What to Say When You're Asked for Your Salary History
cushychicken.github.io
cushychicken.github.io
Pretty sure you wouldn't get an answer so why should you feel bad for not answering?
I hate these back-and-forths too where both sides know the game being played but have to be coy about it for no good reason. I'd prefer to just say you're not prepared to share that information and if they pushed be upfront that everyone knows in salary negotiation you shouldn't share this and it's irrelevant if you happened to be underpaid before.
We should normalize being OK with telling our colleagues what we make. Our HR dept. might tell us it is private, but that's only to help the employer keep the information edge in negotiations.
And a hefty fine for doing just that was the best I could come up with. Glad someone else had a better idea that works in a less confrontational way. When I ask a prospective employer for a range and they don't simply answer frankly, I know to walk away before landing myself in a toxic environment. Of course, that assumes the privilege of being able to walk away...
Seems like the first set of countries should have a negotiating advantage. Not sure if it does but it ought to.
So, I think that norm already exists, but not among all groups.
Google-fu tip: I just submitted that user's full comment to google, and this was the top result. It works frequently.
The bill's relevant text [1]:
> (c) An employer, upon reasonable request, shall provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment.
[0] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/labor/discrimination/salary-his....
[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
"The job posting actually covers a number of internal positions with different salary ranges" is usually what I hear when I try asking.
Supposedly, or at least so I keep hearing, there is a talent shortage (justifying things like H-1B). If that's the case, the power imbalance between employer and potential employee ought to run the other direction (the interviewer is irrelevant, as they are merely an agent of the employer.)
This would probably cause someone's head to explode.
In the 90s I applied to the startup where Peter Norvig was chief scientist, to work with him putting his prototype code into production. They decided to make an offer, but first asked about previous salary. I was reluctant, the manager said something reassuring, and finally I just told him. Context: I was a high-school dropout who'd just been working at NASA JPL, where the conjunction of government pay grades and my lack of degree meant a salary you'd laugh at nowadays. Further, I had no real experience with negotiation to help recover from this terrible mistake. So we never got anywhere acceptable from that anchor, and I had to go on to join a different and probably much less educational startup.
I made up for this a little bit, later on, by hacking aima-python and a few other things on my own time -- that was probably more fun to work on anyway.
Not getting paid for something definitely increases the odds of working on the fun parts!
If they like me so much they'll give me more? Awesome, big raise.
If my "expectations are too high" and they offer me less? Cool, still getting a decent raise (assuming I take the job, because that's a pretty big red flag).
They're clearly going to play some BS mindgames with me, so I'll preemptively mess with their anchor number.
Responding with "I'm looking for $X-$Y" often isn't an acceptable answer and they continue pushing for current salary.
I've noticed it much more in the last 2-3 years, where they absolutely will not continue the process without a current salary, which is when I resort to that made up number.
See https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio.... It's pretty clear.
2 reasons to do this:
1) In many (I assume all) countries companies run background checks. When I claim that I have worked for 10 years as role-XYZ in company-ABC, they need to somehow verify this claim. The (closed) question is "Did Henry Bemis worked as role-XYZ in your company for 10y?" And the answer is either Yes/No (or a very slight variation of the asnwer, to clarify the role title (due to traslation or interpretation issues)(i.e. asking in English language for a role in Italy).
2) In Europe (were we get a good number of vacation days) the "next" employer will need some form of verification for your years of work, as the number of vacation days increase depending on the number of years you worked. Different ranges for different countries. Although the "next employer" does have a copy of your CV and can add the years, they should have the assurance that "total of 10 years" is actual "10 years".
It's also not the biggest delta I've heard about while doing user feedback interviews for our salary estimation startup [1]. We had one user who ended up being offered double the salary he was expecting ($300k instead of $150k). He now swears by getting to the magic phrase, "we'd love to have you on board X, we just need to talk about numbers."
This single negotiation allowed his wife to stop work and for them to start a family.
In California it's definitely illegal for an employer to ask you that information
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Perhaps there is some argument that as the question should not have been asked the answer can not be material.
Many contracts of employment contain a clause allowing summary dismissal if found to have lied during your application.
I then (always) ask them to email me detailed (usually 2-3 pages) job specs. Sometimes they call something "Manager" and it could be a +2 or -2 ranks. It's nomenclature. Different companies go crazy on the titles. After I read the specs, I ask them the range. If they absolutely want to know how much I make, or how much I want, I just bid them farewell. It's probably a shitty company, or it has a shitty HR. Either way, I can always (hope) to find a job in a better place.
The asymmetry of information can really f... up your chances to maximize your income. Never give them a number because you enter a negotiation blindfolded.
Edit: This has always worked for me.
