Methodology
How we check
Every check has two independent halves: detection — what's actually in your posting — and rules — what the state's law generally requires. The grade is just the two compared.
Step 1: detection
An AI model reads the posting text and answers three factual questions — nothing more:
Pay range or salary figure
A specific number, range, or rate. Vague phrases like “competitive salary” with no figures don't count.
General description of benefits
Health insurance, PTO, retirement, etc. — even a brief mention counts.
Application deadline
A specific date or timeframe to apply by.
It returns the exact excerpt behind each call, so every finding is inspectable. It never judges whether the posting is “good” — only whether each element is present.
Step 2: the rules
The verdict comes from a curated dataset of state requirements — hand-verified, not scraped. Each entry traces to the state's official labor department or enforcing agency:
| Jurisdiction | Official source |
|---|---|
| California | California Department of Industrial Relations ↗ |
| Colorado | Colorado Department of Labor and Employment ↗ |
| Connecticut | Connecticut Department of Labor ↗ |
| District of Columbia | DC Office of the Attorney General ↗ |
| Hawaii | Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations ↗ |
| Illinois | Illinois Department of Labor ↗ |
| Maine | Maine Department of Labor ↗ |
| Maryland | Maryland Department of Labor ↗ |
| Massachusetts | Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development ↗ |
| Minnesota | Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry ↗ |
| New Jersey | New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development ↗ |
| New York | New York State Department of Labor ↗ |
| Vermont | Vermont Attorney General's Office ↗ |
| Virginia | Virginia Department of Labor and Industry ↗ |
| Washington | Washington State Department of Labor & Industries ↗ |
| Nevada (on request) | Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner ↗ |
| Rhode Island (on request) | Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training ↗ |
Dataset last reviewed October 2026. “On request” states require pay information later in the process — after an interview or before an offer — rather than in the posting itself.
What the check can't do
The detection step can be wrong
An AI model reads your posting and reports whether each element is present. It can miss an unusually phrased pay range or misread a benefits paragraph. Every finding shows the exact excerpt it based the call on, so you can judge it yourself.
The dataset is deliberately conservative
We only encode states we're confident describing at a general level. A state missing from our list may still have posting rules — some cities and counties do too. Absence from our dataset is not a clean bill of health.
Laws change, and thresholds vary
Effective dates, employer-size thresholds, and local ordinances all move. Each state page links to that state's labor department — the authoritative source. When a law flips, like Connecticut's did on October 1, 2026, we update the dataset and note the change.
This is a screen, not legal advice
The checker tells you what's in the posting and what the state's general rule requires. It doesn't tell you whether you're compliant — that's a legal judgment for counsel.