Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue.
Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, and have had this be a deal breaker for a couple of them. One recruiting firm admitted that they were paid by the employers to get this information. I wasn't getting paid to give this information out, however, and it's worth more to me to keep it private as I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.
It's still a seller's market for IT talent, and there are plenty of other fish in the sea, so if some recruiters can't accept that I won't name a number, it's their loss.
It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit.
> I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.
... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is better for you if the company has to wheedle you down from 170k than if they anchor the price at 100k and you have to argue them up from there.
Plus, it saves a lot of wasted negotiation time on both sides if your price is just way too high for the company and this is clear from the beginning.
(edit: I'm talking about expected salary in general, not disclosing your current salary level)
By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number.
I do agree with the wasted negotiating time thing.
Anchoring is a more general marketing concept that works well in advertisements (crossing out a black $280 and putting a red $100 underneath it). Anchoring doesn't work so well for something much more fluid (and with much more at stake) such as a salary negotiation.
In-person sales meetings (which is what an interview is, for both sides) are where "first to talk" come into play. It's a concept as old as war meetings between opposing roman generals. First to talk loses, period. Why? I don't know, but years of sales and recruitment has taught me that whoever slips is going to give the advantage to the other side of the table.
You can only hurt yourself by giving a number. The company has set a budget, either you fit or you don't. Maybe the budget is higher than you expected and you take the job for way more than you would have asked for. Maybe it's less and you don't take the job. The key point is that company is not the only company you are dealing with - you can move on to another. And another and another, and as long as you don't give your number, you will win out.
I can't share this data but when I worked at a bootcamp our analysis showed this as well. Students that gave their number got paid less. There's a big push for bootcamp transparency so hopefully that sort of info will get published soon.
Also, even if a company can't hire me at the moment due to real budget constraints, they might be able to do so in the future, or perhaps one of the people I interviewed and impressed enough to get to the salary negotiation phase will remember me when they move to another company and want to hire me then.
If I name a number way out of their range first, though, they could reject me right off the bat, and I'd never get an interview in the first place, never get the practice, and never get a chance to impress anyone. All of these are worth more to me than the chance of a salary negotiation going sour because I wind up being too expensive. Besides, I'll always have the chance to decide whether I want to work for the company despite them being below my ideal salary. Salary isn't everything.
As for anchoring, that might work if you're negotiating with novices, but many employers have professional salary negotiators (either HR or recruiters themselves) who know about anchoring, and they're not going to get fooled by such psychological tricks. If I don't reveal a number first, however, they are forced to name one, and then the ball is in my court, and I can negotiate up from there as I see fit. There's really no downside.
This. I'm very upfront that if a company can't meet at least a particular dollar amount expected, it's not worth wasting both of our time. This saves a ton of time, and also serves as a nice red flag when a company agrees and then later tries to negotiate down at the last minute (if they're going to penny-pinch at the last minute, things like bonuses and vacation approval are basically never happening).
Let them see what you can do for them, and let them show you what it's like to work for them, then you should find it easier to come to an agreement on a number.
In one place that I worked at, salary for a common technical job title (n=100) varied by 50%. The mechanics were pretty obvious. People who worked their way up got screwed with the 10% raise bullshit, and people who came in through some other means were able to extract higher salaries.
Where I find this stuff annoying is where there is no signal about the salary level. One placed I spoke to many years ago was advertising for a position that was probably worth $100-105k in the market, but they were hiring at $50k.
If specifically asked "What is your current salary?" you would typically respond with the actual current salary, not your ideal new salary.
In this case, however, the disadvantage comes from a fixed number - your previous salary - not what you'd like.
In a situation where you were underpaid, declaring your previous salary will definitely put you at a negotiating disadvantage.
You're negotiating from a position of weaker information. You have no idea what the other engineers are being paid, all you know is how much you're being paid, and what you would like to be paid. Meanwhile the recruiter/hiring manager knows exactly how much they are paying all the other engineers.
You are now tasked with trying to get as fair/high a salary as possible, without knowing what their threshold is for simply no longer continuing the negotiations, because as you said "the price is just way too high".
