Even after 20+ years in the labor force, I've never understood that justification. "I'm a nosy bastard" at least has a ring of truth to it.
"Proof of previous income" was required at one place I applied years back, and I've heard similar stories from colleagues. No, of course, I don't bother going forward in those situations.
"What are you making now?" is crass. The good recruiters I've worked with phrased it as "what are your salary expectations?" or "the range is $x-$y - are you OK with that?"
I've taken it literally in situations where they actually meant it literally. "We will not pay you $80k until you can prove you were making $80k at your previous job". Insane, but it does happen on occasion. How those companies ever manage to hire anyone... I'm not sure.
It's best to immediately walk away from a situation like this.
Dude, that right there is the problem. They make a commission off your starting salary, so OF COURSE their primary concern is your past and future financials.
This is why I hate recruiters.
For the recruiter, getting you in at 160k is twice as good as getting you in at 80k, and infinitely better than you walking away.
As a candidate that currently earns 100k, an 80k offer is worthless.
(Threatening to) walking away from a deal is one of the strongest strategies in negotiation. But that's the one thing a recruiter will never want you to do.
Candidate: High salary > no deal > low salary. Recruiter: High salary > low salary > no deal.
You are right, that the recruiter has an even bigger conflict of interest with their employer. But that conflict does not mean the recruiter's interests are aligned with the candidate.
(One way to align any interests is generally to repeat games. That's why internal recruiters are usually less sleazy than the external kind: they are at least clearly on the site of the employer. And honourable employers have a reputation to defend---another repeated game.)
"Considering your obnoxious lack of professionalism and the fact that your approach is apparently acceptable to the company, I'm not sure there's any offer you could make that I'd be excited to accept. But everyone has his price, so write down $500,000 for now and I'll decide how much to increase it after I hear the rest of what you have to say."
Getting a salary ballpark out early can save both sides a lot of time.
As a potential employee it's important to phrase it right as "If you are not going to pay at least X we are wasting our time". Where X does not need to be your current salary - but really what would be least it would take for you to work there.
If they insist on current salary be firm on X. Point out that this is based on what it would take you to consider them, and you are already taking into account a lot of factors like company prestige, type of work, location, lost options etc.
It is important to realize that you are not giving away any negotiating power by putting out a lower bound. One easy trick is to mention that you are also talking to other companies that already agreed to the same lower bound.
Also do not ask for or let them tell you an upper bound from the hiring company. If they end up really wanting you it will be harder for them to change that.
Getting a lower bound will help both parties. An upper bound you do not walk away from will hurt your position a bit though.
Has nobody here played poker? You don't just say what your hand is when you start betting.
Correct. They're just trying to figure out how little you will accept.
they are asking you to start the salary negotiation
Never be the first to give a number.
Always be the first to give a number and conditions.
Setting the stage is too important to let the other party do it.
I don't really disagree, but we might as well be honest about it here.
There ain't no such thing. Salary negotiations are pretty close to zero-sum.
If you do strike a deal, that's along a fixed sum border.
But do keep in mind, that either party can always blow up the whole process at almost any time. This is important.
HR people do actually see current income as 'social proof' of your actual worth. This is not necessarily out of a desire to take advantage of employees, but they find it hard to justify to their bosses why they did no negociate a better deal.
I learned it the hard way, by trying to work part time (like 10hrs per week) while studying and then having employers unable to grasp that I was demanding a much higher salary because I was offering my undivided attention in a full time position. This was explained to me by a simpathetic (though probably naive) recruiter, who literally coached me to lie on my application so she could process me as a viable candidate.
I did not get that job anyways, but at least I learned to avoid mentioning the fact that I had been "working for peanuts" in the recent past.
If we assume that your minimum bid is in fact below their maximum offer, then the market should clear: you should get hired. Under such circumstances, anything preventing a successful conclusion to the negotiations is harmful to both parties, since there exists a price at which both sides would be satisfied that they're getting more value than they're giving. Therefore, anything eliminating or preventing such an obstacle from arising is beneficial to both parties.
The corollary is that employers who insist on "social proof" place themselves at a disadvantage; they're less able to hire, and the people they do hire will likely be inferior. They are giving up value every time they enter negotiations, not by overpaying but by failing to engage in beneficial transactions. Those hidden costs can be, and often are, far greater than overpaying by some small percentage on the transactions in which they do engage.
I am afraid, reality is more complicated than that. There are opportunity costs, and there are threats. (Read up about the latter in "The Strategy of Conflict".)
Threatening to do both parties damage, can give you a better deal.
Obviously in a better world it would be possible to glean this information from an interview alone, but the bottom line is that interviews generally suck at informing how useful a candidate is going to be. A candidate who claims they've done valuable work is potentially exaggerating, and it's difficult to tell by how much. That's (part of) why we have resumes, and (most of) why an employer wants to know your previous salary.
Note that I'm asking this unironically. I know that "never tell anyone your salary" is a popular point of discussion here, but I have trouble seeing why it's any different from, say, a grad school asking for your GPA.
If I'm interviewing for a potential employer in an area with a higher cost-of-living, I'd (in a certain sense) be cheating myself to state my current pay.
But the bigger issue is that they rarely ever give their hiring range, so why give them more info that can only hurt me?