>> ”What is your previous salary?” is employer-speak for “Please give me reasons to pay you less money.” Answer appropriately.
What is the proper approach to answering this question?
What is the proper approach to answering this question?
My other stock answer: "As a matter of professional courtesy, I decline to comment on specific policies of previous employers. You should appreciate this, after all, someday someone will be asking about yours."
Or just cite an NDA (real or imagined); most employers will back off immediately at that point since (a) they don't want to be accused of inducing you to break a contract, and (b) they probably don't want to hire people who break NDAs lightly.
If this is early stages of the hiring process, then just move the discussion on, "It's OK, but other things are more important to me than salary..." then ask a question about something you are interested in - vacation days, free lunches, opportunities for travel, whatever.
If you do disclose numbers at early stages, and your number is over budget, to the point where it will need the approval of senior management, then you'd better hope you're #1 on their candidate list by a good margin. No one wants to go to senior management, cap in hand, to ask for a budget extension for someone they've not yet worked with. It's too big a risk unless your reputation precedes you.
What I said is pretty tongue in cheek, but being vague in a way that hints that it compensated well can work.
If that doesn't work, be prepared to give a range of "total comp" where the low end is base salary and the high end is the total cost of all your benefits + salary + bonus