By hearing the other side first, you can then gauge whether or not your desired salary is acceptable, or you can try to negotiate up.
This is absolutely 100% wrong. In price negotiations you will almost always fair better if you force the other party to bring up a number first.
her: "Just so we have an idea of your range..."
me: "I understand why that information would be helpful to you, but I can assure you that if everything else is a good fit, salary is the last place we'll find ourselves disagreeing."
Back and forth. Eventually I had to just cut her off and let her know it wasn't a good fit.
I've never had a problem winning the "give us your number" battle before, I honestly have to admire the tenacity of that recruiter. Seems like Ticketmaster genuinely cannot hire without getting that information.
EDIT: Also I kind of disagree with your assessment that it's a "seller's market" for IT talent. A lot of companies appear to be fishing for good deals, but is there really that much actual hiring going on? A lot of companies saying they're looking for talent does not a hot job market make.
Yes, they may all get squirrelly when you refuse to give that information, but this is often simply a tactic to pressure you into giving the information up. Stick to your guns.
One tactic I would recommend is to say, "I'd prefer not to discuss previous comp or comp expectations at this stage. I'd first like to get to know the company and learn about the opportunities for me there. If we decide that we're a mutual fit, then we can figure out the comp. I can be flexible on the comp, and it's only one factor I'll consider alongside others like how passionate I am for the project, my team, and the company mission, and the opportunities I see for further personal growth."
Your objective at this phase is to get past recruiting and into the interview process with potential fellow employees and hiring managers. Once there, if you do well and are a good fit, then they will start pulling for you. The force that a hiring manager brings to bear on that outcome is much greater than recruiting, and if the HM thinks you're awesome and wants to hire you, then the fact that you haven't given previous comp or expected comp to recruiting probably won't matter.
Recruiting may respond to this tactic by asking, "OK, let's say we match you with a completely ideal job, project, team, etc. What would your expected compensation be in that best-case scenario?" This question is a trick designed to get you to reveal your lowest comp number, i.e., the lowest compensation you'd accept if all the other aspects of the job were awesome and made up for it.
Or just make up a number. Companies bluff all the time in negotiations. You should do it to.
Million of employers out there, many willing to pay at or near the same range without those onerous requirements.
I can't find anything corroborating this. I looked because it sounds so wrong that it should be illegal. My w2s are private and personal tax data. A future employer has not business knowing anything about them.
The only thing I can think of is they were trying to use the w2s to verify residency...
That's pretty easy to forge isn't it?
Yet another bullet-point in why not to ever work at Oracle.
I don't normally like to lie, but I see no moral issue with it in a situation like this where the system is intentionally rigged against you. They are systematically depriving people of pay; I'm not going to lose sleep over a small lie that rights that wrong.
Not super common in software, I know people in law and a few other fields that always have to do it...
I've got a business partner (came from high on up in the land of the big four) that during a salary negotiation of our own he floated the idea of asking for our candidate's current salary, AND PROOF. Apparently over 'there', especially as you get higher up, it's completely commonplace. Having spent his whole career over there, it didn't occur to him that maybe people would rather just walk away from your company simply for asking than to answer the question.
Luckily, he's a great guy and after my half hour soap box tirade he came around to realizing that in an environment where people are _actually_ practicing a craft and have what would resemble real skills[0], they don't put up with it.
- [0] Not to say people working for the big megacorp accounting firms don't have real skills, but no, yeah, that's actually what I meant. I kid, I kid.
But freelancing is a different market than salaried employment. I think for salaried positions it's up to the employer to be open about their pay range.
The law doesn't address your expected or preferred rate (for your next gig); but rather, about disclosing your past rates. Which is a huge difference.
(Actually, the rule applies to employment negotiations only, and has no effect on freelance discussions, per se. However, it seems it may give significant moral support to those on the freelance side who are, frankly, pretty tired of this pesky sales tactic).
