Is your salary competitive for everyone, or just for people who look like me?

I’ve written before about my thoughts on salary transparency. I always encourage my coaching clients to make sure they’ve done salary benchmarking research and to always include salary expectations on job adverts.

The reasons for including salary from the off are both obvious and varied, but include:

• Transparency: Including the salary in a job description demonstrates transparency and honesty, which can help to build trust with candidates and foster a positive employer brand.
• Attract top talent: Candidates are more likely to apply for a job if they know what the salary range is upfront. Including the salary in a job description can help to attract more qualified and motivated candidates.
• Time-saving: By including the salary in the job description, companies can avoid spending time on candidates who are not a good match based on their salary expectations.
• Better candidate experience: Including the salary in a job description can create a better candidate experience by avoiding awkward conversations around salary expectations and negotiating.
• Fairness: Including the salary in a job description ensures that all candidates have access to the same information, which promotes fairness and reduces the potential for pay discrimination.
• Legal compliance: In some countries, it is a legal requirement to include the salary range in job descriptions.
• Brand reputation: Including the salary in a job description can demonstrate that a company values its employees and is committed to fair pay practices, which can help to build a positive brand reputation.

This post focusses on one specific benefit of including salary in your job ads, and I was inspired to write it after reading a LinkedIn post from Sam Franklin, CEO of of tech recruiter, Otta.

Here were the lines that first got me:

“On Otta, people of colour are setting a 20% lower minimum salary preference than white people. This disparity is something we see for every role, and every level of experience.

Unfortunately, when you look at women of colour, the gap is even bigger. They’re setting a 40% lower minimum salary preference than white men.”

– Sam Franklin, CEO

40%. A truly sobering stat.

Otta’s earlier post about women expecting 15% lower salaries got 2m views. But these insights feel even more shocking.

And, Sam continued:

“this gap has widened a lot in the last 12 months. In December 2021 this gap was only 26% rather than 40%. As the economic environment gets tougher, we risk pay inequality becoming even worse.

Putting transparent salary ranges on job adverts is such a powerful way to turn this inequality around.

Studies show that people are more likely to ask for fair pay when the salary is transparent. If we leave salaries as “competitive” we are in a position where some groups (especially white men) tend to ask for more, and negotiate harder, particularly in tougher economic times.”

It’s 2023. Should people still be flying blind when they apply to jobs? Is your salary competitive for everyone, or just for people who look like me?”

If you’re not already on board with salary transparency, I hope this post motivates you to fight for it.

Andy.