A job description goes out for a Senior Software Engineer. Detailed. Impressive. The kind of role that would attract exceptional candidates. Then the salary range appears: $85,000–$95,000.
For a senior engineer. In a major metro. Today. And everyone in the industry quietly closes the tab.
A Persistent, Damaging Pattern
This is one of the most persistent — and most damaging — patterns in professional services and technology hiring right now. Companies spend thousands on recruiting infrastructure, job boards, and employer branding, then offer compensation that's 20–35% below market rate, and wonder why they're struggling to close candidates.
Here's the hard truth: your candidates know what the market pays. Between LinkedIn Salary, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and their own professional networks, they know within days of your posting whether the range is competitive.
Who's Actually Left in Your Pipeline
When the range doesn't match reality, the best candidates — the ones with options — don't waste their time applying. What's left in your pipeline are the candidates with the fewest alternatives, not the strongest fit. You end up interviewing people who are desperate rather than people who are the best available for the role.
Compensation transparency isn't just a nice-to-have anymore. It's a fundamental signal of how much you actually value the role you're hiring for.
If the Budget Genuinely Can't Move
If your budget genuinely can't match the market, that's a real conversation worth having with leadership before the search starts — not after four months of low-quality applicants. Starting the process with numbers that don't reflect market reality costs everyone time: yours, your hiring manager's, and every candidate who applied in good faith based on a range you knew wasn't realistic.
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*Getting the compensation range right before a search launches is one of the first things we help clients nail down. [See how our retained search process starts with real market data ]*