If the recruiter asks repeatedly, a trick that I learned is to answer that it's in your employee confidentiality agreement not to discuss the terms of your employment. It's arguably a true statement as well (in case you were concerned about telling a white lie)--your employer could be considering your salary as confidential because they obviously haven't disclosed it publicly, so you are taking a very conservative approach on the confidentiality terms in most contracts.
edit: the statement doesn't need to be legally defensible, it gives you an opportunity to redirect and ask what they are willing to pay for the position or to learn about their benefits package.
Except that this is a lie. In the US, it is ILLEGAL to have an employee agreement that states this (at least if you are an employee potentially capable of unionizing).
If I wanted to make up an untrue reason for keeping the data confidential, I would make up something more interesting than this. But instead, I'd prefer to simply keep mum. Or not... if I've been particularly well-compensated in my previous position I might be quite willing to share that salary information, accompanied with an assurance that I would be willing to negotiate a lower salary (if I am actually willing) in exchange for other things like flexible working conditions, autonomy, or greater responsibility.
Hop on linkedin and search "software engineering, bay area, posted last 24 hours." Typically I see 800-1000 jobs. My experience is that those are mostly unique. 1000 nearly unique jobs a day.
Just send your resumes, state politely that you don't give your number, and the companies that can't deal with that don't hire you. Everyone is spending eachother's time but that's the nature of the job search / recruiting beast.
Or is this purely theoretical and not seen in practice?
Earlier in my career, I was less willing to share salary information. But now that my compensation is above average, I always have the "I am paid toward the top of the range in this area, here is what I make now/would be looking for, so that we don't waste our time" conversation very early in the recruiting process and it ends up being a pretty good filter.
They are usually pretty open about saying "yeah, that's more than we can offer, thanks for your time", so if it were one of the few types of jobs I'd be willing to take a paycut for, it seems like there'd be an opportunity to let them know you are open to making less and go from there.
My concern is I hope to be doing this for another 25 years...
Do you recall any specific responses you've made to that question which allowed you to avoid answering it but still yielded positive results?
That's great for you, but a prospective employer refused to put an official offer package together for me until they had proof of my recent salary.
And no, there weren't other contemporaneous offers on the table at the time, nor were there other employers in my industry whose practices greatly differed from above.
In short, I think this a great consumer protection rule. Not really consumer, but little guy/girl protection rule.
If I disclose my salary early it saves a lot of time wasting though it probably limits what I can ask for or will be offered.
Is it more of a privacy/principle? Or do you actually lose an edge in salary negotiations by revealing it?
Conversely, encouraging employees to not talk about your salary to other employees is another tactic to keep the information asymmetry. If you're underpaid, you'll never know it, and that's how they like it.
You answer it by accepting an offer or giving a ballpark number for negotiations.
In the UK, they don't need to.
> It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit.
There's a lot of positive remarks in this thread, that I don't really understand. I see the advantage if your current salary is unusually low, but it cuts both ways: without knowledge of the company, (and within an industry) salary contains more information than job title.
Yeah they just phone your reference and ask. Sigh.
I very much doubt that many organizations do this, though I have experienced it myself.
> Most employers don't ask, and the few that
> have have never made my leaving that information
> out an issue.
How do you rectify this with constitutionally protected free speech?
Is freedom of speech meant only for the little guy?
The most they can typically get is the "typical" salary for a given position at a large company. There are exceptions of course, and the good ole' boys network can sometimes run deep.
But in the end, if you are let go or not hired because you lied about a salary they were otherwise willing to pay you? You dodged a bullet. Who would want to work in such an environment to begin with?
The correct answer is to say with what you think the current position is worth and what you want to get paid. There is no upside to being truthful here.
This is legitimately hard for a lot of folks to understand, the same type of folks who equate violating corporate policy as being "illegal".
I'd even go so far to say it's close to immoral not to lie on this question given the power imbalance when it comes to hiring.
No. The correct answer is nothing. Maybe ask what their budget for the position is, but never give a number first.
There's quite a few ways to verify past salary. Specially some employers report employment information to private databases and your potential employer runs a "employment report," like banks run a credit report, as part of a mandatory background check. To see if you lied.
Of course, they can't do that without your permission but agreeing to a background check is a condition of employment.
