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New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

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Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#41

Post by jonathankoren »

dogma1138 wrote: post #32
pmoriarty wrote: post #4

This is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask). But, IANAL. (Correction: It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.) I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never…

Recruiters need to find candidates for a given range. Considering the breath of paygrades for even similar experience level jobs across the tech sector it’s not that surprising. If a company looks for some one for say 100-120K you are wasting your time and the recruiters time if you won’t take any offers below 180. Whilst you might find an employer who’ll be willing and able to go 5-10% over the max it’s not likely t…

This is a valid concern, but a much more appropriate way of addressing expectations is to simply say “This role pays 100-120k depending on experience. Is this acceptable?”

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#42

Post by dominotw »

chollida1 wrote: post #3

> The goal is to narrow the gender wage gap. If a woman is paid less than a man doing the same job and a new employer bases her pay on her prior salary, gender discrimination can be perpetuated, the bill’s backers say. Hmm, I'd never thought about that angle,but I guess it makes sense. No word on if they are allowed to use Equifax, etc to pull salary data from? EDIT: looking at the bill it looks like querying Equifax…

What about this

> We get the market rates through a company called Radford. [1]

Is "Radford" still allowed to pull salary data?

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d...

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#45

Post by [deleted] »

pmoriarty wrote: post #4

This is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask). But, IANAL. (Correction: It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.) I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never…

[deleted]

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#46

Post by smallnamespace »

This is not going to be nearly as helpful as people think, as long as it's still legal for employers to verify salary once it's been revealed.

People who know or suspect that their salary is above the average applicant's will volunteer it to the prospective employer. Other people will choose not to disclose.

We will reach an equilibrium where non-disclosure will be an honest signal of lower current salary.

The main difference from the current state is that employers won't know the exactly salary of the lower non-disclosing applicants -- this helps people at the absolutely bottom of the 'non-disclosure' range, but hurts those who are just below the average salary. It should have no strong effect on people with above-average salaries who choose to disclose.

Of course, if employers aren't allowed to verify voluntarily disclosed salary, then many people will just lie.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#47

Post by alexanderstears »

duskwuff wrote: post #37
bentruyman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because it's always been legal for you to refuse to give that information.

And it was equally legal for companies to drop you from consideration for a job if you refused. :/

That's how price discovery can work in markets.

"How much is that tomato?"

"$5"

"Yikes. Too much for me. Thanks for your time"

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#48

Post by bdamm »

pmoriarty wrote: post #4

This is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask). But, IANAL. (Correction: It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.) I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never…

When asked about my salary, I always answer with the salary I wished I had. There's no requirement to tell the truth.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#50

Post by sharemywin »

sefpfi12 wrote: post #35

I don't think this is a right way to go about trying to narrow the gender wage gap. Half of the reason we have one (a wage gap) is because it's taboo in America to reveal how much you get paid with your co-workers. It makes no sense to me why that is the case, all it does it allow the company to screw you over more. The solutions should be to have each company come up with there own publicly available pay scale that…

The problem with that is an employer doesn't have any discretion on using pay increases as feedback for performance.
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