Recently speaking with the CEO of a company about hiring.
He mentioned that he would like to try and convince me to work for him full-time.
I demurred for the most part, but after a long conversation via email (they were very interested) even though I said “No” at every step of the way, I finally extracted a “probable salary range” from HR.
I was a little confused, because the salary range was far lower than I expected it to be.
When I enquired the HR person assured me that they pay right in the median of the salary range that their market research shows.
It isn’t always about the money but a median salary for the position they wanted to hire me for, given today’s salary market data would reduce my income to about 55% of what I currently make.
But this didn’t explain why the stated median range would be so low.
After a little digging it appears their market research on software developer salaries has not been updated since 1998.
And they had no interest in changing that.
And yet still the CEO lamented it was so difficult to hire good people.
P.S. The CEO was well-aware of the disparity in prevailing market rates for the positions he needed to fill. His reasoning? He was bound by what HR told him.