The database i am thinking of is, IIRC, owned by Lexis Nexis and they claim to have employment data for the majority of Fortune 500 companies.
EDIT: The database I am thinking of is called The Work Number and is owned by Equifax.
http://www.businessinsider.com/salary-information-not-privat...
>One woman interviewed by CNBC had a Work Number report that was a whopping 22 pages long, complete with a copy of all of her paychecks over the years.
They claim to have employment information for over 1/3rd of American adults.
And even if a company does find out, who cares? What I made at a prior job has zero bearing on my next job. If the new company thinks I bring in enough value to be paid X, then they paying X should be fine.
You really shouldn't compare salaries, since benefits can vary so much.
So if I'm making $100k in base now, but have a good bonus structure, a good vacation package, health, retirement, etc., could make that total comp closer to $150. So that's what I say is my current compensation -- most people will anchor to that in salary negotiations.
In most cases they would not give out that sensitive information unless they have a written consent specifically stating that you allow salary information to be given.
I think men are more inclined to agressive negotiate their salaries, and women might be less prone to lie or hide their current salary too.
Why are people so blase about lying? I don't get it. It's arguably far more helpful to just wait for the company to state their number first - bearing in mind the fact that there's tens of thousands of other companies out there. Eventually one will budge. In my experience, they all do.
* We hire only the best
* We value your career progress
* We are transparent about the company's strategies and financials
* We value taking the time to think through the design of features and products
And so on. Most of which are, to be charitable, only very loosely applicable when they aren't outright lies.
Do you all quit your jobs before you find new ones? What am I missing here?
I know there are a lot of purely utilitarian thinkers around here, but is there no moral compass at all?
Yes but potential employers don't get the benefit of the doubt. I'm looking out for myself first.
Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out.
More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone asks you. You are totally free to make any damn number up that you like. Seriously. Its a sales situation. It should not be like your under oath on the stand. Which is how most people view it.
Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and feed my children)
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)
What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)
To anyone reading this new to the industry, there are absolutely legitimate ways to answer these questions without lying.
> Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and feed my children)
That is a given for nearly any job. If it's your only reason you want to take this particular job, it tells me you have zero passion for your work. The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" employees, don't learn anything outside of work, and basically do the bare minimum at everything.
I want to work with someone that's at least somewhat excited about the job they're going to be doing, and bring some energy, new ideas and actually care about doing a good job. It's the difference between a day labourer and a craftsman.
> Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)
So? That's fine. Is anyone hiring with the expectation or even desire their employees stay for 5 years?
There are many good ways to answer this, but it's definitely not "doing the same thing as today, with the same technology stack, tools and level of knowledge".
> What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)
This is kind of a crappy interview question, but there are decent ways to answer it [1]. They are not asking for your deep, personal failings, but for your weaknesses as they apply to the job at hand.
[1] https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/66620/which-ow...
I've always answered "where do you see yourself in x years" and "what is your biggest weakness" as honestly as possible.
Answering retarded interview questions :) (actually said with a smile on my face)
Candidate: "What do you dislike the most about working here?" Interviewer: (My asshole boss...) "The office is a little noisy sometimes."
Companies are under no obligation to be truthful.
At my most recent past job, I was working for some guys at a small startup for next to nothing in salary (~$40k). I had a 10% stake in equity, but it was worth nothing, since the company was in debt. When I left I told the CEO and CTO "Can you say I made $160k salary?" Response - "Sure!" Next job was a $120k salary raise, + bonus, and I was able to work in RSUs.
At my current company, if I plan to leave, I'll fib by adding in my bonus % into base salary. I can't get away with much since I'm at a large corporation now. If they check and find a discrepancy I can blame it on a simple error.
With fibs, you can get a decent bump. But if you have complicit conspirators, then the sky's the limit.
Something I would not suggest is giving the number of a friend who will pose as HR/a past employer. This is pretty risky if you aren't attentive to detail.
I'll not be doing business with you. Just as I don't with the skeezy used car salesmen you seek to emulate.
This, I think, is going to be very good for the classes of people that don't have that luxury.
