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For decades, many employers treated salary information as something to be revealed only after a candidate completed several interviews and the organization was ready to make an offer. The logic was that delaying the conversation preserved negotiating leverage, prevented internal comparisons and allowed hiring managers to evaluate candidates without compensation becoming the primary focus.

That strategy is increasingly incompatible with the modern labor market.

When an employer asks applicants to disclose their salary expectations—or even their previous compensation—while refusing to reveal what the position pays, the hiring process begins with a glaring imbalance. The candidate is expected to surrender valuable financial information while the company withholds the one number that could determine whether the opportunity is viable. What was once considered a routine recruiting practice now looks inefficient, inequitable and, in a growing number of jurisdictions, legally questionable.

Pay transparency is no longer simply an employee-relations issue. It is a business issue involving recruitment costs, employer reputation, regulatory compliance, workforce equity and the ability to compete for talent.

The Salary Conversation Is Already Happening

Employers may choose not to publish compensation, but that does not mean candidates are approaching the process without salary information. Workers routinely consult Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Indeed, government wage databases, professional associations and members of their networks before applying or interviewing. Artificial intelligence has made compensation research even faster by allowing candidates to compare job descriptions, locations, experience requirements and market-rate estimates in seconds.

The result is that withholding a salary range rarely keeps compensation secret. It merely makes the employer appear less forthcoming.

LinkedIn research found that 91% of U.S. respondents said seeing a salary range in a job posting would affect their decision to apply. Separate candidate research reported that 44% of job seekers had declined to apply for a position because the posting did not include a salary range. Indeed data showed that 57.8% of U.S. job postings included some form of pay information in September 2024, up from 52.2% one year earlier.

Those figures point to a structural change in candidate expectations. A job posting without compensation information is no longer neutral. For a substantial share of the labor market, it is a reason to keep scrolling.

Employers must also recognize the economic conditions influencing this behavior. Housing, health care, transportation, child care and food costs have made compensation a practical screening criterion. Candidates are not necessarily asking about salary because money is their only concern. They are asking because they must determine whether changing jobs, adjusting child care, extending a commute or surrendering flexible work arrangements makes economic sense.

The Hidden Cost of Waiting Until the Offer

Consider what happens when a company knows that a position pays $60,000 but interviews a candidate who expects $85,000. If the employer refuses to disclose the range, recruiters may screen the application, conduct an introductory call, schedule multiple interviews, assemble a panel, check references and prepare an offer before revealing that the two sides were never financially aligned.

The candidate loses hours preparing for and attending interviews. Managers lose time that could have been invested in operations, customers or viable applicants. Recruiters must reopen the search, and the vacancy remains unfilled.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the United States continued to experience millions of hires, job openings, quits and separations every month during 2025 and 2026. Even in a cooling labor market, employers are competing for people who meet their specific requirements. Every unnecessary interview consumes part of that limited recruiting capacity.

The direct expense of a failed search is only one component. Vacancies can delay projects, increase overtime, exhaust existing employees and reduce customer responsiveness. When an otherwise qualified finalist rejects an offer because the salary falls far below expectations, the organization has not merely lost a candidate. It has revealed a preventable failure in process design.

A compensation range near the beginning of the process functions as a basic qualification standard. Employers would not wait until the offer stage to disclose that a position requires relocation, overnight shifts or extensive travel. Salary should not be treated differently when it is equally capable of determining whether a candidate can accept the job.

Transparency Is Becoming the Legal Standard

The legal environment is also moving decisively toward greater disclosure. As of September 2026, pay-transparency requirements cover a growing collection of states, cities and counties, with approximately 18 states and the District of Columbia requiring some form of compensation transparency during hiring. The exact rules vary, but the emerging standard is clear: employers are increasingly expected to establish a good-faith salary range and communicate it before candidates invest heavily in the process.

California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and Washington are among the states that have adopted significant salary-disclosure requirements. Local governments, including New York City, have enacted additional rules, while other states continue to consider legislation.

Illinois is especially relevant to Chicago-area employers. The state’s amended Equal Pay Act, effective January 1, 2025, generally requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the wage or salary range and a general description of benefits and other compensation in covered job postings. The requirements can also affect positions performed partly in Illinois or reporting to an Illinois-based supervisor or worksite.

California generally requires employers with 15 or more employees to include pay scales in job postings. Washington similarly applies its job-posting requirements to employers with at least 15 employees and requires disclosure of the wage scale or salary range, benefits and other compensation. New York’s statewide law generally covers employers with four or more employees and requires a compensation range for covered opportunities.

