Crap, i didn't know you could choose _not_ to divulge salary history! I'm horrible at salary negotiations, any links/advice for getting a better salary deal?
You can decline to say, that's fine, but don't feed us a line of bullshit.
Alternately: "My previous salary has no bearing on this discussion."
Unless it's verifiably false. Which would be just as bad, and probably worse, than patio11's statement.
(Part of the design of patio11's tactic is that it isn't actually a lie: "I don't think it's polite to talk about stuff that feels like a private issue between my former employer and myself" is, itself, a fact.)
"My previous salary has no bearing on this discussion."
This is little better than saying "no". That's not merely somewhat abrupt and confrontational, but it also doesn't necessarily shut off the conversation. Instead, it could threaten to escalate the conversation. As your questioner, I can respond "but I think it does", or "tell me why you think so", or "yes, I tend to agree, but I have this form that my HR department makes me fill out and I need to put something in this blank". And then you have to keep talking. You don't want to keep talking.
People seem to be misunderstanding how diplomacy works. There's no requirement that a diplomatic answer be a direct answer to the question. Quite the contrary. The goal of the answer, in this case, is (a) to refuse to answer the question; (b) to hint, but absolutely not say out loud, that you understand what the questioner already knows, namely that the question was a deliberate, standard-issue negotiation tactic designed to place you at a disadvantage; (c) to politely refuse to overtly acknowledge point (b); (d) to draw an end to the conversation; (e) to end on a positive note and provide an opening to change the subject.
I don't work for people who don't hire people who say things like that.
but don't feed us a line of bullshit
And I certainly don't work for people who refer to a candidate's concern for confidentiality as a "line of bullshit".
There are plenty of prospective employers who actually respect their candidates. Let's just stick with them and save everyone a whole bunch of time and trouble.
When I hire people for my consulting company, I consider how much I can bill them out for, and then how much I can pay them based on that. Their salary history is irrelevant to me, and their salary expectations are only important insofar as it's less than or equal to what I can pay (and that they're up to the job).
Obviously, as an employer, I'd rather pay people less than more. But I'm also in a business that requires skilled, independent, smart people, and those are pretty rare. I'd rather pay someone a lot and bill them out for a lot, than not have access to such people.
Asking for salary history strikes me as a sneaky way to ensure that you can pay someone as little as possible, and leads to similarly sneaky and/or dishonest behavior on the part of the candidate, as well.
Because companies will use this to offer less and take advantage of employees.
I would say that line, or something similar, and mean every syllable of it.
That you don't share my ideals of professionalism isn't particularly my problem.
When I'm hiring, I want to find someone who will stick around a bit. Hiring is hard.
What did you plan to do with the number he/she gave you?
I would imagine the salary piece of that is intended for credit checks, not for the next employer. (If you are thinking "maybe they should only give it to certain people," people lie. Oh boy do they lie about who they are on the phone.)
I worked in HR for a while, so I actually am somewhat knowledgeable about this one (for once).
Here in the UK, when you start a new job, they are going to want to see your P45 so they can deduct tax correctly. There is zero point in trying to conceal your salary. And if you have, ahem, exaggerated it, that will be spotted too (and counts as lying in your application).
So yes, find a different excuse, but find an excuse.
While a new employer will request pages from your P45, it is not mandatory to hand them over. You can send them to the tax office who will notify the new employer of your tax code. The instructions to do this are on the back, I believe (I recently got bored while processing a new employee and read it all! It was news to me too :-)).
I can only second patio11's point here. My salary expectations have doubled over the past few years by just shopping around and keeping my mouth shut about previous salaries.
Just because you're playing a game doesn't mean you have to pretend you're not playing it.
@rmc, that line "out of professional courtesy" is an excuse. The real reason is that you don't want to harm your salary negotiation.
Similarly a hiring manager will tell you that she has to have your salary history and can't possibly go above an arbitrary number because HR and the VP of IT just won't stand for it. Each gambit is equally misdirecting.
At my previous job, I was underpaid compared to the average rate for developers in my area, so I needed to short cut a decent payrise. I wasn't asking for an outrageous amount, but so the company who were hiring me didn't find what I was asking for too high to pay.
I don't know whether they actually ever checked my P45 for my old rate, I doubt it. That side is handled by the accounts/payroll department, rather than upper management. If the upper management were that concerned about the rate at which they hired me, they'd have negotiated down at the time, not once they'd hired me.
But you weren't.
Kinda like declining to talk about if you have kids during an interview. Sure the company likely will find out after you're hired if you have them, but you don't need to answer questions about it upfront.
