WW Process Alert – Including Salary in Co-op Job Postings

Recommendation:

Pending significant concerns from the Co-operative Education Council (CEC) and employers, we will be recommending we proceed with an optional field on the job posting for salary information. The field will be a free format text field to avoid students from filtering jobs based on salary. Employers will be able to provide additional information with their rankings to specific students.

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Current state

Currently, salary information is not typically included in job descriptions – exceptions include things like: poor location/good salary, salary below the range, etc. Students are encouraged to inquire about salary during the interview process. Typically, students are not allowed to “sign-off” a job for salary purposes, as long as the salary is within advertised average ranges. Employers are provided with salary survey information as part of their interview day package.

Future state

Orbis has out-of-the box functionality, such that at time of posting employers have a separate field to include compensation information, which would then be available for students to view when they are searching for jobs. We can make this field either mandatory or optional for employers to complete, and it can either be free format text based with no edits (e.g., “Transportation and accommodation provided”) or numeric with edits (e.g., “$18.00/hour).

In addition, Orbis has out-of-the-box functionality that at time of ranking, employers will have the option of providing additional information to specific candidates, which may contain additional compensation and benefits, or other information.

Rationale

Enhanced information quality in job postings will help ensure that students are as informed as possible, and expectations are set appropriately, when applying for jobs, which will enhance student/job fit. Giving employers the ability to provide not only salary, but other forms of compensation and benefits may help them get more apps and/or more suitable apps for their jobs. Employers will have confidence in knowing that students are applying to their jobs with “their eyes wide open” as to the compensation & benefits component. This should also reduce sign-off requests.

During the interview and decision making phase, information is currently being shared, informally by some, resulting in an uneven playing field; providing a more formalized manner for sharing this information will “level the playing field” for all students and employers. The ability for employers to share specific information with individual students allows them to be more strategic and intentional, and allows students to be more informed for their decision making.

Stakeholder engagement

The implications of this change were reviewed with CECA’s cross functional Process Management Team (PMT) and CECA’s management team. Student’s views were clearly stated from a survey completed by the Federation of Students.

CECA feedback:

Discussions were held electronically and face to face on whether the salary should be included on the job description, whether it should be mandatory or optional, if it should be a text field or numeric and to what degree it should it be searchable. The CECA management team supports the recommendation.

Student feedback:

The Federation of students surveyed students on this issue asking “Do you think that the salary/wage of a co-op position should be posted on the job description? (Yes or No). If yes, please elaborate on why. If No, please elaborate on why.” 81% of the 1000+ respondents wanted the salary included, 16% did not, 3% did not respond to this question.

Summary of student and staff feedback

Feedback themes – supportive:

 Reality is most students are on a budget

 In the current process, once you apply, if you are interviewed and ranked you would be expected to take the job. It is not reasonable to expect someone to take a job without knowing salary.

 Employers can make offers to individual students based on their unique qualifications and experience

 Opportunity for employers to provide non-monetary benefits. Especially important for international jobs.

 The information is available through Glassdoor or Ratemycoop sites anyways.

 Will reduce the number of sign-offs

Feedback themes – concerns:

 The ‘real world’ does not post salaries on job descriptions

 Should emphasize the value of the experience over the salary

 Lower paying jobs will not get many applications /higher paying jobs will get too many applications.

 Employers may feel pressured to include salary even if it is not mandatory

 Good experience for students to learn how to ask the salary question