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“What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

fearlesssalarynegotiation.com

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Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#71

Post by waisbrot »

josephorjoe wrote: post #35

I have found that almost any decently sized company uses some sort of online form as part of the application/interview process. These forms usually have a current or desired salary field and often has fairly strong validations on it (e.g., must be filled in, must be a number between x and y, no non-numeric characters allowed). So you either have to fill it in or not submit the application form at all (the rest of whi…

If you're just throwing your resume around and hoping, I think you're better off submitting it to every recruiter you can find. They're professionals at the resume-submission game. But either way if you're in this position you should understand that you're starting at a disadvantage.

For a specific company, you should have an inside connection. Get referred by an employee, get contacted by a recruiter who works specifically with them, or even cold-email an HR/manager. Anything's better than putting your resume in the big pile full of spam.

However you do it, when you get to the point where you're talking with the hiring manager and they like you enough to interview more, they may say "HR needs you to fill out our application here before we can bring you on-site," and then it's OK to do so. You shoot the manager a quick note "I'm not ready to talk salary yet, but the form had some validation on it so I just put in '99,999' don't worry about it; it's just a placeholder". Or you hack the form to submit something funny and that's even better.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#73

Post by antisthenes »

Joeri wrote: post #59
JoshDoody wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's extremely frustrating to hear and seems VERY short-sighted by the company itself. If they already determined that person would be a good fit at $100k salary, it seems so silly to change their mind just because they learn about the candidates PREVIOUS salary. Another reason not to disclose salary requirements, but also seems like a case of management myopia. Thanks for sharing :)

If the candidate lied about their previous salary, that would be a perfectly valid reason to drop them. Someone willing to lie to their employer for personal gain won't stop with the one lie.

Remove incentives to lie then. Don't blame people for doing something if there are incentives for doing so.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#74

Post by dethswatch »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #40
dethswatch wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Them: "We'd like to see proof of your salary history." Me: "Sorry- we arrived at an agreeable number earlier. I don't see how a salary history would change that." Them: (stammers...) Either way it's a win- you either get it, or they toss you and you dodged a FUCKING BULLET.

They won't stammer. They will without the slightest bit of shame attempt to cajole/badger/guilt/etc you into revealing the information. Then they may also engage in a background check / credit report goose chase to get or infer the information. You say "you dodged a FUCKING BULLET", and I agree in principle, but in practice, a lot of employers do this, and a lot of people submit themselves to this kind of crap which…

Maybe you're getting unlucky.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#75

Post by pilom »

I've definitely run into a few cases where interviewers definitely would not proceed with the conversation without a number. Usually they want "what you made" but really they want "what you'll take" so I've had great success just switching the scale from "Salary" to "Total Compensation." Usually a recruiter or HR person who won't move on without a number isn't smart enough to think about the difference and just proceeds as if the number you gave is a salary number. Doing this twice has moved my salary to the very top of the pay scale for my position and location.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#76

Post by colorint »

josephorjoe wrote: post #70
pryelluw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind posting the algo question? I enjoy solving those :)

It was a variation on Max Subarray, but instead of finding a contiguous max subarray you could (but didn't have to) skip every other number (but cannot skip 2 consecutive numbers). So for [1, -1, 2, -1, 3, -1] you could take [1, 2, 3], but for [-1, -1, -5, -20, -10, -1, -3] you would end up with [-1, -5, -10, -1]. Input values and ranges are large enough that brute forcing won't work.

Well, the answer for an array of all negative numbers is to choose no elements, or if you must choose one, to choose the maximum single element. But presumably you solve it with the normal algorithm but with one level of look-behind. Something like,

  function maxsum(arr)
    local max2 = function(a, b) if a > b then return a else return b end end
    local max3 =
      function(a, b, c)
        if a > b and a > c then return a
        elseif b > c then return b
        else return c end end
    local best = 0
    local best_here = 0
    local i = 2
    while i  arr[i-1] then i = i + 2 else i = i + 1 end
    end
    return best
  end

  print(maxsum{1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, -4, 4, -5})
Assuming this algorithm is correct (it worked for my couple of test cases), the main trickiness is that you have to skip two elements if you choose the current one, to make sure that you don't double-choose.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#77

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #9
JoshDoody wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you decide what's right for you is a personal decision. But when it comes to salary negotiation, you can be sure the company is very much working to do what's right for itself and its shareholders, and I think you should similarly be just as focused on doing what's right for you. Negotiating your salary is better for you. Disclosing your current salary or desired salary when asked is worse for you and better for…

Negotiating your salary is better for you. 1000000% agree with this. My first job, right out of college, I got an offer which was fine, and I had no problem with the amount. But, I asked for more, because why not? And got 15% more just from asking. Always. Negotiate.

If they'll make you an offer, they'll make at least one counter-offer.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#78

Post by josephorjoe »

colorint wrote: post #76
josephorjoe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a variation on Max Subarray, but instead of finding a contiguous max subarray you could (but didn't have to) skip every other number (but cannot skip 2 consecutive numbers). So for [1, -1, 2, -1, 3, -1] you could take [1, 2, 3], but for [-1, -1, -5, -20, -10, -1, -3] you would end up with [-1, -5, -10, -1]. Input values and ranges are large enough that brute forcing won't work.

Well, the answer for an array of all negative numbers is to choose no elements, or if you must choose one, to choose the maximum single element. But presumably you solve it with the normal algorithm but with one level of look-behind. Something like, function maxsum(arr) local max2 = function(a, b) if a > b then return a else return b end end local max3 = function(a, b, c) if a > b and a > c then return a elseif b > c…

My understanding of the challenge (which could have been wrong...) was that you had to use at least one half of the array (every other number).

So if the array was [-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6], the 'max sum' would be -9 ([-1, -3, -5]).

I can't think of a non-brute force solution for an extended sequence of negative numbers...

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#79

Post by rhapsodic »

It's been a decade since I have been an actve job seeker, so things may be different now. But my response to that question was always "I'm not going to say what I'm currently making but I'll be happy to say what the minimum amount I'll consider is." If any of them balked at the number I would get up and walk. Some backed down immediately, and we continued the conversation, and others did not. Either outcome was fine with me.

Re: “What’s your current salary?” is a trap question–Here's how to answer it

#80

Post by stevekemp »

southphillyman wrote: post #48
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't stammer. They will without the slightest bit of shame attempt to cajole/badger/guilt/etc you into revealing the information. Then they may also engage in a background check / credit report goose chase to get or infer the information. You say "you dodged a FUCKING BULLET", and I agree in principle, but in practice, a lot of employers do this, and a lot of people submit themselves to this kind of crap which…

They say former employers can only verify dates of employment, where else will salary information show up? I wasn't aware that this information shows up in background checks. I wonder if you could just counter the request by saying you signed a NDA that forbid sharing that information.

Some countries publish salary / income for all citizens..
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