If they say it's too high, then you can say you might be willing to take a little less, potentially, for more of that to be cash/public liquid options/predictable/stable/whatever.
If the candidate had simply declined to disclose previous salary, they almost certainly would have been hired.
In general, I would be careful about lying during hiring. Hard to predict the consequences if it is ever discovered. There are plenty of examples of even senior people getting kicked over this sort of thing.
How did they find out? I can't imagine they determined this from financial records so I intuit they must have been told by the candidate's previous employer, and if revealing an ex-employee's salary isn't illegal I would have surely thought it was pretty shady / frowned upon.
What if he simply priced unexercised options or ESPP? Company car?
That doesn't sound very professional from the HR rep. And that reflects poorly on the company.
https://www.hrdive.com/news/salary-history-ban-states-list/5...
(p.s. HR Dive is one of my sites and we're hiring https://www.industrydive.com/careers/ I promise we won't ask for salary history :)
Is there any healthy place or way or method "juniors" can learn through experience without being screwed over? Be it low money, blood money, poor experience, terrible managers ... is "let the vile companies get the fresh graduates" the best answer here? What can be the alternative here?
[Edit:] Not everywhere has mentors. In my experience, mentors are a luxury. Saying "but mentors" isn't an end-all True answer. Same thing for Internships -- not all College Universities require them.
Maybe I am in a personal moral or ethical crisis here, but at the moment I'd like to stand by this line of question.
And frankly the market is competitive enough that you can always quit a bad job to find a better one, if you're qualified.
That's a really great point to bring up. Lousy professional experiences are opportunities to learn, or grow. Doesn't make them fun, but it does make them valuable.
>good candidates are apprehensive about bad companies regardless of their experience level.
I'm not certain this is true. There are plenty of smart, motivated people who don't necessarily have the career experience to notice red flags at a potentially negative employer.
That's a great question. I agree that mentors aren't the catch-all answer. I will say, though, having been on both sides of the mentorship divide, that a good mentor is a powerful positive force in your career. Doesn't change the fact that it only gets you so far.
When it comes to money, I'm afraid there isn't a whole lot junior technical candidates can do to get more. In my experience, technical experience and negotiating leverage are the two surest paths to getting paid more. Junior engineers straight out of college have neither of these things. Jobs beget negotiating leverage. If you have a job, a new job has to give you a better deal to convince you to leap. That's something that a fresh college graduate, inconveniently, lacks.
There seems to be a lot of advice here that suggests taking the best job you can straight out of school, and then switching jobs as soon as you reasonably can. That's what I did - I spent a year at a big chip company, decided it wasn't for me, and left for a consumer electronics company. That one year of credible work experience netted me a ~30% raise on switching.
[Edit] To be clear, I would break off the interview instead of playing that game, but I have the good fortune to have a lot of offers. As others have said, it’s a big red flag. But if you’re stuck with it...
She replied: "It's illegal for me to ask anything about your salary history. It's not illegal to ask about your expectations."
A rose by any other name, though...
If I think I've been underpaid in the past, I can just start naming a new salary expectation but I can't rewrite my salary history.
In any event, I think it's also always OK for the applicant to say "I'd rather not say."
This is not talking with a friend, making pleasantries. This is at work, getting paid, by a company, to learn how low an offer they can make for it to be accepted.
Pretending that the conversation is anything except that, is serving the interests of companies who try to do exactly that.
Telling someone that what they perceive is not what it is, that what others can perceive is not what it is, is like flickering the lights on and off, and saying nothing is wrong, and asking why someone is so upset.
My point was that there is still plenty of space within the bounds of law and politeness for you to compromise your negotiating position to a prospective employer. That's all. : )
Perhaps that's the norm where they come from? Maybe they heard Google paid that much? Maybe they were just throwing out a high number to anchor high?
It's funny to imagine the interview game being like the dating game teenagers talk about, where one wrong move, facial expression, or word uttered can wreck everything.
Edit: typo
If I say “500” and you can only offer 400 but I might actually take 300 because it’s an interesting job, how does this continue?
If they are outside the budget I usually just move on. It's not worth trying to beat candidates down on price. I want excellent people on the team who think they made a great move by joining us. If the goal is just cheap labor, it's way more effective to hire in less expensive markets.
Just my $0.02.
If the goal is to save time, why not give the candidate your salary budget up front, instead of putting the onus on them to share information?
Getting peoples attention generally requires meeting needs as a minimum. Wants are nice to have, and if they are reasonably funded, can get a persons full attention.
Let the other party consider it from there.
I have always been perfectly frank and cordial about it. The way I see it, being able to have an honest discussion about these things means the beginning of a great work relationship.
Usually, that all results in a how we get there discussion. Put costs, risks, all of it on the table.
