Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

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Just lie and say something competitively high, because negotations will always lowball and haggle it down from there. Previous salaries are NEVER verified for simple reasons, its beyond offensive for the references as well as the interviewing company to ask about compensation which is a private business affair.

Why is responding to asshole questions in a pragmatic manner so hard to avenge for hanging by the doornail autists?

This is the same crowd of introverted nerds that whitenight and go for the valor M'lady type antics. Theres no honor in getting the shit end of a bargain.

Do you tell the officer who pulls you over "Am i being detained?" And pull that blatantly antagonistic yet legal shpeil? You just end up getting yourself in a worse situation even if the law is on your side. Because cops dont usually follow the law for who they deem as assholes. They make things hard.

Theres no moral highground here. Lest you want to sit in a jail cell for the night because its your word against theres.

Lie. 200k year. Done. Lowball negotation down to 150. Happy? No harm done. Because its bullshit. A lie is no more bad than a deceitful and dagger cloaked question designed to make sociay awkard nerd fucks anchor their salary at peanuts because they lack market knowledge.and their own self worth.

The high ground loses against nefarious actors. "I wont discuss this because of X Y Z. is just a replica of the cop situation. You most likely wont get the job because youll be seen as a technically abrasive smug person.

It is what it is...

> Previous salaries are NEVER verified for simple reasons,

I'd be careful generalizing here as this is very local to different countries. I can check out a candidates Stackoverflow score in one web browser tab, their Linkedin profile in a second tab, and their tax returns (public info) in a third tab.

Yes. Really.

It might not be right but if it's that easy it's hard to avoid. It's certainly useful information to have in the following interview.

Edit: Public tax returns periodically surface in he US debate too, and taxes were (last) public in 1923-24 it seems http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/yourtaxes/14discl...

Almost every developed country has tax returns private and protected by law. So your article names two socialist countries out of how many on Earth? Most people here are concerned with the US but thanks for the disclaimer.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7213

At least the nordics, I thought. But I also thought the push for tax transparency was coming in other places.

Having been asked my previous salary at interview (and having answered honestly), on the first day at my new job they asked for various verification information - passport, degree certificates etc., and a payslip from my old job. I work in the UK FWIW, and at a company that would almost certainly not be breaking the law with HR policies.

You're under no obligation to keep them, however, so you can't be ordered to provide them. Your P60 is a different matter, but there are lots of reasons for the figures on that to not match what you claimed.

You paint it as compulsive nitpicking while it actually hurts your negotiation position.

Speaking of which - if you're happy with your current job, why should you care if they skip you to take advantage of someone more gullible? Heck, given that I'm a) pretty happy with current job and b) often contacted by recruiters, I'm going to try my hand at some negotiations around this.

The final stage hiring negotiators are very often HR personnel and you wont be working with them. Choose your battles. Almost every professional company has a rotting infestation of HR folk. You can definitely find jobs without these bloodsuckers but keep in mind that they know their place and have a narrow scope of interactivity with the employees.

But do try your hand at both methods of discourse if you have the energy and time. Based on my raw experience, I'm confident you'll find the moral highground to be a lost cause when dealing with this one sore part of job acquisition.

In certain countries(Sweden) all tax records are fully public and anyone can read them, so the recruiter can just look up what you are being paid without asking.

wow! Not sure how I feel about that. I find it strange that anyone can find out the price paid for any house in Britain. I often see people often 'valuing' other people with this information. I can't imagine what it would be like if people could find salaries directly.

If I am not wrong, they need to pay to access the information - and once they paid for it, that is added to the record.

So you can see who accessed it, or that someone did.

I think there's no notification or anything, but it is there.

Could be wrong but this is what I've gathered.

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