Guide · Employment · Illinois Pay Transparency

Illinois Pay Transparency: What Employers Must Put in Job Postings

Illinois employers with 15 or more employees must include pay scale and benefits in covered job postings. The rule reaches certain remote positions tied to Illinois, requires related promotion notices, and creates recordkeeping and enforcement issues that should be built into recruiting workflows.

By Lincoln Square Law · 8-minute read

Begin with the 15-employee trigger and the position

Section 10(b-25) of the Illinois Equal Pay Act applies to an employer with 15 or more employees and requires pay scale and benefits in a specific job posting. The statute does not require every employer to create a posting, but once a covered employer publishes one, the disclosure rule applies to positions that will be physically performed at least partly in Illinois and to certain positions performed outside Illinois when the employee reports to an Illinois supervisor, office, or other work site (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25)).

Recruiting teams should decide coverage before the requisition goes public. Record employer headcount, work location, reporting line, and whether a third-party recruiter or platform will post the role. Do not wait until an applicant complains to determine that a remote job reports into Chicago. A coverage field in the applicant-tracking system is a simple control that prevents the posting workflow from depending on memory.

Define the range from a good-faith compensation record

The Act defines “pay scale and benefits” to include the wage or salary, or wage or salary range, plus a general description of benefits and other compensation the employer reasonably expects in good faith to offer. The definition points to an applicable pay scale, a previously determined range, the actual range of people currently holding equivalent positions, or the budgeted amount, as applicable (820 ILCS 112/5).

That means the range should exist before the posting. Keep the compensation worksheet, approved requisition, leveling decision, market inputs, internal comparators, and budget that support it. Avoid inventing an extremely wide range merely to preserve discretion. If the employer has multiple levels under one posting, identify how the ranges map to the levels or qualifications so the disclosure remains meaningful and the recruiter can explain the offer within the approved structure.

Describe benefits without turning the posting into a plan document

The statute allows a general description of benefits and other compensation. It also allows an employer to satisfy the benefits portion by maintaining a relevant, current general benefits description in an easily accessible central public location on the employer’s website and referring to that posting in the job posting. The legal control is therefore not “copy every benefit detail into every ad.” It is “make the promised description accurate, current, and accessible.”

Coordinate HR, benefits, and recruiting so the public description does not become stale. If eligibility varies by hours, classification, location, or waiting period, say so at the appropriate level without making unsupported promises. Bonuses, commissions, stock options, or other incentives reasonably expected for the role belong in the compensation analysis even when the exact amount depends on performance.

Control third-party recruiter postings

When an employer uses a third party to announce or publish the job, the employer must provide the pay scale and benefits information or a qualifying hyperlink, and the third party must include it. The statute assigns potential liability to the third party for omission unless the third party can show the employer did not provide the necessary information (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25)).

Contract and process controls should match that allocation. Give recruiters the approved range in writing. Require them to use the employer-approved job description and benefits link. Preserve the version supplied and periodically sample public postings. If an external platform truncates fields or republishes stale ads, the employer needs a correction path. “The recruiter handled it” is not an operational control when the employer can see the public posting is wrong.

Do not miss the internal promotion notice

When a covered employer makes an external job posting, Section 10(b-25) also requires the employer to announce, post, or otherwise make known the opportunity for promotion to current employees no later than 14 calendar days after the external posting, subject to the statute’s specified exception for certain State positions. Build the internal notice into the same workflow that triggers the external ad.

The record should show when the external posting first went live, when the internal promotion opportunity was announced, where employees could access it, and when it closed. If the employer uses multiple recruiting systems, pick one source of truth. A common failure is to manage the external ad in a recruiter platform and the internal opportunity in an HR system without a shared clock.

Handle unposted roles and applicant requests

If no public or internal posting was made available to an applicant for a job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity, the Act requires disclosure of pay scale and benefits before an offer or discussion of compensation and at the applicant’s request. Recruiters therefore need an approved response for confidential searches, replacement hires, internal transfers, and other situations in which the role was not posted.

Keep salary-history questions out of the process and train interviewers to focus on the applicant’s expectations and the employer’s approved range. The statute expressly allows asking an applicant about wage or salary expectations, but that is different from using prior wages to set pay. Centralizing compensation discussions with trained recruiting or HR staff reduces the risk that a manager improvises a range inconsistent with the posted or approved record.

Preserve posting and compensation evidence

Pay-transparency compliance is easier to defend when the employer can reproduce what the applicant saw. Preserve the final job posting, pay range, benefits text or link, requisition approval, posting dates, external recruiter instructions, internal promotion notice, and material revisions. Tie that record to the hiring file and compensation decision. Section 11 adds recordkeeping duties to the Equal Pay Act framework, and Section 20 gives the Illinois Department of Labor enforcement authority.

Treat edits as controlled changes. If the approved range changes because the role is re-leveled, budget changes, or the job description changes, update all active postings and retain the prior version. If the position moves from remote to Illinois-based or the reporting line changes into Illinois, reassess coverage rather than assuming the original classification controls.

Use the posting as the first compensation control, not the last

A compliant posting can still expose a deeper pay-equity problem if the employer cannot explain why similarly situated employees fall at different points in the range. Use the posting process to check job level, duties, skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions, and legitimate compensation factors before the role goes live. The Equal Pay Act’s substantive pay-discrimination rules continue to apply independently of the transparency requirement.

As of this writing, the operative statutory framework remains the pay-scale-and-benefits model enacted in Public Act 103-0539 and codified in 820 ILCS 112. Proposed legislation can change, so employers should verify current text when revising recruiting forms. A defensible system is simple: approved range before publication, accurate benefit description, coverage decision, recruiter control, internal notice, preserved evidence, and a compensation decision that matches the record.

Audit postings after they go live

A periodic posting audit should compare the approved requisition to what applicants can actually see on the employer’s site, job boards, social posts, and recruiter pages. Capture screenshots or archived copies for a sample of Illinois-covered roles and verify the range, benefits description, location, reporting relationship, and internal promotion notice. If one system is publishing stale ranges, correct the integration instead of fixing postings one at a time.

Use complaints and applicant questions as control data. Repeated questions about bonus eligibility or remote-location coverage can show that the disclosure is technically present but operationally unclear. The goal is a posting record the employer can explain from approval through offer, not merely a sentence that passed a keyword check.