In a very large company where you are negotiating with a dedicated HR recruiter, it's a very different process. They will never ever talk to you again after you sign on the dotted line, and have a very different, very narrow set of parameters to work within - and may indeed have expectations that go with that focused role: i.e. a team lead would expect you to be upfront and productive; but a car salesperson or a real estate salesperson would expect you to haggle and negotiate. Not saying I like that, or that I enjoy the prospect or process, but it benefits to be cognizant of the nature of process and expectations.
Up front info is worth gold. If I know it is one of the scenarios you mentioned, or haggling is expected, game on!
I am fine with a haggle. Lots of ways to see value. Great discussion!
In your narrow scenario, I would compute needs plus reasonable wants, then add on compensation for any draconian policy and drop a number. Hit or miss. Not my problem, unless it is.
If it is my problem? Get a deal, keep life funded and look for better as ones risk and cost profile permits.
One qualifier is whether the position has a sales or biz dev component. Deffo haggle. Expected. There is a need to sell too, so make it sizzle.
They'd expect you to be wanting an increase in order to move?
It's not even really a lie if you consider that any equity you may have has fuzzy value.
So, don't lie. Just refuse to tell them your salary history and talk about your expectations instead. If that negotiating approach causes you to lose that job opportunity then you were probably asking for more than they were willing to pay, and you probably weren't going to get it anyway.
Always add 10-20%. If they like you, they will offer you and you can negotiate from there.
I think, they believed me but weren't inclined to pay me that much.
> ... unless I think they'll be good for interview practice ...
Well, there's that too! But I'm still up front about the baseline comp requirements.
Third party recruiters, yes. They have an incentive to maximize your comp, as it also maximizes their commission.
In-house recruiters? No way. They're seeking the most talent for the least money.
Always be mindful of the incentives of each party.
One thing to understand is that, for big companies, most of the people involved in the hiring chain really want to make the hire and don’t care that much what you get paid, as long as it’s not way above everyone else.
everyone understands that the applicant wants to maximize their salary, but HR folks are humans too. if you say something they perceive as rude, they will probably make a choice that's suboptimal for you and the company.
Then dovetail that conversation into the larger compensation package talk. Shares, vesting schedule, valuation/cap table, bonuses, signing bonus, moving expenses, hardware provided, healthcare, 401k, etc. I like to talk about bonuses and the specifics of the bonus determination and request 30/60/90 day review as I start to get adjusted to company culture. No one EVER does the 30/60/90, but they enthusiastically agree to it. Also no one ever shares specifics on how they determine bonuses. But they like to pretend that a standard exist and you can gain a lot by talking about it, even if all you get is an clear picture of how totally nuts the place is that you're about to work for.
This advice is from my 20+ year experience working as a serial startup founder and first (or near first) hire. I've moved out of that field but I find it useful in all negotiations. It's good to keep in mind with startups that they probably know nearly as much as you about organizing teams. I don't fault my employers for failing to do the 30/60/90, but the ones that have did a much better job growing with me. The ones that failed at it, at least we could talk about why and I think that was useful.
Worst case, you end up a sacrificial lamb that helps them figure out solid on-boarding and you likely get paid for the grief.
Mostly in negotiation it's a tactic to get them on their heels when they asked you a "reasonable" question that you didn't want to answer by doing the same thing back to them. That said, I think it's always important to keep in mind the human aspects of what it takes to build businesses. You want them to succeed so you can too. Taking too big of a slice can be something that hurts your future at the company as well. You need insight and compassion.
A lot of people don't see employment negotiation as the same thing as contract negotiation. They see it more akin to dating. Avoiding the sticky parts to get accepted (I personally don't recommend that for dating either). Confidently discussing the hard parts means everyone has a clear picture of where they are going that they can look back on when the departure occurs. Discussing internal policies early weeds out people that are unwilling to discuss them and increases the likelihood that you'll have a prosperous partnership.
that was pretty telling
You're at $company for interviews, and the HR person says, "So let's talk salary. What are your expectations?"
Your "A" strategy: "Oh, I just want to learn more about the team and the position for now. I can wait until we're moving forward with an offer to discuss compensation. I'm not worried about it."
They will probably balk. They might suggest they "just want to be sure they aren't wasting your time."
Your response is roughly: "If you're worried I might not be satisfied with your offer, I'm happy to hear the range you've got available and I'll think on it as I go through the process."
They will likely agree to talk about it later, at which point you are out or they are invested.
Your "B" strategy, if you're really, really pressed to name a number: Figure out a number that would make you excited -- like, a number you'd brag about to friends and family. Then increase it by 10-25%. That's your ask. They'll say no and counter-offer much lower. That's less than their top. Name your excited number or around there. And most important: be willing to walk away.
