Salary info on a job application - do you leave it blank?

In My Humble Opinion
1

(Poll to follow)

So I’m experiencing the three year itch at my current job, and I’ve started “putting my ear to the ground for new challenges,” as they say. I’m an IT manager with significant experience in the field, and I’m looking for something at the Senior Manager level or above.

My first good lead is with a local government agency. I sent in the usual cover letter and resume, figuring I’d hear back about an interview in a few days.

Nope. They want me to fill out the generic agency employment application first. Fine. Whatever.

So I’m looking at the application (a PDF that I’m supposed to print, fill out by hand, scan, and email back, natch) and among the other dumb questions (My elementary school? Seriously?) they want information on the salaries at my last four jobs, plus my present salary, plus my minimum desired salary.

In my entire professional career (in the private sector, for both Fortune 50’s and startups), I have never been asked these questions. Well, I’ve been asked about starting salary, but only after we’ve reached the interview stage, and it’s been my standard procedure to turn the question around (“Well, what’s the typical range for this position? Yeah, I think I could accept the upper end of that.”)

Hell, it’s particularly useless in this case - this being a government agency, the budget info is all online, and I know exactly what my prospective predecessor made.

I’m sorely tempted to leave all of the salary info blank. Frankly, it’s none of their business, and my market value is my market value.

On the other hand, it’s unlikely to do me much harm to fill in the information, because I have a pretty good idea of what I’m worth, I’m not really in desperate straits right now, and I’m perfectly able to tell them to go pound sand if they try to lowball me.

What would you do?

2

Traditionally the answer has been to use the word “open.” But employers these days are calling all the shots. Employers of IT have a glut of people as well so they are looking to eliminate those who were paid well in the past and will leave them in a drop of a hat when the economy gets better.

It’s really hard for IT, as you often have big projects and no one wants to hire someone that will leave in the middle of a project for a bigger salary.

Of course an employer can verify your last salary so you can’t lie about that.

I agree it’s none of their busines, but they are calling all the shots.

It’s like me, I need a job and I am no in the position where if an employer were smart they could get me for virutally minimum wage. I’d have to take the job, sure I’d quit later on, but they’d get a good six months to a year before my area even starts to open up.

3

In your case, you don’t seem very desperate for a job, so I would fill in desired salary. That way, you’re not wasting your time or theirs if your requirements are way off.

A senior manager, however, once told me to never enter salary information. His thought was that you should first hear what they’re offering and go from there.

4

These two things are mutually exclusive.

5

For me, the application is an afterthought after interviewing and getting an offer.
This comes up in the “Ask the Headhunter” blog and column. Nick’s take on it is why should a company let another company decide for them what you are worth? They should be thinking about what your value is to them. If their expectations and yours don’t match, salary is going to be the least of your problems.

As an example, I worked for a guy who was very resentful of the going rates for engineers. When I tried to recruit for my group, he cut the already not very generous offers HR produced. I basically could not recruit from outside, which was actually lucky for the people turning down my offers. I joined them in the outside world soon after.

6

I’ve always left the past salaries blank and filled in the desired as ‘Negotiable’.

I have no direct knowledge of what effect this might have had, but I’ve never been unemployed longer than I wanted to be.

7

I just got a new job. I just filled in ‘negotiable’ for both present and desired salary on their recruitment website before they brought me in for the interview, and left everything blank on their form for background check after they have already made an offer and I have accepted.

Never, ever, lie on a job application. It can often be ground for immediate termination should they want to get rid of you in the future.

8

I’ve always hated the question on job applications. How do you deal with it when you’re filling out the electronic application and you can’t fill in “open” or “negotiable?”

9

As annoying as it is, it does help recruiters/companies work out whether you’re ‘in the ballpark’ for the job that’s on offer.

I recently went from temporary to permanent in my job (Knowledge management specialist) and the job had to be advertised. Salary expectations from applicants ranged from £20K to £100K. The job was worth £22K, so clearly someone already on £100K was not going to be interested in the job.

I think half the issue is that it is hard to accurately convey the level of a job in a job ad.

10

How about putting “market rate”?

11

If I’ve ever put anything, it’s always been a range, like “mid to upper 30k” otherwise I’ve left it blank. Honestly I don’t remember what I made at other companies, just the one I work at now.

12

For a Government job, you have to realize some flunky is probably making sure all the forms are properly filled out before they pass the application on to the right screening organization. Remember that for every qualified candidate for a job, there are ten desperate people out there looking for a job who will apply for anything out there hoping they can “wow you in an interview”. In the past when I would post very specific jobs on Monster.com, I would get flooded with crap resumes that were totally unqualified, simply because it was simply a few mouse clicks to apply. I think people have the attitude of “well, I’m not really a brain surgeon like what they are looking for, but maybe they’ll be looking for a janitor next, and I’m totally qualified for that, so I’ll get an early lead by putting my resume in now!”.

In terms of listing salaries when I was looking, it really depended on the situation. I usually knew what the new job would pay. If it was a reasonable amount above what I was previously making, I would list it, because a $5-10K salary boost is very reasonable. If it was actually a salary cut (like the $10,000 pay cut I took to get out of a horrendous job I had last year) then I didn’t list it. The reason being, I don’t want someone to say “well, if he’s taking a pay cut, you can bet he’ll leave as soon as he finds another job when the economy improves that pays the same or better than his old job”. That may be true in the long run, but in the short run I’ve been at this job for a year and I love my boss, which says a lot compared to the warmed over Hell I left, so I may stick around after all.