Salary and salary ranges on job ads

Is it really necessary to put a salary on your job ad? Will not having one impact on the success of your recruitment campaign?

The short answer is ‘Yes.’ There are few things more important to the success of your job ad than putting a salary on it.

Why would you not put a salary?

There are many reasons why you might not want to put a salary on your job ad. You might being trying to keep salaries down in your company or to leave room for negotiation later; you might not want your competitors to know what you are paying your staff; or, most commonly, you might not want your own staff to know what you are paying other people in your company.

But while there are many reasons why you mightn’t want to include a salary, there are few reasons you shouldn’t include one when advertising online. The view of most job boarders as well as online recruitment experts is that you should always include a salary in your job ad. Evidence backs up the claim that not including a salary will have a very detrimental effect on the performance of your job ad.

No salary, no response.

When people search for a new job on a job board they tend to use a number of key search criteria such as job title, location and salary. If there is no salary specified on your job ad, your job ad will fail to match with the searches of the majority of candidates and, therefore, they will not see it. Not having a salary on your job ad will mean that fewer people will see your ad and, therefore, fewer potential candidates will apply for it.

No salary, no certainty.

Stating a salary also gives a candidate an idea of how junior or senior the job is. A “Sales Manager” can mean many things. A Sales Manager who earns £18K with an OTE of £28K is a very different proposition to a Sales Manager with a basic of £60K and 20% bonus. They are both Sales Manager jobs but the candidate requirements are clearly very different. Stating the salary will help the candidates see the level of job being hired for.

A salary is the best screening question.

Following on from the point above, putting a salary on your job can be one of the best screening tools you as an employer can use. By stating what the salary is you will help candidates clarify what level the job is and you will stop lots of under-qualified and/or over-qualified people applying for it. Putting a salary on your job will mean you get more suitable candidates applying for it.

But I still don’t want to put a salary!

Sometimes you just can’t put the salary. Even if you cant or don’t want to put one, you can still put a pointer to the salary level with a salary range e.g. “£45,000 to £50000 depending on experience,” or “circa £45,000,” or “up to £45,000.” Some job sites even allow you to put a “hidden” salary. That is, your job does carry a salary for search purposes, but the salary does not appear in the job ad itself.

If, however, you still don’t want to put a salary on your job ad then you must accept that you might not be getting the best response. Many people who might be good for your job simply won’t find it. There’s no way round that. Accepting this, it might be worth considering enhancing your job ad with some additional advertising. Without a salary your job ad is going to need help to work. It’ll make all the difference to the success of your job.

Next steps? Check out these other guides and articles:

• A job description is not a job ad
• Avoiding discrimination in job ads
• Choosing the right job title for your job ad
• How to get job seekers to read your job ad
• Selling the SME company to top talent
• Top job advertising tips from job boards
• Writing job ads for job sites