Keys to making these strategies effective:
- have other active job prospects on the go that you can allude to, but keep the status of those situations vaguely optimistic. Before you look for work, finally hit that Amazon or Google recruiter back. They have deep pockets. Now you can truthfully drop their names as people you're waiting to hear back on when $smallerCompany beats them to offer time.
- Be seriously willing to walk away. You might not be fortunate enough to be able to do this -- it's a very privileged situation to be in. But by far, your strongest negotiating position comes from being able to not flinch too hard when they say no, and in being serious about leaving if they can't give a satisfying response. You might have to just leave with no offer. That has to be okay, or you won't get a good deal.
This is cribbed from the classic kalzumeus blogpost linked in the article, modified by my own experience using it.
Edit: A big last point: when they do eventually make an offer with real numbers, verbally or written, don't lead off with "okay", "amazing!", or "thank you!".
You can tell them "that's a generous offer", "that's a great offer", "I appreciate that offer a lot", or something similar, to express that you acknowledge their work and that there's something on the table. Then, you tell them that you will (understandably) need to think it over, maybe to discuss it with your partner, and that you will get back to them as soon as possible. You're excited to work together.
You now have the time and the space to exit that high pressure situation. Think, and ask yourself: are you happy with that number? Could you comfortably say no? Are there other things you can ask for? Etc. Make your next move later, from a position of comfort and strength.
If they insist beyond the point of politeness, "Do you really want to hire someone who wouldn't honor an NDA?"
When doing user interviews for my salary estimate startup [1] I ask people if they've taken / thought about a negotiation class. I've been surprised how many have thought about it and how few have gone through with it. I doubt that this would be a recommended strategy in a negotiation class, but like my users, I haven't taken such a class either.
Not necessarily. Signing NDAs is standard upon joining a company.
Fwiw, I've had success with "I make $high_six_figures, I'm at a good trajectory in my current role, so to make up for ramp up risk and various downsides I'd have to see 30-50% more" and got an offer on the high end of that. I'm not sure acting uncooperative would've worked better.
If, for some reason you feel a need to give a number, always make sure it's higher than the one you'd actually accept.
That way, when they inevitably go below it, if you end up accepting they'll feel like they got a win. Also, sometimes you just get lucky and they offer you that crazy number.
"If you can offer me $X, I can say yes right away."
I've been in a late-stage startup where options and RSUs were given very haphazardly (and in fact almost every grant I had was on a different vesting plan for whatever reason, too), so when a BigCo HR person pressed me for my compensation history and I tried to explain the whole thing, after a few clarifying questions and answers their head exploded and I was given a larger than expected sign-up grant, probably based on one year where the confluence of schedules made for the largest total comp :)
OTOH when I joined that late stage startup in the first place, I was in another bigco with a relatively low salary so IIRC I evaded questions and pushed them to use the market rate; although that was a long time ago.
As an anecdotal example I remember some years back I was interviewing with Philips Respironics for what would have been my 2nd job out of university.
On my 1st round interview (HR call) I was asked about my current salary, I chose the polite non-answer of "I don't feel it would be respectful for my current colleagues to disclose my salary or package conditions".
The interviewer immediately went into passive agressive mode and told me that she would not be able to progress the application forward without an answer to that question. I ended up moving to a better role but that was a valuable lesson.
I agree with the points made but this only really works once you sort of build a name for yourself and you carry some weight in the value that you bring.
(I don't think something like this exists in most of Europe, although in some Scandinavian countries the salaries are public and you can get mostly anyone's income info on a government website)
What I have been asked is for "my salary indication" and "my salary requirements" for which I have a prepared answer.
If I were asked for a salary history I would respond with "my requirement is X."
When they start talking numbers, that's an indication it's time to move to close the sale - assuming you want it at that point. So anchor it where you want to start the negotiation and be prepared to walk.
Remember, you're worth it. Let somebody else have the dross.
“I’m still trying to establish whether this role is a good fit for me. Why? What is this role worth to your company?”
The "Why?" is non-sequitously sandwiched in-between a statement of personal intent and a question that seeks to deflect back to the interviewer, reversing the question.
Leaving aside the issues of whether each of those pieces is strategically sound or likely to work, the syntax of the response requires (a) unscrambling, and (b) refinement.
Just say "I don't share that." in a good natured, confident smiling tone. Then be absolutely silent and wait for them to continue the conversation.
If they rephrase their enquiry, don't revisit your statement, which has already been clearly delivered and doesn't require repeating. Instead, take the opportunity to move the conversation along:
"What salary and conditions are you offering for this position?"
Just tell them that you don't want to share it. Or, tell them that you can't share it if it's confidential.
But, share explicitly your expectation with them, and ask them to share range that the they is considering for this role with you to see if it makes sense to continue or not.