---
id: B-009
type: barrier
title: "Compensation & Leveling Reconciliation"
lang: en
registry: 2026.08.2
canonical: https://hoba.work/barriers/B-009
json: https://hoba.work/api/v1/barriers/B-009.json
---

# Compensation & Leveling Reconciliation

Internal alignment between candidate expected compensation/level and company pay bands / leveling grid.

> **On the canonical path** — [The level meets the band that was published](https://hoba.work/process#WF-003-level-and-band)
>
> The level follows from the evidence the panel gathered, and the band was public from the first day. Reconciling them is arithmetic, not a negotiation about whether the band exists.
>
> This entry is one of the ways that commitment stops being kept.

## At a glance

- Stage: Compensation
- Step in the funnel: #11
- Evidence: established

## Passing condition

Candidate expectations fit within approved salary band and equity guidelines for the target grade.

## What it looks like

Composite excerpts, written to be typical rather than copied. No particular message, company or person is quoted here.

**Levelling reconciliation sheet** — *reconstruction*

```
  Candidate expectation: 90k · Approved band for L4: 68–79k · Approved band for L5: 84–98k
> Panel levelled the candidate at L4.
  Gap: 11k above the top of the approved band. Options: level up (needs VP approval), reduce expectation, or close.
```

*What to notice* Two independent decisions — a level and a band — meet here for the first time. Neither was visible to the candidate while they were being made.

## From each side

The same entry from inside each position that meets it: what reaches them, what it means from there, and what happens next given what they control.

### Candidate

- **What reaches them:** A number stated at the screen, and later a message that it does not fit. The level it was compared against is named afterwards, if at all.
- **What it means from there:** It reads as a negotiation over the number they named, rather than as the meeting of two decisions taken separately.
- **What happens next:** Can restate the number or withdraw. Which of the two — the level or the band — produced the gap decides whether restating it changes anything, and that is not in the message.

### Hiring manager

- **What reaches them:** The level the panel assessed at, and the band that level carries. Their input to this gate closed when the level was set.
- **What it means from there:** The gap reads as a levelling question: the same candidate one level up sits inside a band, and moving the level needs a signature above them.
- **What happens next:** Requests the level up, or holds the level and lets the process close. The gap on the team stays with them either way.

### Employer policy

- **What reaches them:** A request to place a candidate outside an approved band, with the level and the number attached. The rounds behind that number are not in the request.
- **What it means from there:** An exception at one level reads against everyone already placed inside that band.
- **What happens next:** Approves the exception or holds the grid. The grid is what makes each existing placement defensible, and it is revised on a quarterly cycle rather than per candidate.

### Public policy and industry standards

- **What reaches them:** The posting, and whether the band is in it. What happens between a level and a band inside a company is not filed anywhere.
- **What it means from there:** A published band reads as the disclosure the rule required.
- **What happens next:** The rule reaches the band and stops. The level a candidate is assessed at is not a disclosable field, so the half of this gate that moves sits outside what the rule reaches.

## Related entries

- precedes — [B-010](https://hoba.work/barriers/B-010) — Headcount & Executive Budget Approval

---

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