In-house recruiters are more likely to advertise the salary for a role than the general average, but most (52%) still prefer to keep salary out of their job adverts.
A survey of 180 talent acquisition managers by The Forum for In-House Recruiters (The Firm) found that 48% include salary in their job adverts, compared with 44% who said the same in a separate Adzuna survey across the recruitment industry as a whole.
Of those that do not mention salary, 54% refer to offering a “competitive salary” and 15% also mention excellent benefits. Nearly a third (30%) don’t mention salary or benefits at all.
Salary in job ads
Sharp fall in salary transparency in job ads
Four in five applicants more likely to respond to salary information
Fifty-six per cent of recruiters said they write a bespoke job advert, while 44% use the job description text.
When asked why they used job description text, some respondents said they write these with the advert in mind and that it goes through a gender decoder. Others said the hiring manager provides the advert and they either did not have time or did not feel confident with their writing skills to draft a bespoke ad.
The Attraction and Sourcing Survey report says: “The primary function of a job advert should be to attract the best candidates – they may be the first introduction that the candidate has to your company and they’re therefore an opportunity to differentiate you and showcase your employer brand, cleverly conveying your culture and brand story.”
The Firm suggested that job adverts should be easy for candidates to skim-read and pull out what they need to know.
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The survey also found that:
- Larger organisations, with 5,000 or more employees, are more likely to be transparent about a role’s salary than smaller employers
- The charity sector was leading the way in terms of salary transparency. Despite the sector only representing 6% of The Firm’s respondents, charities accounted for 13% of those that advertised salaries.
- Mid-level roles (66%) were the most likely to have a salary in the ad, followed by junior
positions (63%) and entry-level roles (55%). Only 43% of ads for senior roles mentioned salary - Only 22% use programmatic advertising, rising to 33% among employers with more than 5,000 staff
- Over half of organisations (54%) use paid channels straight away to promote their roles,
and a further 43% use free channels and move to paid channels if they need to - Adverts on company websites and LinkedIn adverts receive the most applications (35% and
33% respectively). They also secure the most hires (32% and 28% respectively).
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