Virginia’s new pay transparency requirements are changing more than what employers put in job postings. They’re also changing how businesses think about compensation, internal promotions, candidate conversations, and the relationship between new hires and current employees.

At our recent Pay Transparency & the Modern Hiring Process session with Sandbox, attendees worked through practical questions around salary ranges, wage compression, candidate expectations, and what consistency looks like in real hiring situations.

A few themes came up again and again.

1. A salary range should be grounded in more than one number

One of the clearest takeaways was that employers should think about compensation through three lenses:

Market data
What are comparable roles paying in the local market?

Role value
What is this role actually worth to your business?

Internal consistency
How does the range compare with what you’re already paying employees doing similar work?

The goal isn’t necessarily for all three to match perfectly. It’s to understand where they differ and make an intentional decision rather than choosing a range in isolation.

For employers without access to formal compensation databases, the Sandbox team recommended looking at multiple comparable job postings and sources such as Glassdoor to get a clearer sense of the market.

2. Transparency can actually improve the candidate pool

Posting a range can feel limiting, but the conversation reframed it as a useful filter.

A clear range helps candidates decide whether the opportunity makes sense before they invest time in the process. That may mean fewer applications, but the applicants who remain are more likely to be aligned with the role and compensation.

As the Sandbox team noted, a smaller pipeline of well-qualified candidates is often more valuable than hundreds of applicants who don’t fit the budget, location, sponsorship requirements, or role expectations.

Consistency matters here too. The same range should be used anywhere the opportunity is shared, including external job boards and internal postings.

3. Define what the bottom and top of the range actually mean

A range is much more useful when the business knows what qualifies someone to land at different points within it.

If a role pays $22–$30 per hour, what does a $22 candidate look like? What additional skills, experience, responsibilities, or performance justify $30?

Creating those expectations before interviewing makes compensation decisions easier to explain and helps reduce the temptation to negotiate differently from candidate to candidate.

That same logic can help businesses create job families or compensation bands for positions with different levels of responsibility.

4. Internal candidates should be held to the same standard

Some of the most difficult scenarios involve employees who are applying for internal promotions.

The session emphasized the value of treating internal candidates consistently with external applicants when they’re competing for the same role.

That means being clear about:

• the responsibilities of the role
• the qualifications required
• the posted compensation range
• what an employee still needs to develop before they’re ready

The goal isn’t to make an internal process unnecessarily formal. It’s to prevent familiarity with an employee’s current salary, history, or personal circumstances from changing the standard for the role.

One useful distinction came up during the conversation: an internal development path that has already been established can look different from an open competitive hiring process. The important part is knowing which situation you’re in.

5. Avoid anchoring compensation decisions to salary history

The speakers repeatedly returned to one principle: focus the conversation on the range for the role and the candidate’s expectations going forward, not what they made previously.

A better conversation is:

“The range for this position is $60,000–$75,000. Does that align with what you’re looking for?”

If a candidate voluntarily shares previous compensation, the recommendation was to redirect back to the current role and range rather than using that information to justify a lower offer.

6. Pay transparency makes wage compression harder to ignore

One of the biggest operational challenges discussed was what happens when a new employee needs to be hired at a higher rate than a current employee doing similar work.

The market may have changed significantly since the current employee was hired. That doesn’t necessarily mean a previous compensation decision was wrong, but the new hiring process can expose gaps that have developed over time.

The recommendation was to review internal compensation proactively, especially before hiring into comparable positions.

If an adjustment is needed, employers should be clear with current employees about the path forward.

For example:

• where their compensation currently sits
• where the business is trying to move it
• what the expected timeline is
• what happens if that timeline changes

The key is to have the conversation before the employee discovers the new posted range on their own.

7. Growth expectations matter just as much as starting pay

A candidate coming in near the top of a range may reasonably ask what future growth looks like.

The session encouraged employers to think about that before extending an offer.

Growth may involve:

• compensation
• title
• responsibilities
• schedule flexibility
• benefits
• PTO
• leadership opportunities
• professional development

One useful interview question raised during the discussion was simply:

“What does growth look like for you?”

That question can reveal whether compensation is actually the candidate’s primary concern.

8. Benefits can sometimes close a compensation gap

Salary is important, but it isn’t the only part of the offer.

When employers can’t move beyond a certain compensation range, other parts of the package may matter, such as:

• additional PTO
• flexibility
• schedule
• benefits
• mission alignment
• advancement opportunities

The important thing is to understand what matters to the candidate instead of assuming every negotiation comes down to base pay.

9. Create standards before you’re in the middle of a hiring decision

Perhaps the strongest theme of the session was the value of doing this work before a difficult conversation happens.

That can include:

• reviewing compensation ranges regularly
• defining job levels or families
• clarifying what skills justify different points in a range
• documenting job descriptions
• setting expectations for internal promotions
• deciding how raises are evaluated
• identifying where compensation has drifted from the market

The more of that structure you establish ahead of time, the less likely each new hire or promotion becomes a one-off negotiation.

Put the conversation into practice

Pay transparency can create uncomfortable conversations, especially when businesses uncover inconsistencies that have developed over time. But it can also be an opportunity to create clearer expectations, more consistent hiring practices, and stronger trust with both candidates and current employees.

Watch the full session:
[Watch the Recording]

View the presentation:
[View the Slides]