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How Handshake helps promote salary transparency

Learn how Handshake is taking action to help employers comply with new (and existing) salary transparency laws.

The last two years have seen new salary transparency laws enacted in Colorado, New York, California, and Washington. Handshake believes that salary transparency is good for both employees and employers—and is critical to promoting equitable hiring.

Based on this belief, Handshake now makes it easier for employers to comply with existing salary transparency legislation and strongly encourages salary transparency across all jobs, regardless of location.

How is Handshake helping promote salary transparency?

For employers

Moving forward, employers recruiting for paid jobs in California, Colorado, New York, and Washington are now required to include a pay rangewhen they post new positions on Handshake. They can select from a pre-set list of pay ranges or enter a custom pay range.

Estimated pay fields on the job form


If the pay range fields are left empty, employers will be prompted with an error message, and won’t be able to proceed with or save the job posting.

For paid jobs outside of California, Colorado, New York, and Washington (including remote jobs) employers are strongly encouraged to include a pay range (e.g., $70,000 - $80,000 per year) or estimated pay (e.g., $80,000 per year) in their postings. Employers have the option to opt out of providing a pay range; however, they must acknowledge that it’s their responsibility to comply with their local pay transparency laws and receive language that promotes the benefit of including pay for student engagement.

Estimated pay opt out message for employers

Should new salary transparency laws be enacted at the state or city level moving forward, we will quickly start requiring salary ranges for opportunities in those regions.

For career services

We also launched updates to provide more visibility for career services teams around salary transparency.

We added filters to the Jobs page allowing you to easily identify opportunities with a particular salary range, or opportunities without a salary range or estimated pay.

Estimated pay filters for career services

Individual job postings will also display the salary range, estimated pay, or indicate that the employer opted out of providing one.

Career services teams can also use a new job auto-approval filter to set an exemption for opportunities posted without a salary range, or without estimated pay. This allows your team to review any opportunity that does not include salary information.

Job auto-approval exceptions for jobs missing estimated pay information

Note: If you wish to review all opportunities without a salary range or estimated pay and you have given individual employers the auto-approve jobs permission, you will need to remove that permission. Individual employer permissions supercede job auto-approval filters. Our support team can help you pull a report to see which employers have the auto-approve jobs permission.

For students

Finally, we’ve also made sure these updates are visible to students so they can benefit from the information. Students will now be able to see salary range or estimated pay listed on job postings when the employer provides it.

Job posting displaying estimated pay for students

They’ll also be able to set filters in job search to surface opportunities that include estimated pay (salary range or specified salary amount).

Job search filter for opportunities that include estimated pay

Level the playing field for your students