Yes, we recommend including a clear pay figure or narrow range in every job ad: the evidence shows it attracts better, more relevant applications and cuts wasted hiring effort. SEEK research links visible pay to a measurable rise in applications, and the Fair Work Ombudsman requires that any figure published be accurate.
TL;DR:
- Displaying a salary in job ads increases application rates by 36%, and offering above-market pay can attract up to 83% more candidates.
- Employers must verify that advertised pay complies with awards and the Fair Work Act, with accuracy being a legal obligation.
- Using clear formats like ranges, package descriptions, hourly rates, or job bands helps candidates understand the offer quickly and reduces application drop-off.
- Public salary disclosure speeds up screening, filters unsuitable candidates early, and supports fair opportunities but requires careful internal validation.
- Industry variations show technology roles openly share figures, while executive and senior roles often prefer banded packages due to complex variable components.
Table of Contents
- Why include salary: the evidence and benefits
- Legal obligations and accuracy: what employers must check before publishing a number
- How to display salary clearly in a job ad: formats and concise examples
- How salary disclosure affects candidates and hiring outcomes
- Common employer concerns and practical mitigations
- How we recommend implementing pay transparency
- Industry-specific trends and variations in salary disclosure practices
- Legal risks and compliance consequences of incorrect salary information in ads
- Strategies for balancing salary transparency with negotiation flexibility
- What changes when pay is visible from the start
- How we help employers post accurate pay and hire with confidence
- FAQ
- Sources
Why include salary: the evidence and benefits
The business case for showing pay is no longer theoretical. Job ads on SEEK that display a visible salary receive on average 36% more applications, and ads offering above-market pay that show it can attract up to 83% more applications. That gap matters most in competitive fields and for hard-to-fill skills, where candidates compare several ads at once and skip straight past the ones with no figure attached.
Visible salary drives measurable uplift. SEEK’s data shows 36% more applications on average when pay is shown, rising to 83% for above-market roles, a gap that reflects how quickly candidates filter ads without any figure.
Beyond volume, salary transparency improves the quality of who applies.
- Candidates self-select against the figure, so fewer unsuitable applications reach your inbox.
- Screening calls move faster because pay expectations are already aligned.
- Hiring managers spend less time on candidates who would have walked away at offer stage anyway.
The advantage is sharpest where competition for talent is fierce. A role with scarce technical skills or a tight local labour pool benefits most from a confident, well-researched figure, because it signals the employer has done its homework and is ready to move.
Legal obligations and accuracy: what employers must check before publishing a number
Showing a salary is a business choice, but once you publish one, accuracy becomes a legal obligation. From 7 January 2023, job advertisements cannot include pay rates that would breach the Fair Work Act or an applicable award or enterprise agreement, under changes summarised by the Fair Work Ombudsman. The rule does not force disclosure. It governs what happens once you decide to disclose.
Before any figure goes live, we’d treat this as a non-negotiable checklist:
- Identify the applicable award or enterprise agreement for the role, and check it against the National Employment Standards.
- Confirm the figure sits above the National Minimum Wage using the Pay and Conditions Tool referenced in Fair Work’s job ads guidance.
- Add any allowances, casual loading or superannuation the role is entitled to, rather than folding them silently into a single number.
- Decide whether the advertised figure is base only, base plus super, or a total package, and state it plainly.
- Keep a record of how the figure was calculated in case it is later queried.
Pro Tip: Treat the advertised figure as a commitment, not a marketing line: it needs to survive scrutiny from a candidate, a union or the Fair Work Ombudsman equally well.
Penalties for non-compliance sit within the broader Fair Work enforcement framework, so the safer path is always verification before publication rather than correction after a complaint.
How to display salary clearly in a job ad: formats and concise examples
A figure only works if candidates can read it at a glance and understand what it covers. The format matters almost as much as the number itself.
- A clean range: “$80,000 to $95,000” tells candidates where the role sits without locking you into one exact figure.
- A package format: “$75,000 plus super plus commission” separates base pay from variable earnings.
- An hourly rate: “$35 to $45 per hour” suits casual, trade or shift-based roles.
- A banded structure: “Band 3: $90k to $110k (base plus super)” works well for organisations with formal job grading.
