We’re all playing salary Battleship

School holidays are over, and I’m back. This week I was showing a client one of my favourite games on SEEK. How to adjust the salary filter.

It goes like this.

You adjust the filter until a job disappears. Then, put the filter back down till the job reappears.

Congratulations.

We have just spent five minutes playing salary Battleship because the employer won’t tell us what the job pays.

I’ve been reading the People2People 2026 Employment and Salary Report and one particular set of numbers made me laugh.

Then annoy me.

Can you guess what it is? It’s the number one hiring challenge for employers.

Application relevancy.

Twenty-seven per cent said irrelevant applicants were causing them grief.

Which is fair enough. Reading 140 applications from people who are wildly unsuitable for the job would test anyone’s commitment to humanity.

But then I kept reading.

The number one reason job offers fall through for professionals?

The salary is too low.

Hmmmm.

So employers want fewer people applying for jobs that aren’t relevant to them. But one of the most basic pieces of information candidates need to decide whether a job is relevant is all too often hidden.

Excellent. We’ve created our own problem.

Now, I understand why employers don’t always advertise an exact salary.

Internal equity can be messy. You might stretch for an exceptional candidate. The role could shift depending on who you hire.Then there’s parking, additional superannuation, bonuses and allowances muddying the total package.

But there is still a number. Or at least a window. At the end of the day, employers control the budget.

Yet somehow we keep getting job ads promising a “competitive salary”.

And this is where the whole thing becomes ridiculous.

I spend a lot of time showing professionals how to use SEEK’s salary filter.

Below $100,000, the bands are reasonably narrow. Then you move past $100,000, and the windows start getting wider. Search above $150,000, and suddenly you’re looking across a $50,000 range.

A job might pay $150,000. It might pay $195,000.

Same search, but a forty-five-grand difference.

That’s not a salary filter.

That’s The Price Is Right.

LinkedIn doesn’t give job seekers a straightforward salary filter alongside its standard search options either.

Yet here’s the part that really gets me.

Employers have to enter a salary range when they create a job ad on SEEK. So, the number exists. SEEK uses it to decide which salary searches the job appears in.

The employer can simply choose not to show it.

So the candidate is searching somewhere between $150,000 and $199,000. The employer knows the salary window. SEEK knows the salary window. And the candidate?

“Well, may the odds be ever in your favour.”

Of course, candidates have some responsibility in all of this. You should know roughly what your experience is worth, have researched comparable roles, talked to recruiters and generally be paying attention to the market.

Your job is also not to tell an employer you’re “completely open” when there is absolutely a number sitting in your head. Because you’re not open. You just don’t want to go first.

No one does. There is a saying in recruitment: “Whoever shows their hand first loses.”

However, if employers are complaining about irrelevant applications, candidates are rejecting offers because the salary is too low, and hiring processes are dragging on for weeks, then something needs to change.

Base salary is not some intimate secret to reveal once everyone has emotionally committed to the relationship.

It is a basic job filter.

So if everyone wants fewer irrelevant applications, then give people enough information to rule themselves out.

Just like when you buy a house or a car, the final number can be negotiated. But there needs to be at least a starting point everyone operates from.

~Lisa

Your Q&A

Does LinkedIn Speak BDM?

Hi Lisa,

I have a LinkedIn title question. Can I use abbreviations for my job titles in LinkedIn, like BDM instead of Business Development Manager? Or should each position be written out in full?

I have the same title at several organisations,and I know that keywords matter across your LinkedIn profile, so should I mix it up with long form and abbreviations?

~Monica

​

Hi Monica,

The simple answer is: write Business Development Manager in full.

You can add BDM in brackets, but I would not use the abbreviation on its own.

Here’s why.

LinkedIn has a standardised system that takes millions of job titles people enter and maps them to a smaller group of recognised titles. So when you start typing and LinkedIn offers an accurate title from the dropdown, use it.

However, some LinkedIn experts have turned that sensible advice into:

“Choose the dropdown title or recruiters will never find you!”

Honestly! Calm down, LinkedIn.

That is not quite how it works. LinkedIn can still interpret titles you type manually. Recruiter searches also draw on your headline, about section, skills and the wording throughout your experience section.

So, no, you do not need to rotate between Business Development Manager, BDM and Chief Revenue Wizard because you have held the same role at several companies.

Use the accurate full title each time. Add the abbreviation once if it helps humans understand your industry language.

Repetition is not the problem.

Confusion is.

Thanks for writing in.

~Lisa