One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on.

Another principle is that you should always counter.

So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to me or anyone that I've worked with to negotiate a starting salary.

Patrick's writing, which you alluded to, was a big inspiration for me to write and think more deeply about this subject. He knows what he's talking about.

If you watch the Salary Negotiation workshop (linked in my original comment), you'll see a section on "The Dreaded Salary Question" and there was a 15-minute discussion on it in the Q&A. (Both are linked in the notes below the embedded video.) You might watch those segments to see if anything jumps out at you that yo haven't' tried before.

Thanks for the question!

There IS another solution to this. When someone asks how much you are currently making, you should flat out lie. They won't check.

I've job hopped a bunch, and usually I just take whatever I was currently making, and add 15%, and say that that was my base.

If employers are going to play negotiation games, you shouldn't feel bad about playing them too.

> I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their initial offer

Its true that it is irrelevant what you made at your last job, but its kind of silly to play coy when they want you to give a number. When you're trying to get hired you are selling yourself... and the first step in selling is to qualify the customer. Just tell them a number that you would actually be acceptable to you, and if they balk then you don't have to waste your time. If you find out more about the job or company and decide you actually want more money, once you get an offer you can try renegotiating that number and give them your rationale.

I have had many jobs. Here is how I start a salary negotiation: I name the package that will get me to drop everything and start tomorrow. Salary, bonus, benefits, options. Anything less and we can talk, but I will still be negotiating with other companies, and one of those may snap me up, or I will continue doing what I am doing today. That puts them in the position of convincing me that the intangibles (career growth, challenge, great team, mission) justify taking less. At the end of the day, you are happy with what you get, regardless of what someone else gets.

This is really interesting and I'm glad that you shared.

I don't know if you'll like what I'm about to say, but you sound like a pragmatist so I figure that you will appreciate a no-BS answer.

It's likely that there's something about your manner, presentation, personality - which I can't and won't fathom to guess because I don't know you - that is tipping your hand and sending the message that you're bluffing or easily manipulated. Obviously nothing is going to work every time but the stuff Patrick and others relate is solid advice so it is of concern that you're repeatedly getting iced out.

The other possibility is that you're interviewing with terrible people; however, the common aspect is still you and the only way to grow is to analyze whether there's a problem.

Could you just not be very convincing? Do you have an irritating voice? Do people generally snicker when you make confident assertions? I don't know why it happens in any case, just that in some unlucky cases it does happen.

My advice is that you have to be thoroughly believable in your disappointment in their offer. You have to look unfazed when you refuse to tell them what you made in your last job.

Finally, if none of these things is true and you're basically George Clooney, then I urge you to interview at different companies.

I refuse to move forward even with a phone interview if I don't have a salary range from a recruiter. It's just not worth my time.

You have to play the game a little. Add up your salary, other compensation (options), a markup for how big a pita changing jobs is, cost of living in the new area of applicable. Then throw that away and mark up to the number that you actually want. Pick something that you think is silly high. Don't say "my current salary is 90,000" say "I would like to make 170,000". You didn't tell them your salary/total comp, but you answered the question and you anchored to a higher value.

It's odd, I have no doubt that you have had these issues, I was talking to a guy who worked for the same company as me, with the same client, just the other day. His entire team where just told they were being made redundant and the company who would be doing the work would be interviewing them all. The new company told everyone to send them either their current pay slip (with all benefits etc) OR their current pay rate (its just a different document with less detail) + the salary they would accept in the new company. So I know that this sort of thing happens and no one was that shocked.

But I've never encountered the issue, I would be interested to see an analysis of what sort of jobs people who deal with dodgy HR reps are applying for (or what route to entry they are taken) vs the jobs people with positive experiences of the hiring process are going for.

I feel like it can't only be luck, presumably there would be some trends (ie. people who respond to advertisements are offered X% against people who are recommended through word of mouth for the same job)

I've heard the same advice, and frankly I think it depends on how strong you feel your position is as well, and so I think it's really important to have a realistic model of your prospects.

