How to answer the dreaded “How much is your current salary?”

Not telling them is evading, plain and simple.

And?

We're all businessmen here and we all have an agenda in this negotiation, and there is no unidirectional moral stricture to give up one's negotiating position for free in the hope that it will curry favor with the other side.

Instead of all the wordsmithing in your evasive answer, wouldn't the better suggestion be to just go in with a number you have to have, and if they meet that number, you're fine.

The risk here is that you'll underprice yourself and, candidly, if one is sufficiently unsure of one's position that one thinks one owes your counterparty a number just to be polite then one is immediately going to cave when they predictably wince and say "Ouch, that is more than I'm prepared to pay... but we're close."

It's not as hard as you think. They ask, you say 'I am looking for $X'

If they ask again you say "I wouldn't be interested in receiving my current salary for this role, I am looking for $X"

Offer to write it down and exchange it for a piece of paper specifying the amount that they are looking to pay to have you fill the position.

1. Know the range in advance. High-ball the range, over the top, and come down to near the maximum (or, ideally, if you have an idea of the median vs. the maximum, somewhere between that). Why? Because at least it gives some 'win' to the other side. But avoid looking weak. Take something extra "Wait, we've not spoken about other things, about holidays. Oh, 20 days, I was expecting 15. That's nice." etc on all of the other parts of the deal, then when it comes back to the salary come down a bit, but you've stopped yourself looking weak. Frankly, HR people should know this strategy, but if you execute it well they'll often be genuinely surprised it was deliberate.

2. Write your expectation on a piece of paper face-down. HR do the same (or, they put the salary range, or if they don't like to disclose the salary range, because they don't, the maximum paid employee and the minimum, or average +- X0%).

3. Have some objective criteria in your contract. You perform A for X. If you also do B you get Y. This is agreed in advance, before the annual performance review (so it isn't a point for later negotiation).

4. Who knocks the door? If you're applying for the job having seen an advert, you're knowing the door and they'll ask you first. If they knock your door, perhaps by seeing a CV on a jobs website, or a recommendation you're unaware of, or a headhunter, you have every right to ask them first. It is an indication your role or skill is in short supply.

Patrick (patio11) didn't post it, so I will. A great post from him:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro...

I will provide a slightly different option. If you know what the salary range is (not guess... know), you want to work for a salary, and you know that you have a strong value proposition, just name a number over their range. If they want you, they will negotiate down to the top of their range. If they just want a warm body, then they will just walk away... and you both will better off for it. Without having more information about your context, this simplified advice might be a half-decent answer to your question.

Let me add that if you read the "don't call yourself a programmer" article and just bob your head non-stop, then maybe you shouldn't be in a salaried position. You can consult and make the same amount of money in much less time with (imho) much more stability and flexibility. Any objection that you can provide for his option can be addressed fairly handily -- you just have to decide that you want to do it.

> I would argue maybe being overpaid compared to the value you bring is dangerous as well, since eventually you may be let go because of this later on.

If you are really good at what you do, this won't matter.

If you are decent at what you do, and you have social capital and/or are willing to build social capital, this won't matter.

You will soon find that there is a salary level above which you care less about the money and more about the work/people/place that the offer entails. There is a lot of flexibility in how you choose what to optimize for. Many programmers do not realize this.

I usually just tell them a fake number, around the kind of number that I want to be paid. For example, if I was getting paid £35k and I wanted to be paid £40k I would say £40k.

My main reason for doing this is to see how flexible the company is. If extra pay can't be offered, I ask about extra paid holiday or other benefits. More often than not, a company that isn't willing to be flexible with me probably isn't the kind of company I want to work at. It also gives me a reason to actually leave a company and join another.

There's probably much better ways to go about this, but it works well for me. As always, YMMV.

Be careful. From the £ I presume you're UK. Your employer will probably have access to your current tax payments for the earlier part of the year and could deduce that you are lying. If you are caught lying in your job interview/application, you could be sacked at any later date. You've just signed away a lot of your employment rights.

While I don't doubt that this could be true, has anyone ever been sacked for lying about their previous salary? It sounds like an absolutely mental thing to happen.

I imagine that an employer could do this, but I don't know any companies that would ever be in a position to need both sets of information to be able to put this together.

I dunno. If you work for small companies you can get some right dickheads in charge.

One way to answer is "I'm looking for $X." If they ask for your current salary, you then say "I'm looking for $X."

However, this only really matters if you're applying for a job at a salary much higher than your current salary. If you're currently earning $X and you're looking for $X plus 10%-20%, it doesn't matter much.

If you already have a job, and they lowball you on salary negotiations, walk away and keep your current job.

> Instead of all the wordsmithing in your evasive answer, wouldn't the better suggestion be to just go in with a number you have to have, and if they meet that number, you're fine.

That's not what they asked you though, they asked you what your current sallary is. They then seem to add a little on to that in the knowledge that you'll be better off working with them. Provided they offer you sufficiently more to overcome the bother of moving, they need not offer you what your work is worth.

Whether you offer them a value that you'd be happy with or not, you still haven't answered the question.

> Not telling them is evading, plain and simple. You can sugar coat and wordsmith it all you want, but you're not fooling anyone even with limited intelligence you are evading the question.

Most people don't seem to be trying to evade it. At least not in a "I'll say this clever thing and then they won't even notice!" sense.

They will notice. The answer is to provide somewhere more constructive for the conversation to go than:

"None of your business...."

"...."

You're not obligated to satisfy someone's curriosity. Especially not when they have interests contrary to your own. You don't want someone to know something, don't tell them. Doesn't mean you have to be an ass about it though.

Still. If you feel that they might be decieved, you could always state it before the constructive part of the discussion. Something like:

"I'm not going to disclose my current sallary because it would constitute a fixpoint for the negotiation. I feel we'd have a better chance of finding an arrangement we can both be happy with if we talk about what we can both do for each other and establish a compensation package based on that."

Important life skill:

Learn to tell people no while being both firm and polite about it.