{"id":1172,"date":"2010-01-13T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2009-12-22T17:31:32","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T01:31:32","slug":"market-salary-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1172","title":{"rendered":"Market Salary Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

The HR Capitalist<\/a> had a post the other day about pricing candidate salaries.\u00a0 But as usual, I have my own opinions.<\/p>\n

Say it with me – the market rate for any candidate is the $$ amount they will accept.\u00a0 They’ve got info about what they are worth, you’ve got info about what they are worth.\u00a0 When it all comes down to it, ranges give guidance, but you can’t rely on the extremes in the offer process.\u00a0 You use the range to close business.\u00a0 ((Dunn, Kris, December 8, 2009.\u00a0 \u201cSay It With Me: The Market Rate for any Candidate is the $$ Amount They Will Accept with Mimimal Counters…\u201d\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.hrcapitalist.com<\/a>\/.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not totally sure I agree.\u00a0 Chances are, the hiring organization does not really know what the prior salary of the candidate was.\u00a0 We know that many candidates lie on resumes, and since their prior salary is not usually written, salaries probably also tend to get inflated.\u00a0 We also have a pretty reasonable range of salaries that our compensation departments are doing.\u00a0 These global surveys are pretty standardized across a number of consultancies, and are fairly predictable.\u00a0 Candidates generally know the range of pricing they are looking at, as do the hiring organization.\u00a0 It\u2019s no secret what the typical ranges are for a candidate who is experienced and has been in the market.<\/p>\n

However, rather than the market rate being how little a candidate will accept, I think that this idea is a recession strategy.\u00a0 Since we have lots of people sitting on the bench right now either having been laid off or whatever, this strategy might work in the short term.\u00a0 But in the long term, I\u2019d like to think that we\u2019re looking at recruiting and pricing more strategically.\u00a0 If we are running a successful recruiting program, we are going to be recruiting people who are already employed, and perhaps are not even looking for jobs.\u00a0 These are the best candidates as we all know (even if we all know it in theory but not in practice \u2013 they are the hardest candidates to get).\u00a0 When we talk about positions that are highly collaborative or require a degree of innovation capacity, then the stakes go up significantly.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the lowest price a candidate will take, but based on the idea of a growth economy and the strategy of the position being filled, I believe it\u2019s more about what the position is worth to the organization.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had it all ways, early in my career with a WAY lowball offer (which I took since I was rather inexperienced and it was still a good offer for where I was at \u2013 I later learned that all my peers were earning at least $10k more).\u00a0 I\u2019ve had the generous offer based on my skills and experience and the fact that I was not really interested in moving jobs, and I\u2019ve had the fair offer (when I was actually on the bench myself).<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, we need to make sure that we are hiring people in a cost effective way.\u00a0 But if we decide that low salary pricing is the only way, then we deal a bad hand if we\u2019re looking to fill strategic positions with high caliber employees.\u00a0 The best people out there know they are the best and don\u2019t take to this strategy well \u2013 they walk away instead.\u00a0 Even the average people out there know where it\u2019s at, and lowball salaries don\u2019t make for long term engaged employees.\u00a0 Decide for yourself if that $5k is worth disengagement or missing out on the best candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The HR Capitalist had a post the other day about pricing candidate salaries.\u00a0 But as usual, I have my own opinions. Say it with me – the market rate for any candidate is the $$ amount they will accept.\u00a0 They’ve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,10,33,15],"tags":[450,77,78,79,80,50],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compensation","category-engagement","category-finance","category-talent-acquisition","tag-compensation","tag-hr-capitalist","tag-kris-dunn","tag-market-rates","tag-offer","tag-staffing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}