EDIT: OK, it's clearly not a good idea to even remotely suggest lying is a possible option, even as a counter to patio11's frankly far more risky suggestion. And perhaps in the name of building a better society this is the correct approach (and certainly helps prevent anyone potentially sabotaging their networking efforts on HN, which clearly is something I'm not concerned about). I hate dishonesty in general, to be clear.
However, my first full time job deliberately boasted about underpaying its employees. Luckily I didn't have to state my previous salary at the next job, just my expectation. But if they had, you know what, I would have probably have inflated it 20%. Why should my first job being underpayed screw me at my next job?
Inflating your salary a bit is just a negotiating tactic. Considering they are sitting across from the table, trying to screw you, is it going to look that bad that you're fighting back?
There's plenty of misrepresentation going on at an interview. Of all the things to fudge, previous salary seems the least unethical. I mean after all, the potential employer isn't compelled to match or better it.
That said, I hate to lie. But man do I see it happen often.
In fact, the hiring company's common insistence on focusing on base salary is a bit of a shell game, much like the classic four-square worksheet seen at a used car lot [2]. Once they can get you to agree to one number, they still have room to pressure you on some of the other parts of the deal. Luckily you can do the exact same thing to them by presenting a range of demands (base, bonus, vacation, perks) without tipping your hand and letting them know which ones mean the most to you personally. It's especially helpful to be able to weigh their benefit details against your current position without having to directly disclose your salary.
Are the people who "can't" negotiate and who blackballed you living under the same paltry vacation package you were offered? I'm assuming you didn't ask about vacation until after they made you an offer. To do otherwise is to chase off a possible opportunity before they've committed to you. Once you've got an offer, recognize that multiple parties at the hiring company are committed to seeing the deal go through, so you have more bargaining power than you did at the "we're still deciding who our top candidate is" phase.
In my last round of interviews for a large bank, for a director level role, the senior managers expressed that I was "too honest" in their feedback to me and while I made it to the final round of three, that may have played a role in not securing the job. It may have also played a role in getting me to the final round as well...
I am 100% certain that by being honest on my cv I have lost out even getting my foot in the door to interview at some great firms I'd have liked to have work for. I much prefer to be honest, but in the short, medium and likely long term, I also know it has severely hurt my earning and career potential.
And I wouldn't measure your experience against others. You don't always know what they know. Maybe they do have more direct experience than you. Or maybe they get, but don't keep, those jobs.
You could always ask others you know to give you feedback on your CV. Especially people who've worked with you. Ask coworkers maybe. Or former supervisors.
I do know how much some of my classmates know because I've helped them do their work in their new jobs. After helping one of them for free for a weekend and finding it frustrating, I then had a well-paying (almost full-time) job for almost a year while I helped four of them do their "work" and teach them along the way, as they paid me to help them. Six months after I stopped helping them, as I had found a "real" job that paid better, all four had to find new jobs because of recent under-performance.
It's excellent advice, and it really is important to keep in mind - some companies use this information not to just lowball you, but to ensure they stay "with the market" in their salary ranges.
Consider the salary a secret of your employer. You can give a range, but never tell anyone what you make right now.
Instinctively, I have a hard time giving out a range too. Mostly because I would tend to give a range centered around what I'm making, which I feel beats the purpose of not revealing the amount. Shifting the range to be on the higher side feels like lying or something.
Let's say I make $100k. Saying "I make between 90-120k" feels wrong to me, because I instinctively think to myself "well, this is technically true, but what's the point of giving a range if it's not accurate?" And even suggesting 90 would feel like a bad idea because I wouldn't want less either…
The other part is how wide should the range be? Too narrow or too wide and it's really useless.
But make sure you are realistic. What are your peers making? What's the going salary, not only in your field, but your area?
But if you can, get them to move first. It might get awkward but they are the ones that know how much they can pay.
My Dad's old rule was this: "You can afford a house that is two times what you make, gross, in one year. So if you make $80,000, you can afford a $160,000 house. If you want a bigger house, ask for more money."
Just be sure you're worth it. There's no shame in being good and getting a fair pay for it. The right company would probably still be getting a bargain :)
It's not a lie and it gets you exactly what you want and need.
If they want to know what you are making now, you are making exactly what you stated above.
Since there's no way for an employer to compare their culture/benefits to another company's, it is logically unsound for them to consider your past paychecks. Remind them of that.
The other simple approach is to say, "You know better than I what your organization can do with my talent. I want to work were I am most effective. The salary and work product your company offers is my best way to estimate my impact."