That question (usually) isn't asked because they actually want to know what you used to make. It's asked because they want to know what number they can offer you that will make it likely you take the job. If you make $80k and are applying for a job where their range is $120-140, saying "I don't disclose previous salary but for this position I won't take anything less than $135" you will very likely get it provided you merit being in the top portion of their range.
B) All of these are in reference to one or more protected classes, which is why it's not legal to discriminate based on one's answer(s) or refusal to answer.
C) Last I checked, "previously made {less,more} than a certain salary" is not a protected class.
Why is it overreach when government promulgates policies that support the interests of citizens, presumably at the request of those citizens? Businesses are constantly lobbying government to change the rules in their favor, but any time rules are changed in the ways that don't benefit them they howl about government overreach.
The government is not some meddling entity that barged into a happy marriage between you as employer and your workers as employees. In theory - though governmental behavior is also flawed in the real world - it exists to serve the interests of all, individual or organizational. It's apparent that a majority of people dislike answering questions about pay and do not wish to be pressured into revealing such information, but as soon as they formalize that preference by making it into a rule folks like yourself are labeling it as overreach.
The only question you should be asking the employee about pay is how much they want in exchange for what you want them to do. As for your first amendment argument, that's total nonsense. You are not engaged in speech to promote your views, nor are you being prevented from expressing your views in any way. If this should be protected speech then so should 'your money or your life' when uttered by a highwayman, who by your logic is merely proposing a bargain that the recipient is free to decline.
The keywords here are 'potentially' and 'significant' -- the difference is that the state has absolute power over you and the fundamental rule of law protects your right to free speech in a public context. Private, consensually entered job offer negotations are a different thing altogether. Certainly, answering a question does not strip you of any of your rights. You can say whatever you want. As I said in my original comment, discriminating based on refusal to produce prior pay stubs is a completely different category and has nothing to do with the first amendment.
> You are not engaged in speech to promote your views, nor are you being prevented from expressing your views in any way. If this should be protected speech then so should 'your money or your life' when uttered by a highwayman, who by your logic is merely proposing a bargain that the recipient is free to decline.
The first amendment doesn't come with the 'strings attached' that you seem to think. There's a nice outline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
Your hyperbolic example of "your money or your life" is clearly in the 'Fighting words' category, constituting a threat or intimidation, if used as such.
IANAL, but asking about salary as part of an interview seems likely to fall under commercial speech.
> Commercial speech, such as advertisments, has been ruled by the Supreme Court to be entitled to less protection under the First Amendment than noncommerical speech. [0]
From your link, I think it makes it clear that the commercial speech distinction is almost exclusively used for advertising.
I personally believe your salary is your business. Period. Getting salary information bad, forcing employees to divulge salaries from a position of power is disgusting.
Here is me being publicly quartered on HN for pushing back on forcing employees publicly posting salaries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805814
Companies posting employee salaries publicly aims for employees at said company to be paid at the same level (with similar experience).
There's a subtle difference.
Every time I've been asked about salary its been an obvious ploy to lowball my salary due to previous experience of working in a lower cost area. Employees literally have zero incentive not to lie, since employers can't verify
Everyone mentions it to be lowballing you. But what do you think happens when you mention a higher number than they expect?
While it sometimes will end the conversation (because they're unwilling to pay), sometimes they'll match that, leading to a higher salary than what the offer would have been.
Of course, often, including in big companies, the background check isn't done by the hiring managers. So you can straight up lie about your salary, get a higher offer, then when they background check they get the real one, and they're none the wiser ::shrugs::
Even without lying, In the couple of occasions where I was underpaid and trying to go up, it's simply what I would say when asked. "My salary was X, but I'm looking for X + Y".
It's just not that hard.
I added some words to your quote in the square brackets that should resolve the confusion for you.
The only reason they want to keep that information private is to use it to their advantage.
I believe, last time I researched this topic, is that transparent salaries tend to increase pay across the board and make pay more performance based rather than negotiating skills based.
EDIT:
http://economics.usf.edu/PDF/Asymetric%20Information%20Porte...
