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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

> You can ask for whatever you want in your next interview. It's nobody's business how much you made in the past.

That's only true in California. For the rest of us, it's perfectly normal to be asked how much we currently make. It may not happen at the beginning, but after your first counter-offer, they will almost always ask where you're at now, and then say something like, "that's quite an increase from where you're currently at. How do you justify that?"

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> For the rest of us, it's perfectly normal to be asked how much we currently make.

Of course. At which point you lie.

It is unlikely that you will be caught unless you ask for something really outrageous.

And if they demand pay stubs, well then they are crazy and you don't want to work there anyway.

I can assure you that the employers are engaging in much worse practices than this.

“If you can only e good at one thing, be good at lying. Because if you’re good at lying, you’re good at everything.” -gselevator

I respectfully disagree with the “it’s OK to lie” approach. I have integrity so the option of lying isn’t a tool that is available to me but even if it was, I think the market rewards trustworthy actors over the long term.

I mean, I only recommend that someone do this when a company does something as immoral as demanding your previous salary and trying to use it as a negotiation advantage.

Companies shouldn't be doing that, and if they do, well they deserve every tactic to fight right back at them.

That’s the thing about integrity, the lack of it in others doesn’t change your own response.

Interviewer: “What were you making before?” Interviewee: “Why would that be relevant?” Interviewer: “I just want to make sure we’re in the same ballpark.” Interviewee: “Ah, no problem. Tell me the you’re range and I’ll tell you if it’s worth going forward.” (Big smile)

And then the interviewer responds "Haha, No. No job for you."

And then they move on to only interview someone who is will to screw themselves in the negotiation game.

I don't see anything immoral about punishing companies that use sleazy negotiation tactics with your own sleazy negotiation tacts. Kinda like how it is morally ok for police to use force to arrest criminals, even though "force" in general is wrong.

But in this case, replace "force" with "counter sleazy negotiation tactics".

Your stance is equivalent to someone saying "I am a pacifist, and oppose all force no matter the purpose or who it is used against, even if it is the legal authority using the force, or someone using force in self defense." Its negotiation pacifism.

My stance is that I won’t lie. That said, I don’t recall ever being in a position of weakness that would require me to lie either. (It’s easy not to steal if you aren’t hungry.)

This honesty thing is a big deal in life but it isn’t something you can “try out”. It may take decades before it really pays off and when it does, you may not even realize it.

If you find yourself in such a situation, you should say something along the lines of "At my previous job, I provided a tremendous amount of value to the organization, and was unsatisfied with the amount of that value I was capturing for myself. Given the current market conditions, this is something I feel comfortable remedying"

Just lie when asked.

It’s not a crime to lie in a job interview. In fact, it’s one of the best tools jobseekers have at their disposal. As long as you can afford to not get the job, swing for the fensces.

Honest question. What do you do when the salary offer is contingent on providing w2 for verification of previous salary? Non sales role. I had a company I wanted to work for go through the whole interview process, get to an offer stage, and I offered my number first. They said no we can't do that but we can do this. 'this' was less than I was making currently, so I told them no. They asked for W2 to verify. At that stage I said hell no, no longer interested. But what would you do if the demands that?

When asked for previous salary I tell them my "current compensation". In this I include employer contribution to health care, retirement benefits, vacation time, office perks, etc. All of these are nebulous enough to where I can get to whatever number I want.

If they really want to see my W2 it's probably not a good fit. As a jobseeker, I have to trust what an employer says and they're not extending me the same courtesy. I mean can I see the W2s of my coworkers to verify I'm not getting ripped off?

Great question, and I'm not the one you asked, but here's my two cents anyway :-)

I would likely do what you did and say hell no (tho this may lead them to believe I was actually lying, even tho I'd be clear that I felt it was an invasion of my privacy). If I really wanted the job for some reason (maybe I'm desperate, or their tech really is that 1337), and felt like they were asking in good faith (didn't want to be conned, especially if their market data would say I was already statistically way on the high end), I might counter by offering a previous paystub or something (w2 doesn't often tell the whole story, and can also give them more info than they need. Yes I'm paranoid).

If I had lied tho? Well I might just cut my losses, knowing that it would be interpreted as me being guilty, but then again I would be guilty. I do wonder tho if somebody would resort to GIMPing their w2 or paystub to fudge the numbers? IDK. I couldn't do it without feeling like a horrible person, but I'm unusual.

Absolutely do not lie unless you want the offer rescinded. A lot of companies will ask for exactly that after the offer is accepted and it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

This basically never happens.

There is no way for your employer to verify this information.

And even if they DID, do this, 6 months later, if they fire you then they just lost that 3 months of training time that they spent on you.

Sure, they might do it anyway if they are spiteful and idiotic. But most of the time Ive learned that businesses don't like wasting money.

And the immoral people in this situation is the COMPANY, for engaging in this shady negotiation practice. They deserve anything that happens to them if they engage in this behavior.

You can also be terminated immediately, forfeiting any protection of law (wrongful termination, etc) for lying or misrepresenting yourself. I've never heard of this happening personally, but I've signed a few waivers acknowledging that I have been informed of this (CYA at its finest).

I heard of one case where the dude said his GPA was way higher than it really was, and his employer found out and canned him.

Who’s going to tell them what I used to earn?

My previous employer? I never give HR as a reference, only other employees/managers.

I would say that even if you paid me $500k a year, if all other developers are being hired for $800k, you are paying under market.

I totally agree, but when I was a junior dev in SLC in the mid-2000s, it was unheard of to find a place that didn't base your offered salary directly on your current salary. They didn't care if you were underpaid and more valuable than what you were making. It was all about that big corporate HR and their rules for determining appropriate pay. It's how "engineers" that hadn't coded in 20 years and offered no value, but had been with the company for 30 years, could pull down 150k a year while I was making 60k. It's all about seniority.

Of course you could bypass that by working at a startup, but as a junior dev those jobs were very hard to get. They always wanted a senior engineer. Also, they could make the problem worse since salaries were lower due to stock incentives (which corporate HR rarely counted since their value was ambiguous).

And New York City (and possibly the state, not sure).

What are you talking about? You don't have to tell them what you make. I never have.

Incorrect, I know this is at least also the case in Massachusetts.

Very fair:

    s|California|a handful of states/cities

A "handful" that accounts for a significant proportion of the general population of the US, and... what proportion of tech jobs?

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