When you publish a salary range, three things happen immediately.
Fewer people apply. The ones who do are better matched. And someone already on your team does the arithmetic.
That third one is why most companies do not do it.
The hidden cost of not publishing
Without a published band, pay ends up correlated with negotiation confidence rather than contribution.
Two engineers join the same team in the same quarter at the same level. One negotiated, one did not. The gap is 12,000 euro and it compounds through every percentage raise after that.
Nobody decided this. It is the default outcome of a process where the price is private.
The bill arrives later. Salary information leaks, because people talk. When it does, you are not defending a decision. You are explaining an accident.
What actually changes when you publish
Application volume drops. This reads as bad and is usually good. The people who filter themselves out were going to reject your offer at the end anyway, after your engineers had spent hours on them.
Negotiation gets shorter. The conversation moves from “what can I extract” to “where in the band do I land and why”. That is a conversation about evidence, which is a better conversation.
Your existing team checks. They will compare the published band to their own pay. If the answer is uncomfortable, you have found a problem that already existed.
Do this before you publish anything
Audit what you currently pay.
If two people at the same level are 15% apart for no defensible reason, fix that first. Publishing a band before the internal fix turns a quiet problem into a loud one.
This step is the actual work. Writing the number in the job ad takes five minutes.
How to write the band
Make it real. A range of 60,000 to 120,000 euro is not transparency, it is a refusal wearing a costume.
Publish the range for the level you are hiring at, and say what moves someone within it. Scope, autonomy, and the specific skills the team is short of.
If you have levels, publish the level too. “Senior Engineer, 85,000 to 100,000” tells a candidate more than either half alone.
What to say when someone asks for the top of the band
Answer with the criteria, not with a yes or no.
“The top of the band is for someone already operating at the next level. Here is what that looks like on this team. From what I have seen, you are here.” That is a defensible answer and it survives being repeated.
The objection that is actually valid
Publishing bands makes you easier to poach from.
A competitor now knows what to beat. That is real and it is the cost.
The counter is that people who leave for money alone are usually leaving for other reasons too, and you would rather find that out early.
Where this is going anyway
The EU Pay Transparency Directive requires member states to have this in national law by June 2026. Employers will have to give pay-range information to candidates before the interview and cannot ask about salary history.
You will be doing this. The only choice left is whether you do it on your own schedule with your own numbers cleaned up first.
The short version
Fix your internal pay gaps, then publish a real band with the level attached.
Fewer applications, better matched, shorter negotiations.
Your team will do the arithmetic either way. Better that the answer is defensible.