happen? If the interview has that much of an impact on where you fall in the range, it would seem to me they’re saying “if we REALLY like you we’ll pay you more” which would really put me off. And if that’s not actually the case anyway and they won’t pay you more if they really like you, as others have said the company really should just say that up front.

    1. Sloanicota*

      I agree about the “vibes check” comment OP noted. I mean, they have her resume, and she’s talking about a technical skills test. Why can’t they tell her what they would need to see to make her the offer she wants? If they’re looking for that elusive “X factor” that’s like, “leadership qualities” or “potential” I wish they’d reexamine that, as it’s never an inclusive factor in my experience.

    2. Anonymous Educator*

      Yes. This happens at tech companies a lot (which tend to have what they call “levels” to justify pay), and women and/or BIPOC folks typically get under-leveled when hired.

    3. Texan in exile on her phone*

      I have never had a boss be able to answer the question “What do I need to do to get promoted?”

      Not once.

  14. Apples and Oranges*

    This is a sidenote but my state has laws around posting salary ranges and that range is encompasses all people who work for the org in that position. It’s not actually the range for which we would HIRE SOMEONE INTO that position—the people at the top of that range often represent years of experience—not just industry experience but experience within the company. This is frustrating to candidates because they ask for a salary near the top of the range and we say we don’t start people at those salaries and then they wonder why we even have that range then. Well we have to because we’re legally required to.

    For the record I support these kinds of laws but the nuances in the ways they are implemented can be tricky.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Are you are allowed to state 2 ranges in the ad: what you are prepared to offer now and what they may possibly reach after working some years in this role?

      2. Apples and Oranges*

        I’m not sure. It’s a relatively new law so HR may be trying to be especially careful about compliance and anything that appears to be “getting around it.” Maybe things will loosen up to be more realistic in practice down the road.

    2. bamcheeks*

      This is obviously cultural, but that’s how jobs are always advertised in my country and field. I know that in that job and grade I’m going to top out at £Xk after 4 or 5 years and after that it’ll just be CoL increases. I’m always surprised how much rage that system induces here!

      That said, the ranges are MUCH smaller than what’s quoted here, both absolutely and proportionally— more like £45-55k.

    3. HorribleLaw*

      What a horrible law. When I see a salary range for a job I expect it to be the salary range they’d consider hiring at. If someone listed $140k-$180k and my minimum was $175k I’d apply and assume I could get it if I were a strong candidate. I would put a big black mark next to a company’s name and widely share my experience to warn others off if they later told me that they’d only hire from $140-150k

  15. Parenthesis Guy*

    I wouldn’t continue with this process. I also wouldn’t have told them my minimum. If my minimum was $170k, I’d ask for $185k and see if we’re close. If they said $180k, then I’d say I’m willing to talk.

    With such a small difference, I think there’s a chance you get it. But far more likely they come back to you and offer $160k and make you turn it down. If you counter at $170, then they try to get the extra and maybe they do it. But more likely, they’re not bridging the gap.

    1. e271828*

      I agree with high-balling someone asking for the “minimum” so early. No, my minimum acceptable salary is negotiating information I’ll use later, and we aren’t negotiating yet. Here, have this slightly higher number instead.

      In LW’s case, if the company are willing to discard a highly qualified candidate over $5000 at these levels, they’re tightwads.

    1. Anon a Fed*

      Funny how they want the candidate to accept that logic but they won’t accept the same.. just another example of the constant double-standard in hiring/negotiations.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        Especially because that extra $5000 will probably mean to the OP in her day-to-day life, and it’s likely a drop in the bucket of the budget for the company.

    2. Nonanon*

      Yeah; it’s a dealbreaker for OP, but it’s also a negotiable for others. If OP is out when she’s paid less than 170k (reasonable) but another candidate says 170k is their minimum but negotiates out a signing bonus and extra PTO, they might be happy with 165k (also reasonable).

    3. mreasy*

      Yeah like… if I’m your top candidate and you can’t flex $5K within your stated range and won’t offer me anything else to make up for it… what other ridiculous rigidity does the company hew to?

