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

Post by morgante » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:23 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #122

pmoriarty wrote: post #43

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…

Post by downrightmike » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:29 AM UTC

socalnate1 wrote: post #403

pbasista wrote: post #392

My past salary is an irrelevant information for my potential future employer. If they ask about it, my response would be: "Why would you like to know it?" Any answer to this question is bad. If they do not bail out and stop asking at this point, then I bail out. The point is that if I want, I can completely change my way of life by switching to a job which pays 50 % of my current salary. Or 400 % of my current salary…

"But they need to do it transparently, from the beginning. They should say it clearly and upfront: for this position, our budget is somewhere in this range" This goes both ways I think: For this position, I am looking for something in this range, are you interested or not?

Post by morgante » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:38 AM UTC

krenden9 wrote: post #235

pixl97 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hope I never hire someone like you by accident. It's likely employers like you that force employees to lie. It's amazing when employers are handed resumes that are anonymized, such as names, race, and sex information are removed they choose resumes with less bias. Yet you refuse to see that pricing information will cause additional bias on your part.

> Yet you refuse to see that pricing information will cause additional bias on your part. This is why I chose to have my former employers give a different salary figure. If I had told my prospective, new employer I had been making $40k/year, I doubt they would have taken me seriously, and even possibly ended recruitment. "He only makes $40k! He must be bad or stupid!" I don't consider myself bad or stupid, I'm just n…

Post by infinite8s » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:50 AM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #449

louisswiss wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not confusing two sales concepts - you are. I don't know much about 'first to talk', but my limited understanding is that it means just that (the person who engages first in a negotiation comes out worse). Anchoring is about setting the parameters of the negotiation - you don't need to speak first. >>In negotiations, anchoring refers to the concept of setting a boundary that outlines the basic constraints for a n…

Anchoring might work if there wasn't an information asymmetry dynamic at play. But companies have way more data on salaries than applicants do. If you anchor too high, they'll just pass since they know what others are paying and know you won't get that elsewhere. If you anchor too low, the negotiations will be win-win for them. When I was hiring and someone came in too low, I'd often offer well above their anchor sin…

Post by morgante » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 2:06 AM UTC

krenden9 wrote: post #478

morgante wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could have integrity and refuse to answer the question. I've never had a recruiter push back when I said "I can't disclose my current salary, but I'm looking for around $x."

That's nonsense. Just like innocent people with integrity who plead the Fifth. The recruiter will think you're hiding something and you'll be bumped down the list. The analogy of the Fifth is quite appropriate, as the US court system has had bias against defendants who might/do invoke that right. It was only in the previous decade that the Supreme Court made a definitive ruling (in a liberal interpretation of the Fif…