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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

#51

Post by dclowd9901 »

nicolashahn wrote: post #5
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…

Kind of off topic but should one always hide their current salary, even if it's above market rate (given their experience on paper)? It seems as though if an employer were only looking to spend so much on a hire, then if you're already likely above that number, wouldn't it save both you and the employer's time? I can see the obvious downside of sharing a relatively low salary, but it seems like there could be benefit…

The only consideration when it comes to salary should be for the employer to consider how much they're willing and able to pay for the average productivity of the next hire vs. that hire's contribution to the company's profitability. They already have the right to fire at any time thanks to lax employment laws; it's only right that pay reflects the profitability an employee brings to a company (rather than the average market rate for an employee). If that employee isn't profitable, then they can be fired. If they are, then they'll be paid commensurate with it. Everybody's happy.

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

#52

Post by distances »

rpowers wrote: post #38

Really wish this would extend to apartment rent applications. I'm fine with a credit check, but they don't need to know how high they can increase my rent before I'll need to move. edit I am referring to my experience renting apartments from Property Management run communities. (Think Essex or Prometheus) Rent increases every year with them.

Isn't the rent usually fixed and known to all renters-to-be? Or did I miss your meaning?

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

#53

Post by dudul »

vultour wrote: post #14

Not an American, couldn't you just tell them a made up number?

I've had companies asked for tax documents prior to giving me a formal offer. They didn't specify the purpose ("it's our process") but I suspect that it was to make sure the current salary I claimed was genuine.

I told them to f- off.

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

#54

Post by bargl »

I've recently been on both ends of the table here. I don't share my previous salary but I'm always willing to share a pay range. The range being higher than I'd ever expect to get paid. I find this to be important when discussing salary with an employer because it gives me a baseline to continue discussions. If they can't meet my bottom line then I'm not interested. The reason I give a range is because salary is only a SMALL part of your compensation package. If there is a yearly bonus program, great medical, 401k matching, vacation, etc. Each of these things need to be considered when accepting a position. Hence the range.

I've also come to expect that I'm going to give a candidate a pay range as well. It is one of the first things I do when trying to on board because if they can't afford to live on the range I'm telling them then I don't want to waste either of our time on discussing a position they can't live on. I'm pretty upfront about this because the worst thing an employee working for me can do is have to start budgeting a lot and be resentful about it.

In my mind this law can really hinder that conversation. I like giving a range and asking a candidate if they can deal with that, but it's really nice when a candidate is secure enough to tell me what they are worth up front as well. I would also recommend against giving anyone a fixed value always always give a range.

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

#55

Post by pmoriarty »

briffle wrote: post #12
nicolashahn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of off topic but should one always hide their current salary, even if it's above market rate (given their experience on paper)? It seems as though if an employer were only looking to spend so much on a hire, then if you're already likely above that number, wouldn't it save both you and the employer's time? I can see the obvious downside of sharing a relatively low salary, but it seems like there could be benefit…

That same employer could save MUCH more time by posting a salary range in the job posting..

I kind of consider salary numbers posted in job ads to be a bit of a red flag. In my experience, when that happens, the company's usually trying to preclude negotiation on a salary that is way below market rate -- and there's amost always room for negotiation, so I see companies that try to do this as probably kind of sketchy (except in the case of some government jobs where they may be required by law to post salaries, and there really is no room for negotiation as their salaries are also set in stone).

The other situation that I've seen this in is job ads posted by recruiters who post way-above market-rate salaries and then try to bait-and-switch you when you answer the ad. Also a big red flag.

Mostly, though, I am interested in negotiating, and don't want to commit to a number even before I've had a chance to make a favorable impression on the employer, because then they could say "well, you knew ahead of time what we were paying, so why are you trying to negotiate?" Well, if they had posted a realistic number or their best possible offer, maybe there'd be no need to negotiate -- but that is virtually never the case.

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

#56

Post by Gargoyle »

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…

If you gather this information in any way from an applicant, you are opening yourself up to a lawsuit that will cost you many multiples of whatever you were hoping to save. Even if you win, which you won't.

Also, "and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking"

So start offering what the job is worth.

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

#57

Post by benji-york »

ciro_langone wrote: post #19
nicolashahn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of off topic but should one always hide their current salary, even if it's above market rate (given their experience on paper)? It seems as though if an employer were only looking to spend so much on a hire, then if you're already likely above that number, wouldn't it save both you and the employer's time? I can see the obvious downside of sharing a relatively low salary, but it seems like there could be benefit…

No, there isn't, unless you're okay with short-selling yourself. If you share and your amount is > the employers, you have no job. Bad situation. If you share and your amount is If you offer the number first, the employer becomes the customer - and the customer is always right. If you wait for them to make you an offer, they have to make an offer that is compelling, in the same way sales people go above-and-beyond to…

I think that holds only if your time is worth nothing. I don't want to go through weeks of interviews just to find out that my salary demands are $50K more than they're willing to pay.

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

#59

Post by rajeshp1986 »

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…

It is a good step towards that. Although top management in companies wants to bridge the gender gap but when it comes to hiring, the HR & recruiters get biased and tend to be biased towards candidates with lower salary expectations. They want to check how much the candidate was getting paid, which gives them more room to bargain with salary expectations.

IMHO, the salary of a job should be based on how much the company is willing to pay to get the job done. It should not be dependent on how much the candidate was getting paid by previous company. What if the previous employer was harassing or taking advantage? how does it matter if I was in my previous job working at McDonald's and getting paid peanuts? Selection of a candidate should be purely based on talent, skills & Merit.

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

#60

Post by geebee »

I'd prefer to see this go in the other direction and make all salary information public.

Right now, employers have far more information than employees, and I don't think this law will do much to change that. To me, it's similar to real estate - imagine if only sellers had access to the database of exactly what every house sold for and when, but buyers had to go with unsubstantiated, scattered rumors. Or vise versa. The side with information would have a monumental advantage.

This law won't do much, if anything, to change the basic dynamic. For what it's worth, I work for a public institution and my salary, and the salary of all my coworkers, is public. The sky hasn't fallen.

If tech companies balk, one approach would be to say that any company using the H1B or other work visas must make all salary information public as a condition of using the visa. After all, if you're experiencing a desperate shortage of workers, it's reasonable for the public to know what salaries you're paying these desperately needed workers in short supply.

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