      1. Fatima*

        exactly! a previous company offered me $X for a higher job at the company I was already working at, and when it came time to do the paperwork, my annual salary was showing as $X minus $300. Instead of just fixing it, they had to go talk to someone and decide what to do. I finally got what they promised me, but they were nickel-and-dimers the whole time I worked there.

        oh, and on top of all of that bs, after I was doing the new job, they came back to me and said they couldn’t pay what they promised because it was too much increase for a promotion. I had originally asked for the salary that I knew the previous person in that role was making, so I know they had the budget for it. plus, they already said yes! that backfired on them though because my boss was so angry about their bs, he gave me the max raise at the next opportunity (about 6 months later), so I ended up making more than they offered me in the first place.

        moral of the story: if they are cheap jerks when they’re hiring you, that is not going to improve later.

  17. learnedthehardway*

    OP, a lot really does come down to how strong a candidate they perceive you to be, based on interviews and whatever other assessment methods the hiring manager uses. It’s hard to tell at the early stages in a selection process whether you would want to pay a premium for a candidate or not – the HM has to do the assessment first in order to determine whether they can justify going over their target range. I would do as Allison suggests and have a frank conversation about compensation (either with the recruiter or hiring manager). If they want to proceed after that, they can probably make what you want work, with the right approvals.

    If you get an offer, expect that someone will screw something up and an offer letter will come out lower than you want (that seems to happen automatically when HR gets involved), but just circle back with the hiring manager and let them know that you had said minimum $X K and stick to it.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      The trouble is HR and the hiring manager seem to have no idea what those assessment methods are aside from vibes. When you are asking for a significant time commitment from a candidate you really have to communicate what criteria you are looking for in order to meet their salary requirements so they can make a call if it’s worth their time to pursue.

  18. jasmine*

    Tbh if I were you OP, I wouldn’t keep interviewing here. There’s too much resistance to your minimum salary

    1. jasmine*

      Like “165K is close to 170K” is HR communicating pretty clearly that it’s not gonna happen without exceptional circumstances. They didn’t reassure you that they could make 170K work, they tried to convince you that a lower salary works for you.

      1. mreasy*

        HR at the company I used to work for told me that $80K “would get me up to my asking salary of $100K with bonuses.” I told her I could do a base salary of $90K but no less, and while I ended up getting the job, apparently she was secretly furious that I negotiated the $10K and talked s**t about me internally for years. (She was terrible at her job in many other ways too.)

        1. Artemesia*

          yeah I know a woman who was badly treated by the boss her whole time in the job because she negotiated a small signing bonus when they refused to hire except at the bottom of their range. It is particularly a risk for women. Men are shrewd and show leadership ability when they negotiate; women are difficult.

        2. Goldenrod*

          “apparently she was secretly furious that I negotiated the $10K and talked s**t about me internally for years”

          WOW, I wish I could say that surprised me, but sadly it does not.

      2. Dawn*

        That said, that’s HR. Unless the company is very dysfunctional, they’re not the ones in charge of the hiring decision, or even of making the offer. The HR rep might actually be really off-base on what the hiring manager is willing to offer/go to bat for.

  19. mreasy*

    Wait so people who are saying that salary range in job ads is the full range of everyone in that position and how much they are paid? That is incredibly illogical and confusing. I have never worked anywhere who handled it that way – though it seems like it may not be uncommon. It seems like the fair thing with a range that size would be to give the hiring range separately so people can know what to expect. A range of nearly $70K on a role with a $200k max is also too large a range for a candidate to be able to understand if applying is worth their time. My company currently states an exact figure for junior roles, or a $5-15K range with the range growing as seniority does. Much beyond that makes the salary range essentially useless.

    1. mreasy*

      (Not saying my company is perfect, they do a lot of stuff in ways I don’t like! But I appreciate the salary range transparency.)

    2. sunset*

      I’ve been applying to a lot of jobs. My impression is that companies are including ranges, because they are legally required to. BUT, because it is only a compliance issue, they are purposefully making the ranges so large as to be meaningless.

