[alleyshack]

Honest question, as this is related to something my company's HR department is grappling with (I am not involved, I'm just a lowly engineering manager): How does this law interact with companies whose pay range is location based? I.e., the starting salary band for a Silicon Valley-based candidate would take into account SF cost of living, and therefore be significantly higher on paper than the starting salary band for, say, an Arkansas-based candidate.

Obviously it would be impractical to list all the possible geo-based salary bands on a JD. Is the intent to "shame" such a company into picking a single salary range that doesn't take geo location into account?

I feel as though that would either lead to (1) everyone being paid Silicon Valley wages (which has a number of consequences of its own, both good and bad) or (2) companies which can only afford to do so for certain positions, losing out on otherwise qualified candidates who happen to live in a higher COL area.

I know there's an argument that if the company can't pay competitive wages, then they shouldn't be in business. But it feels like in case (1), candidates who live in high-COL areas are actually getting penalized. Some of them could move to lower-COL areas and get the net benefit, but others may not be able to move.

I don't know the answer here, but I'm curious to see how others in the industry are thinking about the situation.

[detaro]

Presumably you could list the entire range, assuming you can reasonably show that it actually is truthful when challenged. (potentially it could be an issue if the upper end is not available to all locations? Although I'd question if that is a sane policy to have either ways)