> Beginning in 1989 the National Hockey League Players’ Association began annually to reveal the salaries of all its members. Over the next five seasons as contracts were renegotiated wages rose precipitously. Over the same period the role of player performance in determining wages gained importance while the identity of the team with which they negotiated lost all significance.
The usual complaint about asking for salaries is that it's a trick to underpay new hires - you can give them the lower of your normal salaries or a 10% raise. That's because they don't know what they're worth, but you know what they got before.
If everyone publishes salaries (and they already do in practice, thanks to Glassdoor), that trick goes away. No matter what your previous salary was, you have leverage to say "look, you pay everyone else double that, cough up". So the primary objection to asking for salary is negated.
I'm not sure the logic is totally sound - some people will end up moving from published to unpublished employers - but I think there is a distinction.
Though I don't support the law, the two points you raised are completely consistent.
You are treating a heterogeneous group as though it were a homogeneous individual. I hope Individuals strive to avoid hypocrisy, while groups almost mandate its existence. Consider how easy it is to attack any political party because of their superficially contradictory beliefs.
Luckily they gave 3 numbers first, so you avoided a trap many people fall into on both sides of the table - not negotiating at all.
Imagine the first thing a company says after an interview is "what's your number" and you shrug and say "100," and the company reps blink and go "no problem," then pass you an offer. Wouldn't you feel a little skeeved? "I bet I could've gotten more," you'd think. You'd be right. Companies can feel that same feeling.
A bit of back and forth is healthy. It makes both parties feel like they struggled and finally settled on a number that is fair for both (whether or not that number could have been higher or lower). That's why I always recommended bootcamp grads to push back on an initial offer. Always. Worse case the company says "no, this is the limit." Best case, you get more money, the company feels like you were a little bit harder to get and thus more valuable, etc.
I attempted to do research on the company and their salaries for that position via glassdoor, salaries in the area, etc. (they are rated as an open company). They asked what I was looking for in compensation, so I went little bit higher than what my homework said they were paying (this was still substantially more than my current pay), we negotiated a tiny bit on bonuses, but eventually got the amount I was "looking for" in my offer letter.
In the end they ended up being a great company to work for, and I'm really happy there.
Then for the employer, will you decrease the salary to match previous low rates or wages? Or will you pay him/her the market rate regardless?
Personally, I have always been asked how much I made at previous places. I prefer to give a range than specify individually.
I've never understood this tactic. Specifying a range seems like a good way to underprice yourself. If you give a range, the recruiter will simply assume that your current salary is very close to the bottom of the range.
Now, if you mean that you give a range of previous salaries, the recruiter will know your best previous salary anyway. And they'll probably knock a fair bit off the top assuming you're padding.
FWIW, this is likely almost as bad for you in the negotiation as giving the number. You will simply always get offers towards the bottom of your range. It is better to refuse to answer, and just say you're looking for a market rate salary for this role.
Besides being able to freely low ball candidates who started behind the 8 ball (women/minorities/people who didn't go to elite schools), is there a real argument for companies HAVING to know your previous salary?
1. I made X at my last job where X is far less than what you are paying your current employees. Well as a business owner and negotiator if I offer them X + a small bump I can probably get away with paying less.
2. I made X at my last job where X is far more than you are paying your current employees. You either are going to stretch the budget, or negotiate.
So it is always a negotiation unless the person says they made less. A true negotiation is "How much are you asking for?" A person selling products isn't going to tell someone what they are selling their products for to a competitor. They are both going to negotiate a price or decide not to do business.
I think a less infringing question is for the employer to ask for the salary the employee is expecting. Then there is no lying and the employee can try for a 20% jump or more and see what happens. They can also just ask for the employer's offer but in practice the employer is going to go up slowly and find the lowest salary they would take anyway.
that's gonna be a hard case to make. freedom of speech is typically your right to say something that you want to say which is not at all the same as compelling someone else to say something they would rather not.
Now, I'm not advocating for or against this particular question, but I sure do hope there is data collected and studied on the effect this has in NY before anyone jumps to conclusions. I feel it's too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction on this one.
There is no way to know whether this helps/hurts/is neutral for any particular class of people without studying its effects.
https://gist.github.com/rodionos/b77080e028e3b680b2c1b5091ba...