Always do your research on similar positions at the same company or different companies through a site like glassdoor.com before even negotiating. You should not be going in blind. Also do research on how much people are making at a role that is similar to yours in terms of work / title / experience. Remember that if there are 2 same positions at a company or even in a department or a team, difference between their salaries could be big.
If you're asked to divulge salary history, don't tip your hand. I've made this mistake a couple of times and I have regretted it / having had to settle for a lower salary. If insist on you giving them a number, quote a number that's 10-15% higher than your annual salary (Have to be careful of the company not finding out your current salary through some other means).
Always tell them about the value you bring to their organization and your experience and that you deserve this much $ amount because of how much the future company will benefit from your skills. Talk about positive recommendations & performance reviews, performance bonuses, awards & accolades you've earned at your current/ past jobs or at school. Do not bring in a comparative number (this company is offering me this much) unless you really need to as it sort of casts a negative impression about you being all about money. Potray how highly you're interested in the position but you feel that the offer is on a conservative side as far as the market rate goes.
If they cannot offer a higher $$$ figure, and you really like the profile, you can negotiate better benefits like full health coverage vs. partial, higher # of vacation days (some companies allow you to cash out some vacation days at the end of the year), commuter benefits, etc.
Just be confident and do not hesitate to ask for more (as long as it's realistic and comparable to the going rate). Also, rehearse the negotiation with a friend or just simulate the conversation in your mind before you actually do the talking with the hiring manager.
Disclaimer; Some of this might not be right. Please feel free to correct any erroneous statements I've made. :)
Is it?
HR strategy should maximize ROI and minimize financial risk regarding your team, but that doesn't necessary mean hiring someone for the least amount possible. Getting the best ROI and minimizing risk sometimes means recruiting the best possible employees and paying them exceptionally well to retain their services and keep them around.
This is also more likely if the person is a poor negotiator as they will be more likely to just find a new job when they get unhappy rather than ask for a pay increase.
For exactly the right definition of "retain", you're right. For most practical definitions of the word, you're wrong.
This sort of reward structure strikes me as focused on short-term benefits, without regard to the long-term strength of the company. It's very sad to hear (and shows just how out of things I am, having been my own boss for 16 years).
Conversely, overpaying for hires is a way of focusing on the short term (to get the person in immediately) at the expense of the long-term profitability of the company (inflated cost structure).
I'm not defending this incentive structure for HR, just saying that there are a lot of factors at play whenever a hiring decision is made.
I promise, my opinion of this won't improve as I think through the further implications.
If this is true, then this would be another reason that HR departments are totally useless. HR should be there to support the hiring manager in finding the best people for the job and should do everything possible to make them want to stay. They should have nothing to do with the budget besides their own.
This is almost always wrong.
It is more normal for HR not to care about the pay at all - their concern is sourcing candidates, and often their performance metrics relate to candidates placed. In that case they are quite happy to see you overpaid...
We make the hire/no-hire and grade decision after interviews then the manager handles salary negotiation one-on-one. If a good candidate pushes the envelope we have to get Senior VP approval to go over the limit (rarely happens) or we try to make up the difference with stock grants.
Given the current challenges of hiring qualified candidates, particularly at the higher ranks of individual contributors we generally laugh at our colleagues who make low-ball offers to good candidates (and then promptly outbid them).
If you DO successfully push the envelope your subsequent raises will be small. We try to push everyone towards the center of their pay grade so newly promoted individuals (or poor negotiators) generally get a couple of good years of pay raises regardless of company-wide economics. People at the top end of the pay range typically get no increase at all.
HR doesn't own the salary budget. It is actually assigned by business unit (VP/SVP). If there is significant surplus then it just gets rolled up to hiring more people.
HR bonuses are partially determined by company performance metrics and partially by individual performance determined by their manager (based on what, the devil only knows).
I'm a big fan of anything written by Roger Dawson. Yes, it's written in sales-y self-help style, which you'll probably subconsciously resist, but the content is gold. Here's a link to his 'Secrets of Power Salary Negotiating':
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secrets-of-power-salary-nego...
If it helps any, here's my absolute favourite justification that HR gave when I asked why they needed my salary history: it was, apparently, needed to figure out where I would fit in the org chart (you'd think that that was what interviews are supposed to determine, but apparently not.)
However, what I'm getting paid is still quite good and way higher than I was making... Partly because I asked for more during the negotiation. So I'm not upset about it.
For my next job, however, I won't be telling my previous salary, and I'll be using that 'I don't divulge company policies' line. I've never found it a good idea to tell people that stuff anyhow, friend or co-worker.