This happened earlier this year, but I’m still livid about it.
I was laid off and my job was outsourced to some other company. This other company reached out to me and offered to interview for a position where I would go back to my old desk at my old office and do my old job.
In my state companies are required to disclose salary ranges for their positions (which has enabled me to jump ahead years in terms of salary) so I asked the interviewer what the salary range for this position was. The answer they told me “based on my experience and my resume” was $30,000 per year less than I was previously making to do literally the same work.
I looked around at every other job posting for my specialty (Im a specialized engineer) and most of them are paying even more than what I was previously making. I responded saying that that number made no sense. I told them what I was previously making and how much other companies in my area were offering and they responded by sending me a link to salary dot com where they had entered my specialty and years of experience and gotten the awful number they had offered me.
Now I’m very good at what I do and I make way more than the average for my years of experience, and so I thought that maybe they just didn’t realize that yet. So I asked if I interviewed well would they be willing to match my previous salary for the same work? They said no, “Salary dot com hath commanded your salary be shit”. I told him he was blind because this clearly doesn’t align with the market in any way even if you ignore that I was already being paid 30k more for literally the exact job.
So anyways I told him to cancel all my interviews and that I was not interested in the position because they pay was bad (honestly downright offensive). They responded with some indignant bullshit that I cant remember and I never spoke to them again.
Anyways I got a new job that pays even more than my old one, so eat it “unnamed company” that thought I wasn’t worth shit.
Tl;dr My job got outsourced. Outsourcing company offered me my own job for 30k less per year and seemed completely out of tune with reality. I just walked out the door and ended up with a raise elsewhere.
Second tl;dr Forcing companies to post salary ranges allows you to know what you’re worth with confidence. You can negotiate with evidence. If this comes up for a vote in your state, vote for it.