Does the job match the salary?
Job titles don’t always tell us very much. Two Office Manager roles can have completely different responsibilities, expectations and salaries.
An honest conversation at the start is cheaper than a restart three months in.
Why we raise it early
Before we start a search, we’ll talk honestly about how the role, the experience required and the salary sit together. If something looks out of step, we’d rather discuss it at the beginning than discover it after you’ve met the perfect person.
That is not a push for a higher number. Sometimes the right answer is to adjust the brief instead, or to be clear about which parts of the role could sit elsewhere.
Where things usually drift
Four patterns we see often enough to mention.
- 01
The title is doing the work
A job title carries a salary expectation with it. If the responsibilities have grown past the title, the salary is usually the thing that has not moved.
- 02
Two jobs in one
Where a role has quietly absorbed a second set of responsibilities, it is worth deciding whether you are hiring for one job or two.
- 03
The experience asked for
If the requirements describe somebody more senior than the salary suggests, one of the two needs to move.
- 04
What else is on offer
Working arrangements, development, the team and the work itself all count. They do not replace salary, but they change the conversation.
A note on figures
We do not publish salary tables. What a role should pay depends on the responsibilities, the sector, the location and the market at the time, so we would rather discuss your specific role than point you at an average.
This is recruitment guidance from Elbrus, not legal or HR advice. For formal obligations, take your own advice.
Speak to us
Happy to talk through how a role and a salary sit together before anything goes to market.