Job Offer Letter and Pay Equity Check
Four documents and three sheets, including the check that runs before the number is spoken and prices every way of closing the gap.
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Internal Equity Check, one row
Four outputs, and the last one is not a number
Run before the offer is spoken, including before it is mentioned as a range on a screening call.
Compa-Ratio
Salary divided by band midpoint, to three decimal places. This is the figure that travels between roles, because 0.915 means the same thing in two jobs with completely different bands.
Band Penetration
Salary minus the band minimum, over the band's full width. This is the figure that predicts the next three years, because somebody at 90 percent has almost no room left however good they are. Both figures every time: compa-ratio alone hides a wide band, and penetration alone cannot be compared across roles.
Incumbents Below The Offer
A count out of the total, never an average. A comparison set can have an entirely reasonable mean and still contain one person at 0.915 with six years of tenure.
Relationship To This Hire
The output that is not a number. Any incumbent below the offer who trains, onboards or supervises the person being hired, by name. This is the sentence that changes what a hiring manager wants to do, and it is invisible in every average.
Every offer letter template starts at the letter, and the letter is the last thing that should happen. By the time it is being written the number is already decided, and the number is where the damage is. So the first artifact in this pack is an equity check against the people already doing the job, and the rule is that no figure reaches a candidate until it has run. Not after the verbal, not as a range on a screening call.
The sequence is arithmetic rather than principle. While the offer is a figure in a spreadsheet, three moves exist: change the offer, change the incumbents, change the level, each of them priced. Once the hire has started, the correction only runs upward, because where a differential is proved an employer comes into compliance by raising the rate of the lower paid. The cheap version of the fix exists only before the offer goes out.
At Kessler Freight the band is 78,000 to 106,000 with a 92,000 midpoint, and the proposed offer is 99,500. All four incumbents sit below it, including the planner who trains new arrivals at compa-ratio 0.915 with 6.1 years. Lifting the two lowest to a 0.96 floor costs 4,440 a year. Levelling everybody costs 38,700. The whole intervention is putting both numbers on one page, because internal equity had meant the second one in the manager's head.
What is in the pack
Internal Equity Check
Compa-ratio and band penetration for the offer and every incumbent, tenure, the count below the offer, and the named relationship to the hire. The adjacent job runs as a separate block rather than merged, because a blended midpoint makes compa-ratio meaningless.
Offer Build
Every option priced, with the individual moves shown underneath each total and correcting nothing carrying a figure of its own. An option above the band maximum appears, is priced, and is marked refused with the reason.
Acceptance Rate by Offer Shape
One row per offer: compa-ratio offered, whether they countered, the counter, the final number, the outcome, days to an answer, and the reason if declined. This is what separates losing on money from losing on speed.
Offer Letter
Compensation second, immediately after the role, with the band range stated, the review cycle as an actual month, and equity by count and vesting rather than by dollar value. Field notes cover what people get wrong in each paragraph.
Verbal Offer Script
Four beats: the decision, the number with its structure in one breath, where it sits in the band, then silence. Plus what to do with each of the three things a candidate actually says.
Negotiation Guidance
Concessions ordered cheapest to most expensive, with base salary last and moved once. Includes the case where the honest answer is a different level rather than a bigger number.
How the Equity Check Runs
The two figures, the comparison set, the substantially-equal-work test for including the adjacent job, and the language boundary. A position with no reason in writing is recorded as having none, and nothing further.
How it works
- 1
Send the band and the salaries
Minimum, midpoint, maximum, plus current salaries with tenure from your HRIS. River never asks what the candidate currently earns.
- 2
The check runs before anything else
Both figures for everybody, the count below the offer, and the named exposure reported first because it is the one that moves a decision.
- 3
Options get priced, including doing nothing
Each correction decomposed into individual moves, so a total somebody has to approve can actually be read.
- 4
Then the script, then the letter
The negotiation happens on the call. The letter documents what the call decided, which is why it is drafted last.
Frequently asked questions
Why run an equity check before the offer rather than after?
Because three moves exist while the number is still in a spreadsheet and only one exists afterwards. Once somebody is on payroll the correction runs upward, and the statute expressly forbids reducing anybody's rate in order to comply. The same fix is a choice between priced options today and an obligation of unknown size later.
What is the difference between compa-ratio and band penetration?
Compa-ratio is salary over midpoint and it compares two jobs with different bands, so 0.915 means the same thing everywhere. Penetration is salary minus minimum over the band's width and it says how much room is left. Report both: compa-ratio alone hides a wide band, penetration alone cannot travel.
Who belongs in the comparison set?
Everybody in the job, plus the adjacent job where the work requires substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar conditions. Titles do not settle it, and the regulation is explicit that time spent on differing duties is not the sole criterion. When it is unclear, run it both ways and show both.
Can I ask what the candidate currently earns?
This pack never does, and in several jurisdictions asking is restricted. California, for instance, requires an employer to give an applicant the pay scale on reasonable request and to give an existing employee the scale for their own job. Build the number from the band and the work instead.
The candidate wants more than the band maximum. What now?
That is a level decision, not an offer decision, so the space prices it and marks it refused. Breaking a band for one hire costs something nobody prices at the time: the band stops being a constraint and the next three hiring managers know it. If the level was genuinely wrong, change the level and rerun the check against the new set.
Does this tell me whether a pay gap is legal?
No, deliberately, and it will not characterise one either way. Several kinds of difference are legitimate, including seniority and merit systems. Where a position in the band has no reason in writing, the sheet says no recorded reason and routes it to a compensation professional or counsel, who judges it on your facts.
Where does this sit against the rest of hiring?
At the end. The interview loop produces the recommendation, debrief synthesis names the deciding competency that makes the rejection reason specific, and candidate communication handles everybody who did not get this offer. One thing still sits after it: a screening finding, which runs its own statutory notice sequence on dates rather than on judgement. Four documents and three CSV sheets, free.
Price the correction before you speak the number
Send the band and the current salaries with tenure. The first thing back is how many incumbents the offer would sit above, who among them trains the new hire, and what each fix costs a year.
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