These laws contain different definitions, thresholds, geographic rules and penalties. Employers should obtain qualified legal guidance for the jurisdictions in which they recruit. The broader lesson, however, does not require legal interpretation: building a national recruiting strategy around secrecy is becoming operationally difficult and legally risky.

Asking for Salary History Creates Another Problem

An employer that conceals its budget while requesting a candidate’s salary history compounds the problem. Previous pay does not establish the value of a new position. It reflects the candidate’s past employer, industry, negotiating circumstances, geographic market and potential exposure to earlier discrimination.

If a qualified professional was underpaid in a previous role, basing a new offer on that salary can carry the disadvantage forward. The new employer may believe it is providing a reasonable increase while still paying considerably less than the position’s market value or what other employees receive for comparable work.

That is one reason a growing number of states and municipalities restrict or prohibit salary-history questions. Research examining salary-history bans has found evidence that removing these questions can improve pay outcomes for workers who have historically experienced wage disparities. The policy is based on a straightforward principle: compensation should be connected to the work being performed, not anchored to whatever another employer previously decided to pay the applicant.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 already prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between employees performing substantially equal work under similar conditions. Yet national disparities persist. Census Bureau research has shown that education alone does not eliminate the gender earnings gap. Women with comparable levels of education still experience lower earnings, and the disparities are frequently greater for Black and Hispanic women.

For Latinas, the effect can be especially pronounced. Recent estimates used by national equal-pay advocates indicate that Latinas working full-time and year-round earn approximately 58 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. When all workers are included, including those working part-time or part of the year, the gap can be even wider.

Salary secrecy does not create every pay disparity, but it can help those disparities survive. Workers who lack information about the employer’s range must negotiate without knowing the organization’s actual budget. Candidates with stronger professional networks, greater financial security or more negotiating experience may be better positioned to demand additional compensation. Others may accept the first offer because they cannot afford to lose the opportunity.

Low Pay Does Not Become More Competitive When It Is Hidden

Some organizations resist transparency because their salaries fall below market rates. That may explain the hesitation, but it does not make concealment an effective solution.

If a position pays less than competing jobs, the employer has three practical options. It can increase the compensation, redesign the role or articulate a credible value proposition that offsets some of the financial difference. That proposition might include exceptional health benefits, a pension, remote work, predictable hours, generous paid leave, tuition support, professional development, job stability or a clear pathway to advancement.

What the organization cannot do indefinitely is avoid the underlying problem by keeping candidates uninformed.

A below-market salary disclosed early may reduce the applicant pool, but that reduction can improve recruiting efficiency by removing people who would never accept the position. The candidates who remain are more likely to have evaluated the entire employment proposition and concluded that the role deserves consideration.

Hiding low pay may produce more applications, but application volume is not the same as recruiting success. One hundred applicants who expect compensation the employer cannot provide are less valuable than 20 informed applicants who understand the range and remain interested.

Excessively Wide Ranges Are Not Meaningful Transparency

Publishing a range does not automatically make an employer transparent. A posting that lists compensation between $45,000 and $150,000 technically provides numbers, but it gives the candidate little usable information.

Many laws require a “good-faith” range, generally meaning the minimum and maximum the employer genuinely expects to pay for the position when the posting is published. Employers should be prepared to explain how experience, credentials, location and internal equity influence placement within that range.

A credible posting might state that the position pays between $72,000 and $88,000, with most new hires expected to enter between $72,000 and $80,000 depending on relevant experience. It should also identify major components of compensation such as incentives, commissions, retirement contributions, health coverage or other substantial benefits.

This level of clarity protects both sides. Candidates can decide whether the opportunity fits their needs, while employers can establish realistic expectations before negotiations begin.

Transparency Must Extend to Current Employees

One of the quietest reasons employers resist publishing salary ranges is the concern that existing employees will see them.

That concern may be justified. A public range can reveal that a company is prepared to pay a new employee more than experienced workers already performing similar duties. But the problem is not that employees discovered the information. The problem is that the underlying pay structure may be inequitable or outdated.

Before launching a transparent posting, employers should compare the proposed range with the compensation of current employees in comparable positions. Significant differences should be examined using legitimate factors such as tenure, responsibility, performance, specialized experience and geographic market. Where those factors do not explain the disparity, the organization may need to make adjustments.

This can require money, but failing to address compression can be more expensive. Employees who learn that new hires are being offered considerably more may disengage or leave. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank’s Wage Growth Tracker has repeatedly found that job switchers can experience faster wage growth than workers who remain with their employers. In August 2026, median wage growth was 5.0% for job changers, compared with 3.6% for workers who stayed in their jobs.