Source: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/civil-list-2014
> The Civil List reports the agency code (DPT), first initial and last name (NAME), agency name (ADDRESS), title code (TTL #), pay class (PC), and salary (SAL-RATE) of individuals who were employed by the City of New York at any given time during the indicated year.
I wonder if this ban addresses background checks covering the same information, because some companies do ask for this data from previous employers although not all provide it. Without protection there this ban seems fairly limited.
Anyhow, I don't agree with all advice to never disclose current/previous salary. In some scenarios certainly it makes sense, but in others it is the opposite. You want to justify a higher market value and set the expectation that you're unlikely to be interested unless they're willing to compensate at $X or higher. Of course it's different in terms of leverage if you're employed currently or not. Recruiters and interviewers will waste tons of your time if you don't get on the same page quickly. Lack of transparency around your compensation expectations will exacerbate this issue. Whether that means you tell them what you're making or what you'd like to make doesn't really matter, but you better do at least one of the two.
The point is that if I want, I can completely change my way of life by switching to a job which pays 50 % of my current salary. Or 400 % of my current salary. It does not matter. What matters is that it is solely my decision and none of my potential future employer's business.
If they want to know my current salary, it is a red flag. I do not care about them knowing it, but there is a high risk that they will use that information to try to make an offer which they think that I ought to consider good. They can offer e.g. my current salary + their negotiating margin and think "hey, we have offered you more than you have now, so you ought to be happy". While in reality, the only person who can responsibly decide whether I am happy about it or not is me.
Note that I am not criticizing companies which want to hire for cheap. This is all right. But they need to do it transparently, from the beginning. They should say it clearly and upfront: for this position, our budget is somewhere in this range ... are you interested or not? This is a fair way to go.
This goes both ways I think: For this position, I am looking for something in this range, are you interested or not?
I could ask my buddy how much he made at his last job.
I couldn't ask my buddy how much he made at his last job if I'm considering hiring him to work at my company.
Why is this information legal to acquire when I'm wearing my business hat vs when I'm wearing my friend hat?
>Why is this information legal to acquire when I'm wearing my business hat vs when I'm wearing my friend hat? You tell me....
When my girlfriend was interviewing for a new job two years ago we talked about this because the recruiter was very demanding about knowing what her current salary was and I told her to stay firm on it because the salary in her current job was, frankly, shit. In the end she got a 50% pay increase over her previous job and then six months later got promoted with a pay increase that effectively doubled her salary from her previous job. Which brings me to another point- a lot of people will justify disclosing the amount by reasoning that they can always ask for a raise after they get hired and the important thing is to get a foot in the door. The problem is that anchoring is a very real thing. If you start at $50k instead of a $75k, every raise you get at that company for the rest of your career will be based off that first salary. If you stay at a company for 10-15 years, that is an enormous difference that could be well into the six figures.
Bottom line, don't disclose salary history to employers. You'll seldom find an employer who will tell you what your colleagues in the same job make. Why do you want to show your hand?
As for this law, I'm actually mildly opposed to it. I don't think that the government should have a hand in determining salary beyond minimum wage, because that is an agreement made between two consenting parties in private industry. If you are a more experienced negotiator and are willing to ask for more money than your counterparts, why shouldn't you be at an advantage? There's no law that says you have to disclose it and the rest is up to you.
I recently interviewed with a prominent Drupal company, Forum One, and was shocked that they not only asked for my previous salary, but previous 3 salaries and also wanted me to verify them with pay stubs! I told them no and the interview stalled after that. That was a sad day, I really wanted to work with them but what they asked for was unacceptable.
They were not in New York but I welcome this law everywhere.
You assumed you wanted to work with them based on a false idea of what that company was. It sounds like you lucked out.
However, during negotiation, if you lied about your previous pay just to get a better hike - you would get flagged, may get fired and get yourself listed into an unofficial blacklist. Its more of an ethics issue than just a pay mismatch.
> Some companies have a policy of NOT giving more than a 30% hike from your previous salary These companies are telling you "loud and clear" - "we don't care about talent".