Short parenthetical text does a lot of work: state the pay frequency, whether super is included, and whether bonuses or commission are variable rather than guaranteed. A range with no context, such as “$70k to $120k”, reads as vague rather than flexible, and tends to erode trust rather than build it.
On SEEK specifically, entering a pay range into the pay fields does not automatically display it to candidates. Employers also need to enable the “pay shown on your ad” setting and can edit the short visible text that appears, a detail confirmed in SEEK’s employer guidance.
| Format type | Example | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Salary range | $80,000 to $95,000 | Standard permanent roles |
| Package format | $75,000 + super + commission | Sales and incentive-based roles |
| Hourly rate | $35 to $45 per hour | Casual and trade roles |
| Banded structure | Band 3: $90k to $110k (base + super) | Larger organisations with job grading |
How salary disclosure affects candidates and hiring outcomes
Candidates treat salary as an early filter, often the first thing they check before reading the rest of the ad. When the figure is missing, many simply move on rather than apply and ask later, which means employers lose candidates they never even knew were interested.
- Visible pay reduces drop-off at the application stage because expectations are set before anyone applies.
- It speeds up screening calls, since recruiters no longer need to spend the first five minutes negotiating expectations.
- It supports fairer access to opportunities, since candidates who might otherwise undervalue themselves in negotiation can see the figure upfront rather than guess.
Not every detail needs to be public from the first click. Staged disclosure, where the ad shows a band and finer detail (such as bonus structure or equity) is discussed later in the process, lets employers protect some negotiation flexibility while still giving candidates enough information to decide whether to apply at all.
Common employer concerns and practical mitigations
Most hesitation about publishing pay comes down to four worries: internal equity between existing staff, loss of negotiation leverage, pay compression between senior and junior roles, and uncertainty about budget before a candidate is chosen.
Each has a practical fix rather than a reason to avoid disclosure altogether.
- Use level-based bands tied to a clear role grade, so a published range reflects experience tiers rather than one flat number.
- Phrase the figure as “base plus” wherever variable pay exists, separating guaranteed income from bonus or commission.
- Link any internal pay review policy so existing staff understand how external hiring rates relate to their own progression.
- Require sign-off from finance or HR on the advertised figure before the ad goes live, so nobody is caught out by a number they didn’t approve.
Pro Tip: A short internal approval step, even just one person checking the figure against the award, catches most pricing errors before they become public.
How we recommend implementing pay transparency
Running ad campaigns for employers has shown that mispriced ads cost more time than they save. Our approach before any ad goes live includes:
- Confirming the award or agreement rate and checking it against current market data before a figure is drafted.
- Entering the range into SEEK’s pay fields and ensuring that “pay shown on your ad” is switched on, since this step is missed surprisingly often.
- Reviewing the short visible text for clarity, so candidates see exactly what the figure includes.
- Keeping a record of the calculation in case a candidate or the business asks how it was reached.
A fixed-fee structure also removes one variable from the equation: because our pricing is not tied to a percentage of the candidate’s salary, there’s no incentive to inflate a figure to lift our own fee, which keeps the advertised number focused on what the market and the role actually justify.
Industry-specific trends and variations in salary disclosure practices
Disclosure habits still vary a lot by sector. Technology and digital roles tend to show figures more consistently, partly because candidates in that market are used to comparing multiple open offers at once and will skip ads without a number. Sales roles often favour a package format, separating base pay from commission, since the total earning potential is the real selling point rather than the base alone.
Healthcare and trades roles frequently use hourly or shift-based rates rather than annual figures, reflecting how those roles are actually paid day to day. Administration and entry-level roles, by contrast, still show inconsistent disclosure, with many ads defaulting to “competitive salary” rather than a figure, even though these are exactly the roles where a clear number helps candidates decide quickly whether to apply.
Executive and senior leadership roles remain the slowest category to adopt full transparency, usually because total packages include equity, bonuses or other variable components that employers prefer to negotiate individually. Even here, a band tied to seniority, rather than silence, tends to perform better than no figure at all.
For roles involving overseas talent, including positions tied to sponsored visas, pay benchmarking carries extra weight: sponsored roles often need to meet a minimum salary threshold set by immigration rules, and employers moving into this territory for the first time often benefit from specialist guidance such as that offered by Fewa Consultancy on employer-sponsored visa requirements.
