Guide
Should you put the salary in your job ad?
Pay is the first thing most candidates look for and the thing most Australian SME ads leave out. The gap between those two facts is where a lot of applications go missing.
The objections to publishing pay are not stupid — but almost all of them are internal costs being paid for with external results.
The short version
- Publish a range. Ads with pay attract more applications and fewer unsuitable ones.
- "Salary commensurate with experience" is universally read as less than I want.
- A range is negotiating room, not the loss of it.
- If you truly cannot publish a number, publish the structure instead.
Why publishing pay increases job applications
Because candidates who have options will not spend twenty minutes applying for a role that might pay $15,000 less than they need, and those are precisely the candidates you want.
The filtering is asymmetric, and that is the whole argument. A candidate with three other options skips your unsalaried ad. A candidate with no options applies regardless. By withholding pay you have not filtered neutrally — you have selectively removed the strongest part of your pool.
There is a second effect that costs you directly. Unsalaried ads produce interviews that cannot possibly succeed. You will spend an hour with someone excellent and discover in minute forty that their expectation is $20,000 above your band. That hour is a real cost, and it is entirely avoidable.
The four objections to publishing salary, assessed
Competitor visibility and internal equity are the only two with real substance, and both are usually symptoms of a separate problem rather than reasons to withhold pay.
| Objection | Assessment |
|---|---|
| "Competitors will see what we pay" | They already know. They employ people who do this job, and their staff talk to yours. The information is not secret; it is just not written down. |
| "Our existing staff will see it" | The real concern, and a genuine one. But if the advertised range would upset your current team, you have an internal pay problem that the ad is merely revealing. Fix it before someone else does. |
| "We'll lose negotiating room" | A range is negotiating room. $75k–$85k lets you open at $78k without committing to $85k. What you lose is the ability to pay someone less than the role is worth because they did not know. |
| "The right person won't care about money" | Everyone cares what a job pays. Not caring about pay is a luxury, and selecting for it narrows your pool to people who do not need the income. |
What to publish if you can't publish a salary number
Publish the structure: the base band plus the components, or the all-in range most of the team lands in. Anything concrete beats silence.
- Total package framing: "Base + super + tool allowance + overtime at penalties — most of the team lands between $90k and $110k all-in."
- Award reference: "Paid under the [relevant] Award at Level 4, currently about $X an hour, plus penalties." Precise, verifiable, and it signals you know your obligations.
- Hourly band for variable roles: "$32–$38 an hour depending on tickets, plus penalties."
- Honest width with a reason: "$70k–$95k — genuinely wide because we'd take either a strong second-year or someone senior, and the role changes shape accordingly."
Don't
"Salary commensurate with experience"
Instead
A range. Every candidate reads this phrase as less than I want.
Don't
"Attractive remuneration package"
Instead
The numbers. Adjectives about money read as an absence of money.
Don't
"$50,000 – $150,000"
Instead
A band you would actually pay within. A range that wide reads as evasion.
Don't
"Above award rates"
Instead
How far above. The award minimum is public; vagueness about the gap suggests it's small.
Common questions
Is it a legal requirement to include salary in job ads in Australia?
No. There is no general requirement to advertise pay. It is, however, unlawful to advertise a rate below the applicable award or national minimum wage, so if you do publish a figure it needs to be compliant.
How wide should a salary range be?
Narrow enough to be informative — usually 10% to 15% of the midpoint. $75k–$85k is useful. $60k–$120k is read as a refusal to answer.
Should the range include superannuation?
Say which you mean. "$80,000 + super" and "$80,000 including super" are materially different offers, and ambiguity here causes avoidable friction at the offer stage.
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