I am not sure which government you refer to, but I can assure you most
governments pay within a range, and the range is occasionally 10-15K; hence the
hire-ER often has great discretion about what to pay the hire-EE.  I have
rarely seen the "we hire at base of scale" pronouncement mean much.

I, too, am often put off by lack of dollar range as an element in position
vacancy advertisements.  One sometimes likes to calculate the chances for
successfully relocating to places where quality of life is at a greater level
than quality of remuneration.  Or is that self indulgence supposed to be left
only to brokers and attorneys who become jaded and disillusioned and who then
move to the country, where they can become trustees and help run a historical
museum or nature center for the public good?

Further, as many boomers notice a tendency toward aging, some of us overpaid
types might like to relocate to a lower paying position in order to retire in a
place we'd enjoy -- in a field where we might JUST want to pay back some of the
breaks we've received in the past.  More and more often one muses whether the
implied low level of wages in a salary-less advert isn't a none-too-subtle
essay into age-ism.

John Scafidi