  20. ialwaysforgetmyname*

    Pay is obviously important, but too often people don’t factor in the value of the benefits package. If company A pays $170,00 but the benefits are mediocre and possibly with higher premiums, but company B pays $165,000 but has a more robust benefits package and maybe even lower premiums, then possibly company B is a better option. What if you have a $1,000 medical deductible with your current company but the other company’s plan has a $2,500 deductible?

    Moving to my new employer a few years ago, I took a several thousand dollar pay cut which certainly hurts, but in return I have a fantastic manager, a stronger benefits package with lower premiums, and a drama free workplace.

    Years ago I was very excited to take a new job with a different employer, with a 10% pay bump. I never asked about their benefits, and the medical and dental premiums were so high it ate up about 7% of that 10% pay increase. Lesson learned.

    1. mreasy*

      A good HR would point to their stellar benefits package when trying to negotiate about the $5K. Why do I suspect they don’t have one? That is a good point tho, I have had the same thing in both directions.

      1. SelfAwareness*

        In my experience if a company claims to have great benefits their benefits are almost always subpar. Sometimes truly dreadful.

      2. iglwif*

        I mean also different benefits are meaningful to different people at different stages of their careers. For instance, I didn’t care nearly as much about my former employer’s pension plan when I was 22 as I would now, but I cared a lot more about the drug plan then than I do now, because it was key to our ability to afford IVF treatment (we had to pay for the rest of it, but my drug plan paid for the medications and that knocked off about $2K per cycle. This was a loooooong time ago).

        I did sign up for the pension plan, btw, because “save for your retirement” was lectured into me by my mom very early on.

    2. Decidedly Me*

      Yup – I advised a friend today to not only focus on salary, but the total benefit package when comparing offers.

  21. NurseThis*

    I was brought in at a “higher than they want to pay” salary because my skill set was very hard to find. Within 8 years I hit the ceiling and was told they would never pay me more. It’s called wage compression. They’d throw bonuses at me but no more salary.

    I was fortunate enough to be able to retire at that point. I essentially just hit the hard line faster than others would.

    1. Dawn*

      That’s generally short-sighted of a company which needs someone with rare skills though, because they’ll frequently choose to go elsewhere (and usually be paid more because external salaries typically inflate while you’re in a position.)

    2. newfiscalyear*

      Ugh. I didn’t know there was a name for it. I’ve had that happen to me a few times at my old employer. It was so frustrating because they would give me my 3% or whatever in bonus form, but of course that was taxed at a higher rate and couldn’t be considered part of my salary if I were, say, applying for a loan.

    3. Orv*

      This is super, super common in government jobs with established pay bands. Often the pay bands don’t keep up with inflation, so eventually you end up with almost everyone in the top half of the band and a lot of people capped out.

    1. ialwaysforgetmyname*

      $170k isn’t crazy depending on the job and where they are living but I hear you. I get angry when companies pay their CEOs $40 million (so you know the VP’s are also earning outrageous sums) but then say that they can’t afford to pay their frontline people a living wage.

      1. iglwif*

        Idk what the comment above said, but I agree that the real problem is the leadership teams making hundreds of times what the company is “able” to pay the people doing the work.

    2. Ginger Cat Lady*

      This is unkind. In some areas of the US this would not be enough to buy a home.

      1. Housing is Expensive*

        This! The average price of a home in my area is $1.2 million. If I made $170k (I don’t…) and managed to save $170k for a down payment (cause why not?), an affordability calculator says that I could afford a house that is $685k…..

    3. Peanut Hamper*

      If taking a job like this means living in a huge city with a super high cost of living and paying $4000 a month for the apartment that I currently pay $1,400 for, it wouldn’t be worth it to me. You have to compare apples to apples.

      Besides, whose to say LW doesn’t donate a lot of time/money to charities?