Legal risks and compliance consequences of incorrect salary information in ads
The legal exposure in salary disclosure rarely comes from the decision to publish a figure. It comes from publishing one that turns out to be wrong. From 7 January 2023, job advertisements can’t include pay rates that would breach the Fair Work Act or an applicable award or enterprise agreement, and this applies regardless of whether the mistake was deliberate or simply a pricing error, under guidance from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
A common trap is advertising a “total package” figure that quietly omits allowances the role is legally entitled to, or stating a casual rate that fails to include casual loading. Both can misrepresent what the role actually pays, even if the intention was simply to keep the ad copy short.
Fair Work’s own guidance points employers toward the Pay and Conditions Tool to check rates before publishing, rather than relying on memory or a competitor’s ad as a benchmark. Employers can also use broader labour market data, such as Labour Market Insights, to confirm a figure sits within a realistic and defensible range for the role and location.
The safest practice is treating every advertised figure as a document that might be reviewed later, whether by a candidate who queries it, an employee who compares it to their own pay, or the Fair Work Ombudsman directly. Verifying the award, the NES entitlements and any allowances before the ad is published costs far less time than correcting a public figure after the fact.
Strategies for balancing salary transparency with negotiation flexibility
Transparency and negotiation are not opposites, but they do need a bit of structure to coexist comfortably. A narrow, well-justified range gives candidates enough information to self-select while still leaving room to place a strong candidate near the top of the band and a less experienced one near the bottom.
Tying the range to a clearly stated role level helps enormously here. A listing such as “Senior analyst (level 3): $95k to $105k base plus super, variable bonus” tells candidates exactly what experience the top of the range assumes, which reduces awkward negotiation later because expectations were set honestly from the start.
Keeping some elements flexible while the base figure stays fixed is another workable approach. Base pay can be published with confidence while bonus structure, equity or additional leave are left for direct conversation once a candidate reaches interview stage. This protects genuine flexibility on the parts of an offer that are legitimately case-by-case, without using vagueness as an excuse to hide the headline figure.
What changes when pay is visible from the start
In our experience running recruitment campaigns, the shift is less about attracting more applicants and more about attracting the right ones. On roles where we’ve encouraged a client to show a figure instead of “competitive salary”, screening calls have moved faster because candidates already understood the range before they applied, which meant fewer mismatched conversations and a shorter path to an offer both sides were comfortable with.
— Josh Townsend
How we help employers post accurate pay and hire with confidence
Getting the figure right, checking it against the award, and writing ad copy that reads clearly takes time most hiring managers don’t have spare. Our fixed-fee recruitment service handles that groundwork as part of the hiring process, so the advertised figure is accurate and the ad itself is built to convert.
- We verify pay against the relevant award before any ad goes live, reducing the legal risk sitting with the employer.
- Our fixed-fee structure means the cost of hiring is known upfront, regardless of the salary attached to the role.
- A replacement guarantee covers the first two to three months if a placement doesn’t work out.
An in-house hire makes sense when you already have the time and award knowledge to manage it well. When accuracy, speed or candidate volume matter more than spare capacity, reach out to discuss your next role and we’ll handle the detail from ad to offer.
FAQ
Is $70,000 a good salary in Australia?
Whether a specific salary figure is good depends heavily on the role, location and industry, so there’s no single figure that applies to everyone. Checking the relevant award rate and comparing against current Labour Market Insights data for the specific occupation gives a far more accurate read than a general benchmark.
What jobs earn $500,000 a year in Australia?
Roles at this level typically sit in senior executive leadership, specialist medical practice or high-performing sales and finance positions with significant commission or equity components. Figures at this range vary widely by industry and individual negotiation, so a specific occupation benchmark is more useful than a general answer.
Is $30 an hour a good wage in Australia?
Whether an hourly rate is competitive depends on the award covering that role and whether casual loading or allowances apply on top of the base rate. Checking the applicable award through the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Pay and Conditions Tool is the most reliable way to confirm whether a rate meets minimum entitlements for that occupation.
What jobs pay $100 an hour in Australia?
Hourly rates at this level are typically found in specialist contracting, senior consulting or trade roles with scarce skills and high demand. These figures vary significantly by sector and experience, so comparing against current market data for the specific occupation gives a more reliable picture than a general rule.
Sources
- Why it’s important to include salary in your job ads | SEEK Employer
- Pay secrecy, job ads and flexible work – Fair Work Ombudsman
