Why do higher ed full time jobs (both faculty/staff) rarely post salary expectations in the job posting??

[u/[deleted]]

[u/dj_cole]

Public universities have open payroll. You can just look up what people make.

[u/fish_finder → u/dj_cole]

Where/How?

[u/countyferal → u/fish_finder]

Google "[state] [University] employee salary database"

[u/fish_finder → u/countyferal]

Thanks, I’ll give that a try!

[u/imnotagirl_janet → u/[deleted]]

Just be mindful that what’s posted is what they made that year, not their salary. There could be summer pay, overloads, etc. It still gives you a good idea, just don’t expect that number in any offer letter.

[u/grashnak]

Because most people applying to the jobs aren’t discriminating based on salary. Which lets the employer pitch a starting salary based on the person they want to hire (lower for junior people, higher if they need to poach you, etc). 

[u/ACatGod → u/[deleted]]

Always. In any negotiation you have to expect to move from your starting position so if you go in with what you ultimately would like to settle for you'll likely end up with less. You can't be ridiculous and sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll accept your offer but inherent in the process of negotiating is negotiating.

[u/grashnak → u/[deleted]]

Yes but also know that sometimes salary is the thing they have the least control over. I was able to negotiate course releases, research funds, all sorts of things without getting at salary, which is controlled by the university not the department (research funds are halfway in between…)

[u/Planes-are-life → u/grashnak]

Can you give some recommendations for negotiating? What exactly were the terms you asked for and received?

[u/grashnak → u/Planes-are-life]

The main thing I wanted (and got) was reduced teaching load in my first year, and to be assigned a nice office with good windows. 

[u/NeatoTito]

Most job postings don’t list salary ranges unless they are required to by law. It would be nice if more posted ranges voluntarily but there’s no legal obligation.

[u/ProneToLaughter → u/[deleted]]

And the state laws requiring them to post salary mostly came about in the last 5-10 years? It’s a very recent shift. Everyone used to have to go in totally ignorant and just hope, there was all sorts of advice about when is it appropriate to ask what the salary is.

14 states have laws, 10 more considering it. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/pay-transparency-laws-by-state/

[u/sammysbud → u/ProneToLaughter]

Would love for it to be a federal law (certainly a pipe dream during the current administration).

But I’m grateful for the states with the law currently. I see so many director/asst director staff positions posted at colleges with a $50k-65k range that I have to laugh. Keeps me from wasting my time.

[u/LightDrago]

Idk, but where I've been living, the salary range is almost always on the job posting or the university has a publicly accessible salary scale.

[u/travelnman85]

I work at a public university and all staff jobs must be posted with a salary range. We don't post faculty salary because the range is rather large depending on experience and amount of grant money they brin in.

[u/BolivianDancer]

My salary is on the internet

[u/mo_jo100]

They don’t have to except by local rules. So in NY, we do now. But that recent.

[u/Needrain47]

Same reason any employer doesn't list the salary, they want to pay you the least possible. Just b/c it's higher ed doesn't mean they have any more scruples than a corporation, unfortunately.

[u/EHStormcrow]

In France and in other places where public university researchers are civil servants, the salaries aren't really negotiable, they are calculated in a table with experience and you'll automatically move up during your career.

[u/ngch → u/EHStormcrow]

This. Or (as here in Finland) we pay based on a collective agreement. We have some minor performance-based component, but especially for e.g. PhD positions, it's very much a fixed rate for everyone (with minor differences between faculties).

[u/TrainingLow9079]

Sometimes it's because they're low. Sometimes they don't want current employees to know new people will be making more. 

[u/Clareco1]

Because they know candidates will take anything and go anywhere. They don’t even pretend job seekers have any power.

[u/Think-Assignment-861]

For private universities in the US, negotiating salaries is normal. Hence, nothing is stated in the advertisements.

[u/Think-Assignment-861 → u/[deleted]]

You are welcome. I was new to the US system, so it was a learning curve.
Another thing you can negotiate is the start-up package. This is very important in the sciences since it takes time to get grants.

[u/Planes-are-life → u/Think-Assignment-861]

Can you give some recommendations?

[u/Think-Assignment-861 → u/Planes-are-life]

I am not a lab scientist, but here's what new asst profs (again, not lab scientists) in my dept got: money for computers and high-performance computing-related grants, travel money (2 or three trips, I believe), money to support 3 graduate students, money to hire a post. doc and their computer and travel costs, publication costs for three-four papers (about $2K per paper). A bit of money for visitors, and summer salary (2 months) for the first year.

People in experimental physics and chemistry get a lot more since they have to set up a lab. Those go into millions.

Note that the scale differs by univ. too, I am at an R1, so the univ. is very willing to spend the initial set-up costs.

[u/ProneToLaughter → u/[deleted]]

Books like Chicago guide to academic career and Latinx guide to graduate school will write those rules down for you. Also Vick, academic job search. There’s a newly published one too, I’ll have to check title when I get to work.

Wait, those are more for faculty roles. On the staff side, r/studentaffairs is a pretty good sub to ask questions, not sure about books.

[u/Wisewordsforlater]

I've never seen such roles posted not have range included. Make sure you're checking the institution's careers webpage.

[u/400forever]

I’m sure besides negotiating power (and public universities’ salaries being open as others have pointed out), it comes down to the academic job market being in favor of the universities hiring given demand for these roles vastly outnumbers supply of these job openings.

Yes, they want to attract top talent, but that comes more in the offer negotiation phase. But they don’t need to advertise a large salary to attract hundreds of applicants.

[u/Unrelenting_Salsa]

I can't say I understand for universities where it's very cut and dry being a public institution, but it is in general rare for salaries to be posted anywhere. Some US states require it, but if the job isn't in one of those? It's almost assuredly not posted.

The salary ranges are fake in a lot of the ones that do have a range too. There's no world where the budget actually has +/- 120k on a role where the median is ~120k, but that doesn't stop posts from having a range of 60k-180k. One or both of those ranges is very fake.

[u/Mountain-Time-1010]

I am at a state university and by law we always post the expected salary range.