    4. organized-chaos*

      I get it where you’re coming from, but if they accept a lower salary it’s not as though the extra money goes to people who need it more, it goes to the company(‘s executives who need it even less). If what we hate is income inequality, what we should do is take the high salary and give it away or, better still, organize for the end of capitalism.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        This reminds me of people saying “If you raise the minimum wage, then your burgers will cost more,” to which I say “If I pay more for my burger, can you guarantee the difference in price will go solely to increasing the wages of the lowest-paid workers and not just pad the salaries of the execs and higher-ups at the company?”

    6. Artemesia*

      This is an argument that makes sense in reference to CEOs who in many cases are ruining their companies and walking away with multi million dollar payouts, or CEOS making millions each year. It is not an argument for ordinary employees.

    7. Parenthesis Guy*

      The OP wrote that they spent 5 years at this level, not that they had 5 years experience total. If they’re a director or something, then it may have taken twenty years for them to get to that level.

    8. Anon Attorney*

      All you’re arguing for is for companies where the CEO earns big bucks to pay everyone else poverty wages because “no one needs to earn so much money.”

    9. Goldenrod*

      Dude, come on. I’ll never make a salary that high, but that doesn’t mean NOBODY should.

    10. Anonymous*

      $170k in many places in the US is “I can afford a house, a decent car, and reasonable vacations” salary, not “I’m buying a new yacht every 3 years” money. It’s today’s equivalent of your prototypical boomer living the married, 2 kids, white picket fence lifestyle.

      Let’s keep the disgust for the people who deserve it, such as the CEOs who make this amount every few hours or days.

      2. iglwif*

        In general people don’t *need* a house or some specific type of vacation (I mean, other than ACTUAL TIME OFF which yes, everyone absolutely needs). There are lots of places where you don’t *need* a car because you live somewhere walkable and/or public transit exists.

        But you DO need somewhere to live, and you DO need to be able to get places, and an awful lot of people can’t afford those things because the infrastructure isn’t there: there are lots of $1M detached houses but no duplexes or fourplexes or townhouses or low-rise buildings of family-appropriate size; there are lots of roads and parking lots and two-car garages but no sidewalks or crosswalks or bike lanes or adequate bus routes; and so on.

        This isn’t a problem that can be solved by taking a slightly lower salary, alas. (But if all the CEOs in North America took a 50% pay cut and that money could somehow be spent on making the places we live easier to live in … THAT would make a difference. And they would all still be filthy rich.)

    11. HailRobonia*

      I agree with you in general, but to be clear OP says they have 5 years of experience “at this level” and much more experience in the industry.

    12. Hroethvitnir*

      Based on what the replies to this imply: I get it. I have never, ever worked in an industry where over maybe $120k seems realistic for basically anyone. And given said professions are in medicine and science (ie: very clear benefit to society) it does burn my britches how disconnected industry salaries are from their actual contributions.

      But. This is the world we live in, and we shouldn’t be trying to convince some people to take less because of a societ(ies) wide problem. This will never help people who are underpaid, and is most strongly levied at people who are likely to get underpaid for their positions anyway (ie: women and gender minorities, POC and queer people). You’ve got to be able to step back here.

      1. Crepe Myrtle*

        Yes, 100%! This is a mind-boggling amount of money to me, but I would never suggest that OP takes less. It’s just the system is awful.

  23. HailRobonia*

    Attention companies: paying people less so that “they have room to grow” is abominable. What’s next… “I have my kids sleep in the garage so they can aspire to a bedroom.”

    1. Four Yorkshiremen*

      Oh, we used to dream of sleepin’ in a garage! Would’ve been a palace to us.

        1. Dawn*

          Well look at Miss Toff over ‘ere! Imagine ‘avin an ‘ole to sleep in, we didn’t ‘ave an ‘ole, we ‘ad a piece of string! We made a circle wiv it and ‘at’s what we slept in!

  24. Peanut Hamper*

    I had an old boss do this.

    “We want people to be able to grow into the role” = “We want to low-ball you”.

    If I had thought about it and knew then what I know now, I would have taken the job description, crossed off several items, and said “Great, I’ll eventually grow into those duties.” Of course, they had no job description, which I did not recognize as a red flag at the time.

