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New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

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Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I ever tried this, the candidates hover around the top of the range regardless of qualification and experience.

Which is fine; if you can argue that their experience may not merit top of the range, you just negotiate down a bit...

or you don't hire them

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#222

I'm not sure how effective this will be. When I was recruiting It got to the point where I would never ask salary's I would just say, "I'm assume your currently making between XXk and XXk?" and 9 times out of 10 I was in the right range. 1 time out of 10 they would say no and correct me. I just took a educated guess based on knowing the market. Any good recruiter should be able to do the same.

The bill also makes it illegal to "rely on the salary history of an applicant in determining the salary, benefits or other compensation for such applicant during the hiring process, including the negotiation of a contract" even if you find out without asking.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#223

Here in India, you are not only asked your previous salary, you have to provide your last (sometimes three) payslip while joining. Some companies have a policy of NOT giving more than a 30% hike from your previous salary - you need top management approval for such a hike.

At the time of joining - is usually for background verification. Most companies don't even care what your last pay was. Even if you are paid higher, they are going to play in their range.

However, during negotiation, if you lied about your previous pay just to get a better hike - you would get flagged, may get fired and get yourself listed into an unofficial blacklist. Its more of an ethics issue than just a pay mismatch.

> Some companies have a policy of NOT giving more than a 30% hike from your previous salary These companies are telling you "loud and clear" - "we don't care about talent".

There are other companies that would pay "fairly" as per their bands - even if that means a 100-200% hike

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#224
post #63

The analogy is not perfect, but all the time people like to know how much a house or car sold for in the past, or how much a stock traded for the in past, etc. Seems like useful data. Now, I'm not advocating for or against this particular question, but I sure do hope there is data collected and studied on the effect this has in NY before anyone jumps to conclusions. I feel it's too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction o…

The problem is the one way communication. I would personally have no problem giving out my past salary, in return for the current salaries if all comparable current employees at the company.

It doesn't go that far, but this bill does specify that asking about salary history is allowed if at the same time you communicate a proposed salary range.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is 0 chance any past employer is going to divulge compensation details of a former employee to some random jackass recruiter that comes calling.

That depends. Larger corporations tend to avoid asking things other than "Did John Doe work here as title Z from date X to date Y?" However, many smaller companies aren't legally savvy and will divulge too much information, if the other side asks questions they probably shouldn't be.

This.

I've mainly worked for small companies, and have had two situations where way more than was appropriate (or, you know, legal) divulged.

Neither caused me problems, but I made a point of getting back to @last_employers to point out that the next person they do that to might actually sue them.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#226
post #49
post #4

Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.

It took me a while to understand that most people don't realize you can lie on this with almost zero downside. Very few employers are checking, and very few times is that information legally available to them. The most they can typically get is the "typical" salary for a given position at a large company. There are exceptions of course, and the good ole' boys network can sometimes run deep. But in the end, if you are…

Agree. I do this every time and always get a nice salary bump. Stating what your salary should be as previous pay is perfectly ok in my book.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#227

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

Some organizations use a month to month standard salary table for position which are not negotiable. Leaving the question as more for surveying the industry than a negotiating piece. However this is not often revealed until after the answer is given.

I very much doubt that many organizations do this, though I have experienced it myself.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#228

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

Has anyone run into issues for sharing a current salary that anchors the discussion too high? I could see how an employer might pass on a candidate who's actually interested in the job, just because they know they can't match what the candidate is currently making and it's likely a waste of time to spend hours evaluating someone who's making 50k more than what you could ever offer. Or is this purely theoretical and n…

Yes, lots of times. Pay varies widely in our industry, and it isn't uncommon for a lot of companies to never pay above $X, where X is substantially less than your current salary.

Earlier in my career, I was less willing to share salary information. But now that my compensation is above average, I always have the "I am paid toward the top of the range in this area, here is what I make now/would be looking for, so that we don't waste our time" conversation very early in the recruiting process and it ends up being a pretty good filter.

They are usually pretty open about saying "yeah, that's more than we can offer, thanks for your time", so if it were one of the few types of jobs I'd be willing to take a paycut for, it seems like there'd be an opportunity to let them know you are open to making less and go from there.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#229
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how (good) sales works.

Tell us how good sales works.

Sales people doing relationship/long-term sales can build trust with customers. If you are purely transactional about it (and willing to say anything to get maximum salary) then it may work, but it also may backfire.

If your hiring manager is the one you are lying to, they will also be responsible for your raises, promotions and bonuses. It's a long term relationship, one which can last beyond the current company you are at.

It's a small world in technology, and beyond hard skills, your reputation is all you've really got.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#230
For me it's not the salary (been out of tech and would not expect much nego. power), but how do I quantitfy primo health insurance, 31+ days off a year, 5 months sick leave and a 1/2 mile commute.

I really don't know how to assign a number to all that.

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