There are other companies that would pay "fairly" as per their bands - even if that means a 100-200% hike
- never quote a salary (or even a range) for a job opening
- following many interviews any offer is always based on prior "comp", of which you will have to provide 3 years of info (base, bonus, deferred awards, retention awards, benefits etc) plus, of course, documentary evidence to support. HR departments start squealing if uptick is a greater than 20% increase, although some people do manage higher (anything over 30% is almost unheard of, except for a handful of big producers)
- they go through your background with a fine toothcomb and check EVERYTHING you supplied on your CV and in the screening questionaires you have to complete. They employ specialist third party agencies to do the research on you.
If you do not comply with this you simply won't get hired. It is universal and practiced everywhere in finance, I've never heard of anyone not being subjected to this.
Not to mention, you're saying that prospective employees shouldn't answer the question anyway. However, that only protects those who feel they're in a strong bargaining position. It does absolutely nothing to help those who aren't, and those are generally the ones that need the most help.
If you don't like this question, then you can either choose not to answer it or use it to your advantage by 'rounding up' your numbers - This should actually help you with your negotiations as an employee.
In the unlikely event that they ask for proof, you can always tell them that your personal finances are a private matter between you and your accountant.
Maybe I left money on the table, but I'm happy, and I've gotten good raises since.
Not every company/hiring manger is trying to rip off their employees. Paying people industry/local a bit above averages for the job duties makes for happier employees that are less likely to leave or have moral issues.
However, helping friends apply to jobs in other industries - specifically medical - I saw that most of the applications involved filling out an automated form that required prior salary information to complete.
There's no advantage to an employee from being forced to disclose this information and it perpetuates compensation discrepancies by gender/race/guts to ask. Very glad to see this made illegal.
Now, if they were really serious about fixing pay discrepancies, they'd make it mandatory to post salary ranges with job listings.
To get a better salary and better work conditions cannot depend of hiding a figure. It is a weak position, to say the least.
Smart people who negotiate your salary do not want to get anywhere near a conversation that has the phrase "wage discrimination" in it for any reason, even hypothetical. They do not want to argue about what is or isn't wage discrimination, even if they disagree. So it can end the discussion with both parties feeling they are being high minded by avoiding the topic.
If they don't provide those money details why should I?
Don't get me wrong, I think this will help some folks and is a great step forward. People who know their value and what the employer pays will surely benefit (or great negotiators). But for the people this is touted to help, they can still very easily be kept in the lower-end of the pay scale.
It seems to me that the only way to close the pay gap is to have employers release what they pay. That in itself is a tough thing to write legislation for. In my mind, it would need to take into account experience, actual role/leveling, etc. A lot of it is subjective and easy to manipulate to help the employer. And of course, if we just release a straight list of all employees' salaries (with the details needed to calculate where you fall), you may run into privacy concerns.
If they suddenly ask this question then they are trying to renege on their promise and for me it's time to go.
I really don't know how to assign a number to all that.
> “Being underpaid once should not condemn one to a lifetime of inequity,” said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James
... Or if a person does not know how to negotiate.
And there's nothing to stop employers from buying/renting this information from third parties, such as recruitment agencies or brokers in personal data.
All of these are arguably more reliable sources of salary information than asking the candidate directly.
Granted employers will just scrounge around on the internet for your salary info instead, which is slightly creepier, but at least they have to work for it.
Can't wait for other states to follow suit.
I dislike New York City's solution too. There are other ways to empower employees and not asking about past salaries won't eliminate the pay gap. But I'm not an expert so maybe this is a step in the right direction and can result in lasting changes.
After all "desired salary" question is answered sooner or later but in reality - the total compensation is more important.
"What if they find out?" They won't. How could they? There ARE laws, very clear and absolute ones, about what a past employer can share about you. Your salary history is most certainly protected by them.
"What if they ask for a paystub?" Ask yourself if you know what you're getting into here. This is not a company that is going to treat its employees well.
They would not make me an offer unless I shared my past W2 with them for them to make sure my past salary was what I claimed it was.
Needless to say, I laughed at them and walked away.