    1. Ginger Cat Lady*

      The SAME hiring manager who says they want people to be able to grow into the role with ALSO say that they cannot hire anyone straight out of school and need 5-10 years of experience for an “entry level” role because “we cannot afford to hire someone who can’t hit the ground running at 100% from day one. Let some other company train the newbies.”

  25. Apex Mountain*

    A big part of the decision on whether to continue or not has to do with your current status – does your project being cancelled mean you’re unemployed now? Does that mean you need a new job asap or can you be selective? Did they give you severance or not? Do you have savings, and so on.

    1. Artemesia*

      This. You might be wise to settle for 165 and keep looking if your current job is going away. It was not clear in the question.

  26. Day Job Haver*

    So uh…will they hire me for 165,000? I’m highly skilled at faking it until I make it.

    1. Nicole Maria*

      Right haha that’s such an unfathomable amount of money to me. It would be nice but I don’t think I could handle that I would feel too guilty.

        1. Day Job Haver*

          I was unaware that anyone was required to hire at a wage such that their employees (which ones? Everyone? 10% of their workforce? 20%?) could immediately afford a down payment on a house.

  27. Panda (she/her)*

    One of your criticisms seems to be that they couldn’t tell you concretely what would make them start you at $170k vs $165k, and I think in that sense you are reading way too much into their answer.

    There is a good chance that they can’t spell out exactly what that difference would be because there are many different capabilities that would get you there. Maybe being really fantastic at building relationships and managing stakeholders would convince them you’re worth it….or maybe expert level knowledge of a really niche technology, or maybe experience with one particular type of client or the fact that you’ve solved a really specific problem before. Maybe any one of those would be enough, but they can’t possibly list all the options.

    It could also be that they don’t want to tell you because you could just turn around and overstate your skills in that particular area. I’ve had that happen when I’m hiring – I say communication skills are really important and they turn around and tell me how great their communication skills are, when I can tell from the rest of their interview that their communication skills are decidedly NOT great. It’s hard to assess a lot of skills, especially soft skills, in interviews – I do t blame them for not wanting to be specific.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      I do blame them. Interviews are a two way process. Not having a clear vision of what is going to make an hire highly successful in a role is a warning sign. As is an inability to communicate it. They weren’t just unspecific, they provided *nothing*. And they did it in a way that suggested that they were being disingenuous about the possibility of going to the upper end of their range. Most people won’t flat out look you in the eye and lie to you, but a lot of people will hedge in ways that are deceptive but let them tell themselves they didn’t actually lie. So when people get weaselly, pay attention.

      But the bottom line is that they’re asking OP to invest in the interview process without any real expectation of getting an offer they can accept.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        When I taught English, we had to have rubrics that would indicate to students what an “A” paper would look like (as opposed to a “B,” “C,” etc.) with specific descriptions of quality. There should be at least some vague indicators of “This is what a high performer roughly looks like.” There can’t just be bupkis.

    2. iglwif*

      While I personally think the difference between $165K and $170 is negligible because either one is SO MUCH MONEY, I do think the employer needs to be able to spell out what would make them go up to the higher number — because otherwise it comes to “just vibes” or “culture fit” or some other metric that is 99% BS, and that kind of hiring/salary decision is known to disadvantage certain groups of people, including women.

  28. I didn't say banana*

    Is anyone else finding that this website keeps crashing (in Chrome on an Android device)? It’s been happening for several days for me.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      There is a link to report website issues. But you can also try clearing your cache & cookies. Sometimes that helps.

  29. 15 Pieces of Flair*

    Even assuming you could negotiate them up to your minimum, consider whether this is a job you could be happy working. Would you be satisfied with only getting your minimum number? Are you at the top of the range because you’re overqualified for this job? If so, would you be comfortable working below your potential?

    One job back I negotiated the offer over their salary band but ultimately regretted accepting because the role turned out to be too junior for me. The misalignment on salary should have indicated a level mismatch.

    The company originally posted a Sr Manager role but ended up promoting a late emerging internal candidate. They asked if I was interested in backfilling new manager individual contributor role. While I wasn’t particularly interested, I had already finished the interview process and wanted to leverage this offer against others.

