Job ads: Include salary Vs. Don’t include salary

Shush! Don’t talk about pay… YES! Let’s talk about pay

A few weeks ago we blogged about the steps that agencies should take to help maximise applications. Post-Covid, as companies and economies try to recover lost ground a number of factors had collided to make the recruiting environment very competitive with certain skills being in high demand.

To attract more talent and maximise the number of candidates applying, it is important to ‘optimise’ job ads by making role and person specs concise, including benefits and offering competitive rates of pay.

There is much debate about whether advertising the salary is a good or bad thing. Many believe that including pay figures in job ads has detrimental effects:

• Loss of flexibility in the choice of hire – Including salary commits the hiring company to a skill and experience level; sometimes, a more open-ended approach is needed where the hiring decision depends on the experience and skills of the applicants.
• Existing employees finding out new hire salaries – Where salaries are negotiated on a case by case deal, publishing salaries in job ads can lead to current employees finding out that they are not being paid the same in equal positions.
• May mean a loss of competitive advantage – Letting your competitors know what you are paying may undermine your market position, especially if you are paying less than the market rate.

Some key reasons to include salary in job ads

While these may seem like good reasons, there are many more factors that suggest it is more advantageous to disclose salaries being offered in job ads:

• Save time and prevent irritation – Candidates don’t waste time applying for jobs that don’t meet their salary requirements, while recruiters don’t waste time finding out there is a mismatch between what’s on offer and what the candidate is seeking. Simple really!
• Promotes equal pay – Publishing salaries in job ads promotes fairer pay across the entire workforce for all agency clients. Workforce pay inequalities based on gender, disability, race and sexuality are perpetuated by opaque salary scales and keeping pay rates ‘under the table’.
• Build trust and attract a more diverse workforce – Equal pay and openness about financial matters promotes trust and helps to build a workforce that is more representative of society as a whole. Female, BAME and LGBTQ+ candidates are less likely to feel disadvantaged by companies offering positions where salary is advertised upfront.
• Data proves salary in ads increases applications – Anecdotally and through research it is shown that including salary in job ads is a critical factor in determining the volume of applications made for roles. Key job advertising websites in the charitable and commercial sectors put the increase at between 25% – 50%. Over 80% of employees said salary was the most important factor in the search for a new job.
• Changed attitudes to discussing pay and financial matters – It used to be regarded as ‘vulgar’ to talk about money matters. Older generations simply thought it impolite to ask about earnings. But that’s all gone now… GenZ and Millennials are far more open about salary and pay than their parents and grandparents. With Millennials making up around threequarters of the workforce by 2025, including salaries in job ads is a must.

Putting the right recruitment back office technology in place with ETZ

Levelling up inequality is not just a catchphrase or a politicised notion to which companies can latch on to and just pay lip service. Fairness is one of the most important attributes of a progressive society and thriving economy. The same is true for technology and using data, because they allow companies to be competitive and flourish.

ETZ’s market leading timesheet, invoicing and payment solution lets recruitment agencies transform efficiency of back office processing. To find out more about how we simplify the complexity of RecTech for agencies like yours, call us on 0800 311 2266 or book a demo.