Why do job listings hide the salary?
Companies often leave pay ranges off job descriptions, forcing applicants to waste time on interviews only to discover mismatched compensation later. This lack of transparency makes it impossible to gauge whether an opportunity is worth pursuing upfront, leading to widespread frustration among job seekers.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Asking for the pay band in the comments or direct messaging posters, guessing based on job requirements, or ignoring the posting altogether.Did this help you?
- 2Asking only HR or the hiring manager instead of team interviewersDid this help you?
- 3Asking online professional forums for firsthand salary experiences from peersDid this help you?
- 4Look at similar roles at other companies to see their advertised pay ratesDid this help you?
- 5Ask the interviewer directly if they have a budgeted range for the positionDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“No pay band listed. Entry-level, but requires multiple years of experience with multiple languages and full ci/cd technologies... Show the pay or GTFO.”source ↗
“Why might they leave pay out? If asked about my expectations, how can I ask for their budgeted range first?”source ↗
“There seems to be a lot of conflicting information online and on forums, so I’d be interested in hearing from people with firsthand experience.”source ↗
Where this came up
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