HR Discourse 05.03.2021: Rejoinder to the Salary Maelstrom Blog

Note: This was a microblog created yesterday in my Facebook page and transferred to my blog. I have expanded/edited it from the original. The author wants to apologize in advance for any typos and sentence construction errors.

I may have wrote the most "provocative" (hah!) blog to date explaining the HR side of the Salary Maelstrom (or in plain English: Uproar) blog I created yesterday.

I was talking with a friend/HR colleague Mon Villanueva earlier about this. He said that there were no mention in the Tweet about asking the candidate from ADMU about her salary expectation.

In way he is right. It seems to be that it was not stated in the tweet. Or in the excitement of getting her onboard, forgot the drill. Which eventually led me to do this blog

If the salary expectation was clear from the start of the interviews, this would have been avoided. The interviewer or candidate can assess if they can proceed with the interviews.

I will not touch on how complicated is the process of determining salaries through Job Evaluation/Salary Structuring (which I would love to write eventually) we do because of the fact that majority of the readers who will stumble unto this blog will not understand this.

They would only touch on the inequities of the salary given or refused and the worth of the candidate in mind. A friend mentioned that don't do an over analysis of the issue and I agree. They will only believe what they feel is right (in their POV) and gloat or whatever reaction it would elicit once read.

As a recruiter, I always ask for your current and expected salary or wage. If we sort of like, yeah I like your credentials and is qualified for the position but the maximum salary that we can offer you is Php _________, are you willing to accept that. Or "Is your salary negotiable?" if mentioned during the initial interview.

I was also in that situation before: a candidate for Structural Engineer which I have interviewed for my former employer Versar. He came from Saudi Arabia and was expecting to get about the same amount of compensation. He wanted to stay here permanently with his family.

Being the Recruiter, we have a budget lower than what he wanted. I said "I am laying down the cards - we can only offer you this amount. I am giving you a week to decide on what I said. You can call me anytime if you want your application to be endorsed to the Hiring Manager."

He did not. He cannot accept what we can offer and I respect that. I did this - with respect to the experience and competencies - he can bring into the company. I understand that he want to earn the same salary to provide for his family here; what I offer him simply cannot match his previous salary to the level of comfort he can provide. Nothing more - nothing less so they say.

What is the takeaway from this you say?

If the candidate says yes - the proceed with the interview or arrange another set of interviews. If no - shake hands and thank them for coming over. Although it was not a successful interview, being candor towards the candidate/interviewer would have been better for both parties.

Recruiters should not forget the salary part of the interview process .

This is how you do it sparing them of embarrassment - of course mapapahiya naman si girl pag nalaman nyang nababash na siya sa SocMed which is unfair to say the least.

If the candidate accept the offer, go ahead with the onboarding procedures. If not, let part ways and move on to the next candidate.

Ok folks, back to work. Have a great week.