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What to say when they ask you: how much do you make?

nwus.co

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Re: What to say when they ask you: how much do you make?

#11

Post by johnlbevan2 »

The article doesn't mention lying about your current salary / compensation.

Personally I wouldn't; but then I also tend not to negotiate / just roll over and take what I'm offered since generally I care much more about the interestingness of the work & the people I'd be surrounded by each day (though I'm getting to the age where I may start a family; so hopefully my subconscious' priorities will change a bit in my wallet's favour).

However, I suspect that many people do, as this avoids being seen as uncooperative, and suggests that people were willing to pay you more so presumably you're worth it. I doubt anyone would check (likely it's illegal to), so this seems a no-brainer for those ethically unencumbered by this option.

Re: What to say when they ask you: how much do you make?

#12

Post by bane »

In my personal experience, just accumulate every last bit of compensation you make and turn it into a dollar number. That's what you present: salary + health care + bonuses + "free" dry cleaning + whatever. If you think that number is too high to present you can always lop some off the top.

Good recruiters will try to make you parse this out and ask "well how much of this was base salary?". Nunya is the correct answer, but if you want the job you can just make up something or take off the yearly bonus or whatever and keep the rest.

It's their job to get you into the job for as low of a salary as they can. It's your job to get into the job with as high as a salary as you can.

This has killed the process for me a couple of times, but both times the recruiter revealed to me that what I was asking for was far over what they were willing to pay and we both parted ways. I count this as working out because then I would have been in a higher position with less pay than I was currently making just to work at a company with some name brand recognition.

Re: What to say when they ask you: how much do you make?

#16

Post by BrandoElFollito »

I usually ask : why do you need to know? To which they usually respond "so that we can see if you fit in or pay scale". To what I ask what the scale is and I will tell them.

After some back and forth they either give up or give the scale.

If they give up or try to force me to tell, I respond that thank you but I am not interested as there is something strange in their process.

If they tell, it means they really need to gauge because I have a job where the salaries can span half an order of magnitude so it may be useful for them to know if they can afford me.

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