This. I would say something lilke, “Here is the form you asked for to verify my previous employment. Obviously, I’ve blacked out the confidential parts, as I’m sure you can understand.”
Well, yeah, you gave a really good reason as to why it’s objectionable. It’s predatory. It feels the same as if you’re being hooked to a polygraph and asked what the minimum salary would be to accept the job. It’s like a car dealership asking to see your tax return before negotiating on the price of car. There’s just no legitimate reason to need the information; they’re just throwing their weight around because most people will give in.
How would you think the company would react if an applicant came in and wanted to know the salaries of all peer-level employees before negotiating for a salary? Or even just wanted to know an average for the position, broken down by tenure? They’d tell him to go screw, that’s what. “It’s confidential.”
That said, you have to gauge it all by how much you need the job. If you need it enough to accept whatever salary they offer, then take it. But, I’ve found, a company that tries to take advantage during hiring is often the same while working there. There are exceptions, of course. I’d be on my guard all the same.
I like the advice to black out the numbers on there. You could also say you signed an NDA that doesn’t permit you to disclose that information, but you would be happy to negotiate salary based on the current market according to whatever resource. (I look at the glassdoor website to get an idea of where to start salary negs)
I am a bit puzzled. On every employment application I have ever filled out I have had to provide salary information. There was never any option to say “I can’t tell you that. It’s secret.” Yes, they want to know your salary history. If you have gotten this far in the process, haven’t you given them your salary history? And isn’t your last stub simply confirming what you told them?
What industry do you work in? I’ve never been asked for current salary information, only to ballpark a salary preference for the new job (and I always write in “$negotiable”). It hardly seems to be the norm.
It’s the norm for most ‘unskilled’ work, and has been for as long as I’ve been aware. Retail, restaurant work, oil change places, probably the hospitality industry as well. The industries where the employer feels they can dictate any terms they want, and then complain bitterly that they can’t find good people and they’re loosing too much on turnover retraining.
It would surprise me not at all if this charming trend was working it’s way up the industry food chain. It’s not illegal, and it sure as hell wasn’t HR’s alleged sense of decency that stopped them from asking before. They figured it wasn’t worth the effort, because it would drive away the people they wanted to hire.
Now it won’t. They know you’re not going to walk away insulted if they ask, so what’s stopping them?
Manners?
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‘Corporate Uniforms’ involving stupid polo shirts are probably working their way up as well.