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My sense is that two factors are responsible and both relate to cluelessness or cynicism.
1) They are unaware, or worse, apathetic about what costs of living are now. People high up have been around a while. They started working in the 1980s or 1990s. $58K is probably much more than they could have imagined back then when 35-40K was a respectable salary even for a high COL area. They think "I started out making $29K in 1988, these kids should be HAPPY to make almost double that!"
2) They are unaware of what housing costs are. Where I live housing costs have skyrocketed. In the 1980s it was not a trendy place to live so a nice house by the park could be had for $50-100K. Today, those houses (one of which the bosses did actually buy in the 1980s), go for 600K up to $1 million. Slum houses are 180K to start. Decent housing is $300K. The same thinking as #1 takes place among those who are oblivious.
I've told employers to their face "I refuse to move my family into a slum." I always wait until they actually make an offer to talk salary... if they want me to work for them, they will pay at a level commensurate to what it costs to buy a decent house in their area. If not they will go with their 2nd, 3rd or whatever choice.
We've had that problem at my work and lately we've had to take the candidate 3rd-5th down on the list in almost every search in the last 2 years because the best candidates reject the offers. The higher ups are either oblivious or don't care about the housing costs here.
Right! companies want educated and skill workers for as little as possible unless it's a highly skilled position were they can't low ball the salary. I don't understand why companies ask "what is your salary requirements as they are going to low ball you by offering you $5-10k less than what you asked for.
It's a shame private companies think they are paying their professional workings really well with a starting salary of $45-50k a year. Even for a single person it is becoming more and more difficult to manage living expenses on that salary. Especially when some college grads have student loan debt averaging $30-35k.
Houses in my current area are about $175k for a decent house and $250-300k for a nice house. I guess if someone has a 15-20% down payment someone making $50k a year could own a home but they are going to have to make sacrifices to afford it.
What is so surprising about this? Many places have the same strategy to low-ball the salaries of important employees. I see more postings where the firm or university specify a PhD, 10 years of experience, all sorts of specific skills, then they are paying $55,000. I find it laughable, especially when the position is posted week after week, but they stick to it! Seems like they want a lot while they are offering very little.
What is so surprising about this? Many places have the same strategy to low-ball the salaries of important employees. I see more postings where the firm or university specify a PhD, 10 years of experience, all sorts of specific skills, then they are paying $55,000. I find it laughable, especially when the position is posted week after week, but they stick to it! Seems like they want a lot while they are offering very little.
Now that is ridiculous! Academia is worse than the private industries when it comes to starting salaries.
Most college professors are called lecturers and at the school I went to they started new lecturers at $45k and they top out at $80k. Some white collar jobs with just a bachelors has potential to pay more than that.
Yes, it's a pretty ridiculous norm that has been established whereby a salary range isn't posted and the applicant isn't supposed to mention it either. Companies are wasting god-knows how much money using this absurd arrangement. I have personally been through more than one process where the salary wasn't disclosed until the end only for it to be way too low.
I'm with MSchemist in that I am now at the point where I would rather disqualify myself by asking than waste time on a prospect that is well below my minimum expectations.
I've been lucky in my last couple job hunts, everyone disclosed a pay range in the first phone interview to make sure no one was wasting anyone's time. It was great! I interiewed for a job that sounded amazing, and at the end of the phone interview I found out it paid 30% less than what I was making. I bowed out, left thinking they were on crack with their pay range. They let me know they'd follow up if the salary could be increased.
But I only spent time in a phone call! So it was all good!
I decided to stop interviewing there after reading the Glassdoor.com reviews which showed that the position would only pay around $58,000 for working 60+ hours per week.
Not sure if that was the wisest decision, if you put that much effort into interviewing, you should have at least waited until they made you an offer. If they lowballed you, you could have demanded a lot more, and if they don't budge, THAN you can walk.
Basically you really don't know what they would have offered you, your basing what you salary would have been one glass door salary posting.
Not sure if that was the wisest decision, if you put that much effort into interviewing, you should have at least waited until they made you an offer. If they lowballed you, you could have demanded a lot more, and if they don't budge, THAN you can walk.
Basically you really don't know what they would have offered you, your basing what you salary would have been one glass door salary posting.
Yup. I always wait until money is actually on the table before I start talking about money. When an offer is extended is one of the few times in your life that the WORKER actually has some leverage to bargain with. If they don't want to pay a decent salary then you don't take the job.
Not sure if that was the wisest decision, if you put that much effort into interviewing, you should have at least waited until they made you an offer. If they lowballed you, you could have demanded a lot more, and if they don't budge, THAN you can walk.
Basically you really don't know what they would have offered you, your basing what you salary would have been one glass door salary posting.
Yup. I always wait until money is actually on the table before I start talking about money. When an offer is extended is one of the few times in your life that the individual worker actually has some leverage to bargain with. Especially if it's some kind of white collar position - that means they've gone through several rounds of elimination and they're going to be disappointed to go down to #2, #3, etc... If they don't want to pay a decent salary then you don't take the job.
I think all employees everywhere should hold out for money, then maybe we wouldn't argue so much about the minimum wage to force employers to stop low-balling people. That's what unions were supposed to be for but they fell apart.
Unfortunately many job hunting guides tell you don't inquire about compensation and benefits before an offer and some companies will kick you out of the running and assume you are only interested in money.
That is very stupid. Who write this "guides" anyway? Some intern level HR at yahoo or random blogger using jargon and trying to sound experienced. Unfortunately people that are in need tend to listen to any advice.
One thing that read somewhere that make way more sense was an successful business millionaire would not hesitate talking about money for second even for small talk, because he has a lot of it, he is used to it, he is not a minion. I'm not talking about only about bragging who has or make more. Sometimes it is obvious that the CEO, the heir have a lot more than other executive in a mid sized company or developer. But they can still talk about revenue, size (cost) of projects. Usually this is good for either parties because they may learn a little about the other guy's market. A job interview is still a business transaction, one side have an upper hand, but the other side should not be shy.
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