The thread about car salesmen made me think about this.
Some job ads ask for a complete salary history along with resume etc. I find that to be absurd. I’m not going to give you personal information that you can try to use against me in a salary negotiation.
So questions for the masses:
Why do employers ask for this, and why do they even think it’s appropriate?
Does anyone give it? Does anyone refuse like I do? Why or why not?
Bonus points for anyone with a horror story about being asked for other weird or inappropriate information in a job interview or job ad.
They ask for it because they can. As you point out, it gives them a leg up in any potential salary negotiation should you be offered a job.
IIRC, I’ve only been asked for a full salary history once. I sort of hemmed and hawed and said “let’s talk about that when it’s time to talk salary.” I ended up not getting an offer for that job, but I wasn’t too enthused about them anyway.
They can ask. It’s a reasonable question. You can decline to answer too, and in many case that will be the end of the process. It’s a tricky matter to get to the point of the negotiation without coming forth with any information. The company wants to know if you want too much money, or if you aren’t worth as much as you are asking based on your history. You should certainly tell them how much you are looking for if you don’t supply the history. Or note that your salary history will be provided on request. But you have to get the negotiation started somehow to have any chance of getting what you want, so if they insist you have to provide it if you want to even consider the job.
Charitably, it’s because they don’t want to waste time interviewing a candidate, only to find out at the last minute that the person will only work for more money than they are willing to offer, and it’s a little less blatant to ask “what is your salary history?” than it s to ask ask “what are you willing to work for?”
Uncharitably, it’s because they want to offer a successful candidate as little as possible, and it’s a little less blatant to ask “what is your salary history?” than it is to ask “what are you willing to work for?”
Lots of people give it. If you want a job, you don’t want to be the guy who refuses to answer interviewer’s questions. I have seen many articles talking about how you should refuse, though (example).
Rule 1 of salary negotiations is “the first person to give a specific number loses”, and if you give your salary history on the application, you’ve just given a specific number first.
I just had to do this last week. Well, not a complete history, but they asked what I made. My answer was polite but extremely vague.
The reason is twofold; one is to give them an advantage in negotiations, but another less devious one is simply to avoid wasting everyone’s time. My wife recently had to hire a new statistician, a position for which she had a budget of about $115,000 a year, tops. Some people (especially applicants coming straight from academia, for some reason) wanted absolutely huge wads of money. There’s no point continuing the interview process with them. Why waste everyone’s time?
Because they desire the advantage in salary negotiations, and they are in a position to demand this information. You could refuse, and they’d just offer the job to someone else (unless there is nobody else, which is difficult for you to know).
They justify it as wanting to avoid processing candidates who are outside their requirements, but I don’t see why this couldn’t be solved without the candidate providing personal information. They already have third-party companies do background checks and vetting. They could just as easily ensure that the candidate’s requirements are in range and decline to submit them if it isn’t.
I’ve been asked to provide my “salary requirements”, which is a legit question and can be used to weed out people who are well out of the pay range. To me that’s entirely different that a comprehensive salary history, which they have no real need to know.
For example, back when I was getting out of the Navy, I interviewed at an environmental consulting firm. The interview took an entire day, and I was interviewed by a team of six or eight people. Salary was never mentioned, nor did they ask for my salary history.
The next week I got a FedEx envelope in the mail with a formal job offer. The offer was less than half of what I was making in the Navy! Now I was expecting a salary cut after leaving the military (because I was basically starting over in a new field), but this offer was ridiculously low. (It was at least 30% below my market value.) I was actually insulted, and annoyed that they had wasted my time.
I had other offers on the table, one exactly at my market value (but still a 25% pay cut from my Navy salary) at a company I really wanted to work for, and one substantially higher (but the company seemed very sketchy). I ended up taking the second offer (the one in the middle).
When I called the first company to turn down their offer (not even bothering to counter their offer), they immediately tried to come back with a higher offer on the phone (exactly midway between their first offer and that of the second company), I flatly turned them down because they had poisoned the well, so far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to work for a company that would value me so poorly. Also, even if I had been able to talk them into a higher salary, I think that they would have held it against me if I had gone to work there.