    Initially the recruiter quoted me the range for the wrong geo (up to $198k base), which was within my target band, but once they applied the rural location penalty, the range dropped tens of thousands of dollars to a max $148k base. I negotiated hard because I wasn’t particularly concerned with whether I lost this offer. After going through an exception process, they came up to 162k base. Although this wasn’t my preferred role, the 20% bonus and RSU grant brought the TTC to ~231k, which was my best offer.

    I regretted accepting almost immediately. After less than a month of onboarding (because I already knew the role), management started pilling increasing amounts of work on me. I also hated the day-to-day because it was narrowly focused on a small subset of my skills. Six months and 3+ roles of workload later, I left for a Sr Manager role where my 205k base counter offer (36k annual TTC increase due to different comp structures) was within their standard range. I’ve been at the current company for 1.5 years and am much more satisfied with my work.

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      Even assuming you could negotiate them up to your minimum, consider whether this is a job you could be happy working. Would you be satisfied with only getting your minimum number?

      I’m with you here. If you have to fight this hard to get just your minimum, that means you’ll have to fight hard the entire time you’re there to get… probably no raises or bonuses ever.

      1. mreasy*

        Yeah, that’s my concern – “we started you at a higher salary so you don’t get raises for 5 years” or some BS. Still better to start with the higher salary than “grow into it,” but they don’t seem like they’re all about equitable remuneration.

  30. E*

    I’m a woman in tech as well and it surprises me the degree to which employers are willing to waste their own time interviewing for me for a job I’m not going to take because the salary isn’t what I’m looking for. I think they’re really not expecting me to walk away. But I can and I do.

  31. Penguin*

    I am on the job hunt while things are shaky at my division and there are huge salary ranges in my field. If there is a range beyond 20k in pay, and my minimum salary is more than halfway through the range I just skip applying (unless they have amazing benefits or it’s a well known company that would be worth it) because this is too common. If it’s a 20k range – maybe 30k for one of the higher jobs I could qualify for with my experience – it feels like a reasonable range. But if the range is $50k then it’s pretty clear their actual target is in the middle. They’re not really going to pay someone 200k if they know they could pay someone 140k or 150k.

  32. A. N. Other*

    I graduated with a postgraduate qualification from one of the top twenty or so universities in the world back in 2015 and have been completely incapable of finding anything other than part-time, fixed-term employment in all the years since. The idea of earning anything even remotely comparable to what the OP is asking for is literally unfathomable to me. My honest advice is that she should accept the offer of $165,000 and count herself fortunate to be among the 0.001 per cent of highest-paid humans ever to exist. I don’t imagine that my advice will be well received but it’s nothing if not sincere.

    1. iglwif*

      I also can’t imagine ever making this much money, and I finished uni in 1996 and have been working ever since (apart from 1 year’s mat/par leave and the past few months after being laid off). It sounds like a made-up number to me!

      Presumably I don’t do the kind of work or work in the same industry as OP…

  33. iglwif*

    OP, I have 2 completely different reactions to this whole story.

    Reaction 1: Good heavens, they’re offering you $165K and you’re this upset because it isn’t $170K? That’s SO MUCH MONEY, what difference can $5K possibly make at that humungous salary? To put this in perspective, I was making CAD$90k (including annual bonus) in the role I was laid off from a while back, which was significantly more than I had ever made before in my life, and after submitting *many* applications since I was laid off, I’m now interviewing for 2 roles neither of which will pay more than CAD$63K, and am happy and relieved to be doing so because (a) nobody else has wanted to interview me, and (b) both jobs sound like they probably wouldn’t suck. If someone offered me US$165 I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, and certainly wouldn’t quibble over an additional $5K.

    Reaction 2: If you feel like they don’t mean it about maaaaybe paying you more, and based on the series of interactions you describe, it’s likely you’re right about that. Since this $5K difference really matters to you, it makes sense to tell them that, because otherwise y’all are both wasting each other’s time.

Comments are closed.