How to Find Deleted Job Postings for Salary Research

An old job posting can tell you what a company planned to pay for a role, especially in places where postings must include a salary range. When a posting is taken down, there are still a few ways to find it, or the same information.

Why old postings are useful now

Pay transparency laws in several US states, including Colorado, California, Washington and New York, require many job postings to include a pay range. That makes a past posting for the role you're applying for, or the one you already have, real evidence for a salary conversation.

Find a deleted posting

1. The Wayback Machine. Go to web.archive.org and enter the company's careers page or the posting's address. Company career pages are archived more often than individual postings, so start there and click through dated snapshots.
2. The job board itself. LinkedIn and Indeed often keep closed postings visible for a while, marked as no longer accepting applications. Search the job title and company name.
3. Search with quotes. Search the exact job title and company name in quotes. Postings are often copied to smaller job boards that keep them longer.

Wayback Quick Access shows a page's latest archived copy with one click, and opens the full list of snapshots, which is quicker than typing addresses into the archive.

Save postings before they disappear

If you're tracking roles, save the posting when you see it. Wayback Quick Access has a Save Page Now button that archives the page right away, giving you a dated public copy. Saving the page as a PDF also works. See how to archive a web page before it's taken down.

Other sources of salary data

• US H-1B salary records: employers that sponsor visas must report wages to the Department of Labor, and those records are public. They show real base salaries for specific titles at specific companies.
• Government statistics: the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes pay by occupation and area.
• Crowd-sourced sites: Glassdoor, Levels.fyi (strong for tech) and similar sites. Useful, but self-reported.
• Recruiters and peers: often the most current numbers, if you ask.

Using what you find

• Compare postings from the same period. Ranges change with the market.
• Note the location: many postings list different ranges for different cities.
• Keep the dated copy or link, so you can point to it rather than quoting from memory.

Archived pages are for your own research. Don't share private details that a company published by mistake.