If you feel your job prospects are generally weak, you might not be comfortable standing firm on things like keeping salary history hidden. That seems reasonable to me, as long as you're not selling yourself short. "Impostor syndrome" is a thing.

I would actually reveal salary history if it's a "favorable" history -- if I would be happy taking a similar amount, because I value something about this new job more than my previous employment.

I think that a quarterly "Ask HN: How much do you make?" Would be a great addition to the "Who's Hiring?" threads.

I posted one for Google here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449

This Amazon thread has been very enlightening.

The problem is that when you share your salary people who make less than you start despising you and people who make more than you start looking down on you.

It's less of a corporate conspiracy but more "this is why you can't have nice things". People just can not handle it in a mature and responsible way, which is why the 'don't talk about money' "common sense" developed.

So I read this a while ago and it really stood out in my mind.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/my-boss-revealed-everyones-salar...

It's a question addressed to "Evil HR Lady" (didn't know that was a thing...) from a woman. Her new boss accidentally emailed a spreadsheet with everyone's salary to everyone. The spreadsheet revealed she was underpaid and was embarrassed and now wants the boss's head on a stick.

This is the response from Evil HR Lady

"You are really angry, and you should be -- but your anger is misplaced. Your new supervisor made a mistake in sending out everyone's salaries. But because she is new, I can guarantee she didn't decide on your salaries. Your previous boss did. So, yes, you should be angry, but not at her. You should be angry with your old supervisor.

In fact, you should be thanking your lucky stars that the new supervisor did this. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she subconsciously did it on purpose. If I got a new job and on day one found out that there was a huge disparity in pay among workers doing the same job, it would be top of my priority list to fix that. And I would act as a thorn in my boss's side until it was fixed. Since the problem is a longstanding and expensive one, no one is going to be excited about fixing it. By revealing the discrepancies, she's just brought the issue front and center, and HR and the big bosses cannot ignore it anyone more.

By sharing everyone's salaries, she's given you the power and the tools to fix the problem. HR can't smile sweetly and say, "You're making the market rate, dear!" because you've got hard evidence that you're being underpaid. And you should use this information to negotiate a new salary, as should all of your coworkers. And your boss? She has plausible deniability. It was amistake.

You're angry because you're embarrassed that your salary is low. Not because your "privacy" was violated. If she'd sent out your medical records, or notes from a conversation about your marital problems because they were affecting your work, then that would be a privacy violation and you'd be justifiably angry. But this anger is coming from the unfairness of the whole thing. Yes, you should have negotiated better when you were hired, but because of the information asymmetry in hiring, the company was able to low-ball you. Lesson learned -- always negotiate.

This is precisely why I advocate more openness in pay in the workplace. If you had been aware of what other people in your group were earning when you negotiated your salary, your present salary would likely be more fair. Everyone shouldn't be paid an identical salary because performance and skills are not identical, but salaries should be justifiable and logical.

So forgive your supervisor for her mistake. Accidentally attaching a file in an email shouldn't be a fireable offense. Use the new information to get a higher salary. And if you have to be angry, be angry at the previous supervisor who allowed this to go on.

Good luck with your salary negotiations."

I think you should share your salary with as many people as possible. This "don't share" policy is just a trick used by companies to keep labor costs down.If employees know each other's pay, they will start demanding raises.

------ Keep in mind that 2 employees with the same education and years of experience might not always be "equal in all respects". There are so many other things which come into play - taking initiative, energy they bring to the company, team play etc. etc. most of which cannot be measured. So the reason for 2 employees with apparantly equal qualifications + experience not getting the same salary is not always the company "trying to fuck them" or because they did not "negotiate hard".

If you make all salaries open, keep in mind that so many employees will get demotivated to know the colleague next cubicle gets paid more. Serves no purpose.

Oops, boss coudn't explain it. Now you, too, make $50K more due to some bullshit cause. :)