Three shapes of posted range are common and unhelpful: the enormous span covering several levels at once, the range quoting an hourly floor against an annual ceiling, and the one attached to a job description so vague that no range could be meaningful. Each is usually lawful. All three collapse under the same question, asked early: where in this range would somebody with my experience typically sit, and what would put a candidate at the top of it?
Compliance and usefulness are different things
When posting requirements arrived, the expectation was that candidates would finally be able to see what a job paid. What actually happened in a substantial minority of cases is that employers published something that satisfies the requirement while conveying almost nothing, and did so without breaking any rule. That is not necessarily cynicism — quite often it reflects an employer who genuinely has not decided what they are hiring for — but the effect on you is the same either way.
What makes this worth an article rather than a complaint is that the unhelpful ranges come in recognizable shapes. Each shape tells you something specific about what is happening behind the posting, and the something is usually about the employer’s own uncertainty rather than about you. Learning to read them turns a frustrating posting into a useful signal. That is a considerably better outcome than being annoyed by it, and it costs nothing beyond noticing which shape you are looking at.
The enormous span
A range of $95,000 to $185,000 for a single advertised role is the most common of the three shapes. That is 1.95 times from bottom to top, which is far wider than any sensible band for one level. What it usually means is that the employer would consider candidates across two or three levels and would slot the successful one accordingly once they had met them. The posting describes a hiring intention rather than a job.
That is genuinely useful information once you read it correctly. It tells you the role is not fixed, that your own level within it is negotiable in a way it would not be at a company with a tight band, and that the interview process will be partly about establishing which level you are. It also tells you the top of that range belongs to somebody more senior than the posting describes, so anchoring on it is a mistake.
The unit mismatch
The second shape quotes a floor in one unit and a ceiling in another, or gives an hourly rate for a role that is obviously salaried, or states a range that turns out to describe a different employment type than the one on offer. Sometimes this is simply a template error. It is worth treating as one first, because that is usually what it is, and opening with an accusation about a typo is a poor way to start a process.
Where it is not a template error, it is normally a sign that the posting was assembled by somebody with no access to the actual compensation data. That matters beyond the posting itself, because it tells you the recruiter you first speak to may not have it either. Converting the figures yourself and asking whether your arithmetic matches theirs is a polite way to find out which situation you are in. It also produces a real answer far more often than asking whether the range is correct, because it gives the other person something concrete to confirm or deny.
The range attached to nothing
The third and hardest shape is a perfectly reasonable range sitting under a job description so generic that the range cannot mean anything. Responsibilities listed as “supporting the team” and “driving outcomes” give you no way to judge whether $110,000 is generous or thin. You cannot price a job you cannot picture, and no amount of transparency about the number fixes an absence of information about the work.
This one is worth taking seriously as a signal about the role rather than the posting. A job nobody can describe precisely is frequently a job whose scope has not been settled, which affects far more than your salary — it affects what you will be measured on and whether anybody agrees what success looks like. The range is the least of the problems a vague description points at.
Why width is not always bad faith
It is worth being fair about this, because assuming that every wide range is evasion leads to bad decisions — chiefly skipping roles that would have suited you. Some positions genuinely span a wide band. A specialist role where the right person might be a strong mid-level candidate or a very experienced one has a real range that looks evasive on the page. So does a role in a market where the employer already knows they may have to stretch to hire at all.
Employers hiring across several states also face a real problem. A single national posting has to cover markets that differ by forty percent or more, and the honest range for a role open in both a high-cost and a low-cost metro genuinely is wide. Publishing one wide band is arguably more honest than publishing a narrow one that only applies in one place, even though it reads worse.
The question that collapses all three
Ask this early, of a recruiter rather than a hiring manager: “Where in that range would somebody with my experience typically sit, and what would put a candidate at the top of it?” It works on every one of the three shapes. It works because it asks for a mechanism rather than a number, and a mechanism is much harder to be vague about. It is also a perfectly normal question that no reasonable employer minds being asked.
The answer to the second half is the more revealing one. An employer who knows what distinguishes a top-of-range candidate has a real structure behind the posting, and their answer tells you exactly what to demonstrate in the interviews. An employer who cannot say has either not decided or is not permitted to tell you, and both are things you would rather know in week one than week six.
What to do with the answer
If you get a specific sub-band, treat that as the real range and set the published one aside entirely. If you get the honest version — that the level is not settled and depends on who applies — then you now know the process is partly a leveling exercise rather than purely an assessment. The useful move in that case is to make your case for the higher level explicitly, early, rather than performing well and hoping somebody places you there. Nobody is going to level you up on your behalf.
If you get an evasion, weigh it against everything else you know about the employer. One evasive answer from a recruiter juggling forty roles is not much evidence. The same evasion from a hiring manager in a later conversation is a great deal more, because by then somebody in the room definitely knows the answer.
Reporting one
Where you believe a range was not posted in good faith, the enforcement route runs through the state labor agency, and how that process works is covered separately in this section. It is worth being realistic about the odds before spending time on it. A range that is merely wide is very unlikely to be actioned, because width alone is not evidence of bad faith. The agency also has no visibility of the employer’s internal band, which is the thing that would show whether the posted range was honest.
The cases that go somewhere are the ones where the posted range and the actual offer are irreconcilable, or where the same employer posts wildly different ranges for the same role in different places without explanation. If that is what you are looking at, a complaint is worth making. If it is a wide range that annoyed you, the question in the previous section will get you further than a complaint will.
This is general information about how these requirements work rather than legal advice about your situation. Good faith standards and enforcement vary by jurisdiction, so your state labor agency can tell you where the line sits where you are — and they will discuss it without any obligation to file anything.
Common questions
Is a very wide posted range lawful?
Usually yes. The standard is good faith — what the employer genuinely expects to pay — and a role open to candidates at two or three levels genuinely has a wide range.
What does an enormous span actually tell me?
That the level is not fixed and will be settled during the process. Your own level is more negotiable than at a company with a tight band, and the top of the range belongs to somebody more senior than the posting describes.
What if the units do not match?
Treat it as a template error first, because usually it is. Where it is not, it suggests the posting was assembled without access to real compensation data — which means your first recruiter may not have it either.
What about a fair range on a vague job description?
Take it as a signal about the role rather than the posting. A job nobody can describe precisely often has unsettled scope, which affects what you are measured on as much as what you are paid.
Why do multi-state employers post wide ranges?
Because a single national posting has to cover markets differing by forty percent or more. One honest wide band is arguably better than a narrow one that only applies in one location.
What is the one question to ask?
Where in that range would somebody with my experience typically sit, and what would put a candidate at the top of it? It asks for a mechanism rather than a number, so it works on all three shapes.
Which half of that question matters more?
The second. An employer who knows what distinguishes a top-of-range candidate has real structure behind the posting, and the answer tells you what to demonstrate in interviews.
Is it worth reporting a useless range?
Rarely if it is merely wide, since width alone is not evidence of bad faith. Cases that go somewhere involve a posted range irreconcilable with the actual offer, or wildly different ranges for the same role without explanation.