Compensation Creep™️ and Slower Hiring

I forget which words are made up, then I realize all words are made up.

Compensation Creep™️: the phenomenon where the longer an interview process lasts, candidates will find more and more reasons to ask for higher comp.

(I honestly didn’t know if “Compensation Creep” is a common term or not but I didn’t find anything on Google. Those of you who follow my nonsense know that I’ll faux-trademark damn near anything.)

Some data is static. Some isn’t. For static data, think sports data – batting averages, points per game, unemployment numbers after the 5th revision, etc. Something happened. It’s recorded. That’s it.

Some data is dynamic (and we could argue if it’s even data. If a data scientist wants to step in and correct me, feel free.) Think event based probabilities. Point spreads. Likelihood of the Fed making a rate cut in December. Who’s gonna win the US election. (I’ll duck for cover now.)

Things that happened are static. Things that could happen in the future are dynamic.

Where this gets confused in hiring: someone’s salary expectations are dynamic, not static.

Our data obsessed world wants everything to fit into neat little check boxes. Understanding what a candidate’s expectations are when they enter the interview process – and relaying that to the hiring team – is Recruiting 101.

But understanding that number is never fixed in place – and more importantly, also relaying that to the hiring team – is Recruiting 201. And not everyone passed that class.

Back to Compensation Creep™️. There are countless reasons why candidates will start to expect more money as a process drags along. They interviewed for other jobs that pay more. They talked to friends who convinced them they didn’t ask for enough. They talked to peers who make more than them. They got a raise. The Google’d salary data.

And I’ve seen both sides. Sometimes these adjusted expectations are totally justified. Sometimes they’re completely detached from reality. 

But when I see how hiring processes slow down as much as they have this year, I don’t think hiring leaders are aware that it’s making their own jobs harder.

There’s nothing like taking twice as long as you should to make a hire, only to have to restart the process all over again when your top choice is no longer in budget.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.