What “competitive salary” actually means

“Competitive salary.” “Salary depending on experience.” “Excellent package for the right candidate.” If you have looked for a kitchen or front-of-house job in the last year you have read all three, probably in the same afternoon, and learned nothing from any of them.

The phrase is not meaningless, though. It usually means one of four specific things, and knowing which one you are looking at tells you whether the job is worth an application.

The four things it usually means

• The pay is below what the advert's job title would normally command, and stating it would cost the venue applications.
• There is a wide band and the venue does not want the person at the bottom of it to find out what the person at the top is on.
• Nobody has decided yet, and the number will be whatever the first acceptable candidate will accept.
• The number is fine, and the advert is simply copying the convention every other advert follows.

Only the fourth is harmless, and from the outside all four look identical. That is the whole problem: the phrase transfers the cost of finding out onto you, one interview at a time.

What it costs you

A hidden salary is not a small inconvenience. It means you cannot rank jobs, so you apply to more of them. It means the first real conversation about money happens after you have given up a shift to attend an interview, which is exactly when walking away is most expensive. And it reliably suppresses pay for people who find negotiating difficult, which in hospitality disproportionately means younger staff and people whose first language is not English.

How to find the number anyway

1. 1Ask before the interview, not at it. A short message — “Could you tell me the range for this one before we book something in?” — costs nothing and answers the question while walking away is still cheap.
2. 2Ask for the range, not the salary. Venues that will not state a number will often state a band, and a band tells you most of what you needed.
3. 3Ask what the number includes. A salary quoted with tronc or service charge folded in is not the same offer as the same figure without it.
4. 4Ask about hours in the same breath. A salary is only a rate once you know whether it is 40 hours or 55.

A venue that will not tell you what a job pays before an interview is telling you something about how it will handle every other conversation about money — reviews, overtime, holiday. That is useful information, even when it is not the answer you wanted.

Why you will not see it here

Covers does not accept “competitive”. Every job on this site states its pay, and that is not an editorial preference — a job cannot be published here without a salary on it, because the database refuses to store one. It is the single rule the whole site is built around.

Every listing with its pay on it: browse jobs