Question for you hiring managers.

If you have the ideal candidate that checks all the boxes, comes with great references and you know will do very well at the job, what would prevent you from hiring them at the top of the pay scale? Why do some companies want to bring new employees with years of direct experience, niche skills, education and certifications in at the middle of the pay scale?

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paul78

For me, it's always been purely a budgetary reason. It's never really mattered to me what a payscale says. I have a budget for headcount and those are my guardrails. Depending on the company, I may have latitude to shift budget dollars between cost-centers and related line-items but either way, it's all about trade-offs to do what's best for the company.

COBOL_DOS_ERA

As Paul said at the ends this is about Team, Project and Company budget. As a manager if not always, but most of time we are under pressure to save and bring more $$ for the company, but never to spend more than allocated $$ for the team or project we are managing. In my last project that I was managing, I end up hiring the sub contractor that I did not want to hire. I end up hiring that person because of budget constraint.

Danielm7

The range is kind of relative which makes it complicated. Where I work we have tiers, so if I have approval to hire someone as a tier X, the range might run from 75-135K, but the budget isn't actually that wide. The problem with the absolute top of the range is the tiers get adjusted every year or so but they only go up around inflation costs of about 2%. So if someone comes in at the top, they most they can be is the new top each year without any room to give even an average 3% raise without constantly hitting the new max.

Ignoring all that tier business, if I said the range was 100-115, and someone was perfect, no issue with giving them the 115.

EANx

For me, the top of the scale is for someone who checks every box and gives me the warm and fuzzies that they'll fit in great with the team. But the top of the scale might not be the top of my budget. I like to keep a little back to potentially give as a bonus later so I'll keep 8-10% back and six months in give a small raise (if warranted) then at the year mark give the normal raise plus a percentage or two extra. I find that giving people more all at once isn't as morale building as giving them almost as much and then giving more raises.

devilbones

Thanks for the great responses.

cyberguypr

Simple for me: HR policies. I could deviate and bring someone in at the top of the band if I jump through 20 hoops showing how there's no one else qualified for the role yadda yadda. Also as mentioned above this means this person will be stuck when the time for bonus/merit increase comes along.

Danielm7

cyberguypr said:

Simple for me: HR policies. I could deviate and bring someone in at the top of the band if I jump through 20 hoops showing how there's no one else qualified for the role yadda yadda. Also as mentioned above this means this person will be stuck when the time for bonus/merit increase comes along.

Yep, this is one of those issues when people see job listings and read "85-105" and immediately think, "well the salary is 105, everything else is a lowball insult".

Johnhe0414

In my experience, when a position opens it has been budgeted for so the details of the position are posted along with the pay scale. However, in order to bring a candidate in at a higher tier would mean justification (e.g education, experience, current pay etc.). It is much easier to bring in a candidate it at a higher rate (usually the next step above their current pay rate) than to write a justification letter "why" we need to pay someone more to HR. It just becomes a struggle with HR.

MontagueVandervort

Danielm7 said:
Yep, this is one of those issues when people see job listings and read "85-105" and immediately think, "well the salary is 105, everything else is a lowball insult".

That's too bad some people approach the situation like that. I would be thinking, "Let me try to get around 90-92".

With all that's been said in this thread, it causes me to believe that there must come a time when people begin to price themselves out of a market. It explains a lot of complaining I see (not on TE, elsewhere) in terms of some never believing they're paid enough.

paul78

Cert_God said:

I like to use Maslow's theory in the hiring and retaining of staff.

That's a fascinating point of view. Could you elaborate? I'm curious how you apply hierarchy of needs concepts - and are you looking at it from the employer or the employee point of view. I don't really know the intricacies of Maslow's theories other than the D- that I got in psychology class. But I would have expected that using those concepts would result in a adversarial relationship between employer and employee. How do you balance it out?

paul78

@Cert_God - ok - I get it. So you apply the concept to the employee's point of view. That's a very empathetic way of managing the hiring and retention process. I can see that approach as being very effective. But do you run into fairness issues among the teams? I imagine that this style takes a lot more effort and its not a technique that everyone can do well.

Kudos to you if you are able to pull that off at scale. I find that employee-first concepts can work in a small company but it's really hard to allow managers to have judgemental latitude - especially when it comes to compensation.