When companies make external mobility the most reliable path to higher pay, employees eventually respond to the incentive.

What Hiring Managers Should Say

Hiring managers should not be placed in the position of apologizing for a compensation policy they did not create. They also should not invent vague language intended to signal that the salary is disappointing without providing an actual number. Phrases such as “the compensation is modest,” “we are mission driven” or “salary is only one part of the package” do not solve the candidate’s problem.

A direct response is more effective: “The approved salary range for this position is $65,000 to $75,000, depending on relevant experience. The role also includes the following benefits. Before we continue, does that range align closely enough with your expectations?”

If HR has not authorized disclosure, the hiring manager should escalate the issue internally and document the operational consequences. That case should include the number of candidates withdrawing over compensation, the hours spent interviewing candidates outside the range, the percentage of declined offers attributable to pay and the time positions remain vacant.

The discussion should be framed as a business-process problem, not simply a disagreement about candidate etiquette. Leadership may be more responsive when it sees how secrecy increases time to fill, consumes management hours and weakens offer-acceptance rates.

A Better Compensation Process

Employers moving toward transparency should begin by establishing defensible salary bands for every position. Those ranges should be based on job responsibilities, reliable market data, geographic considerations and internal equity—not on an applicant’s salary history or ability to negotiate.

The range should appear in the job posting whenever possible. If it is not posted, it should be communicated during the first substantive conversation, before the candidate completes assignments or participates in multiple interviews. Recruiters should also explain the major benefits, work arrangement and any variable compensation that materially affects the offer.

Employers should train hiring managers to discuss compensation consistently and audit actual starting salaries to determine whether different demographic groups are systematically entering at different points within the range. Transparency without monitoring can still allow disparities to develop.

Finally, organizations should review job descriptions and compensation together. If a company wants advanced credentials, extensive experience, supervisory responsibility and specialized expertise but cannot attract qualified applicants within the approved range, the answer may be to narrow the position—not conceal the budget.

Pay Transparency Is a Test of Organizational Confidence

A salary range communicates more than compensation. It tells candidates whether an employer has studied the market, values their time and is confident enough in its employment proposition to state the terms openly.

Companies sometimes fear that transparency will weaken their bargaining position. In reality, a well-designed range can strengthen recruiting by attracting applicants who understand the opportunity and are prepared to evaluate it seriously. It also gives hiring managers a more focused candidate pool and reduces the likelihood of a rejected offer after weeks of work.

The question is no longer whether candidates will discover what a job is worth. The question is whether the employer will participate honestly in that conversation.

An organization that asks applicants what they earn, what they want and how much they are willing to accept—while refusing to reveal its own budget—is not protecting the hiring process. It is creating uncertainty, wasting resources and asking candidates to assume all the financial risk.

Pay transparency does not guarantee competitive salaries or eliminate inequity. It does something more foundational: it allows both sides to decide, with the same essential information, whether a professional relationship is worth pursuing.

Sources

• ADP. (2026, May 4). Your updated guide to pay disclosure requirements. ADP, Inc.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026). Job openings and labor turnover survey. U.S. Department of Labor.
• California Department of Industrial Relations. (2026). California Equal Pay Act. State of California.
• Cowgill, B., & Tucker, C. (2024). The gender disclosure gap: Salary history bans unravel gender differences in preferences for pay transparency. IZA Institute of Labor Economics.
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). Equal Pay Act of 1963. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. (2026). Wage Growth Tracker: August 2026. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
• Hansen, B., McNichols, D., & Tipton, M. (2020). Information and the persistence of the gender wage gap: Early evidence from California’s salary history ban. National Bureau of Economic Research.
• Indeed Hiring Lab. (2024, October 23). Pay transparency in U.S. job postings. Indeed.
• Illinois Department of Labor. (2025). Equal Pay Act salary transparency requirements. State of Illinois.
• LinkedIn. (2023, February 13). Why employers should include salary ranges in job postings. LinkedIn Corporation.
• National Partnership for Women & Families. (2026). America’s women and the wage gap. National Partnership for Women & Families.
• Trusaic. (2026, September 4). U.S. pay transparency laws tracker. Trusaic.
• U.S. Census Bureau. (2024). Gender pay differences: The pay gap for women with comparable education credentials. U.S. Department of Commerce.
• U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau. (2025). Equal pay and pay transparency resources. U.S. Department of Labor.