You Could Lose Out On Thousands Of Dollars If You Don't Follow These Salary Negotiation Tips

Is the salary range you see on a job listing the most money you can expect to get for a job you want?

Because of pay transparency laws in a growing number of states — including New York, California, Colorado and Maryland ― knowing how much an employer will pay you for a listed role is not a secret.

But you could be losing out on thousands of dollars if you believe the salary range you see is the most you can expect to get from a company.

“Some employers are doing a minimum and a midpoint and not a max” for the salary ranges they post, said Kristin Boraas, general counsel for PayScale, a compensation software company. The thinking behind this is to give “some flexibility on the top end, depending on the candidate.”

But you should know that pulling this off is more of an exception than the rule, Boraas said, for most reasonable salary ranges. That’s because paying candidates too much more than the listed range could land an employer in legal trouble if it’s applied only to certain demographics, like white men, or is significantly higher than what staff in the same role receive, she noted.