Now, I would have understood if that was all that they could afford for that position…I just wish they had told me sooner. It would have saved a lot of time for all of us if they had simply indicated what the salary range was for the position, or asked about my salary history.
BTW, the second firm actually did ask my salary history. When I told them, they laughed and said they weren’t going to be able to match my current salary. I told them that I understood that I would have to take a pay cut because I was basically changing fields. That’s when they offered a solid market rate to me, which I accepted.
That’s my experience too. Some posts actually indicate the salary range, or if they are in a public service Local Government, MHS etc), they will indicate the seniority and it’s easy to look it up. Failing that, it’s common to be asked for ones salary expectations. It’s a trick question to answer too - ask too much and they think you are over valuing your skills; ask too little and they wonder what’s wrong.
The only problem with this question is that I am always going to answer a question about “salary requirements” with the response: “Negotiable.”
This goes back to the adage about whomever mentions a number first loses. The company holds most of the cards as it is, so why should I give up what little negotiating power I have?
And now that I think about it, I may have indeed given that response on the job application for that first company I so disparaged in my previous post. :smack:
Because frankly, if I hadn’t received those other two offers at the same time, I may well have considered that lowball offer (hopefully after having negotiated it at least a little higher). I likely would have jumped ship in short order, though.
This is actually what I prefer, to be honest. The employer knows what they can afford to pay, they should know the market value for that position, so go ahead and post the salary range in the job posting. That way they are guaranteed to get applicants willing to work for that salary.
It avoids the whole issue in which the employer tries to weasel a number out of the party in the weaker negotiating position.
The key difference is this: there are dozens of competing dealerships who would be glad to sell you a car. There are not dozens of competing employers who would be glad to offer you a job.
In my experience, most candidates do disclose. I’m not sure why, but I would expect because they are uncomfortable refusing. I stopped asking a while ago and use HR to screen and make sure people are in the right range.
Question: If you asked and they did not answer, would you still consider them for the job?
Because my perception is that any applicant who does not answer a question, no matter how insane or unreasonable, would be immediately blacklisted. Unless your job is so low density that the applicant can dictate terms, they are at the employer’s mercy.
I have worked for four companies and have hired (as the hiring manager) professional staff at all four over the last twenty years.
Any candidate who refuses to answer questions from HR on their salary history or salary requirements isn’t making it to an interview with me.
One exception:
We once offered someone $75k, she asked for $150k. That would have been more than her boss’ boss. We wished her good luck. She had declined to answer questions about salary (she had just gotten her MBA from an Ivy) and came HIGHLY recommended by a bigwig. She ended up at a consulting firm.
Apart from that I don’t remember ever not hiring a candidate we wanted over salary. That’s because you don’t get past HR without passing that hurdle.
Urgh. This is a bad business practice, and a real turn-off for jobseekers. If you’re hiring, and this question is part of your usual shpiel, rethink it.
Employers who do this might say they need to know what you’ve earned in the past (because it helps them figure out how much you should be earning with them,) or so that they can screen out candidates who are earning way more than the position pays, and presumably won’t want to take a pay cut.
But neither of these reasons holds water. Companies should be able to determine a candidate’s worth for themselves, after all, they’re the ones with the salary budget; and second, if they’re concerned that you’ll be unhappy with the salary they’re offering, they can solve that by posting the range up-front in the job listing, or ask you about your salary *expectations, *rather than salary history.
They do it because it gives them the upper hand in negotiations. If you’re asked for your salary history, reply with your salary requirements. It’s not their business.
I work for a small-medium university, and our boilerplate application for staff asks for salary history with each job. About 50% of our IT candidates fill it out.
HR gives us a range for what we can offer for a position (always too low, we’re always negotiating an exception), and we typically use the salary history to get an idea of whether we think a candidate might be willing to work at what we can pay. If we do interview a candidate with a high past salary, we are very frank about the hiring range during the interview.
On a few occasions, we’ve been able to use the salary history of job candidates to point out to HR that their “market analysis” is flawed and the positions need to have the hiring range adjusted.