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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

#101
post #76

At the same time, salary information for all California state employees, from the governor to university groundskeepers is publicly available online for anyone to use. transparentcalifornia.com

That site has the most aggressive anti ad-blocker mechanism I have ever seen.

I understand why people do this but holy shit that is obnoxious.

EDIT: UC Coaches some of the highest paid people in the state... sigh.

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

#102
Just to be a devil's advocate here : in a hypothetical scenario wouldn't this allow a candidate to give a fake inflated salary of his past job being well aware that it's illegal for recruiter or employer to investigate if this number is true?

Edit: I think I misunderstood the new law proposed here. It is not even legal for employer to ask the salary of past job. In that case this situation would not even occur.

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

#103
post #54

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…

"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."

That sounds like you are actively exaggerating the amount you have been paid previously to establish a "baseline" of what you are willing to accept as a minimum salary in the job you're applying for. Anyways, from what I understand, the new law does not seem to prohibit you from asking for a salary (range) that the applicant would be willing to accept, just from asking for how much specifically they made in the past.

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

#104
post #39

Why ask when you can just find out during background check. If anything, they should ban background checks completely.

They are prohibited from seeking the information by any means (including background checks), except information which is legally public, such as when the prospective employee is a previous/current public employee.

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

#105
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agents of the employer, such as recruiters, are also prohibited from seeking for this information. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-latest-state...

About to get a hell of a lot harder for contract recruiters to match candidates with expected salary, and match companies with candidates that fall within the salary bounds. Only solution is probably to stress to their clients to just set a max salary and expect to pay it.

how about telling the candidates in front that the expected salary is in the range of x-y.

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

#106
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?

Believe the parent is referring to year over year increases, which are quite common in hot markets. A lot of landlords will jack up rents when it comes time to renew your lease, especially if they know there is room to squeeze you.

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

#107
post #25

I'd be interested to see if this ends up playing out like ban the box (banning employers from asking about former convictions), where it ends up hurting the applicants the law intends to help. ban the box source: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/ban-the-box-does-more-har...

Although banning the box unintentionally hurt those that it attempted to help, it may ultimately be the right move if the problem of the resultant discrimination can be tackled also. A one step back, two steps forward situation.

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

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"If you share and your amount is > the employers, you have no job. Bad situation." If I'm currently employed, that saves me taking time off for interviews, etc. Depends on how desperately you want to leave, in that case, I guess.

This is true - there's a time value included in this. If you can't take off work, or have a family/obligations and need to transition immediately, you may not be able to afford to withhold this information.

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

#109

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…

But then why not just post the salary range?

The truth is, employers are willing to pay $180k, but if someone would work for $110k[1], they'd rather find that out in advance.

Btw, I've had a recruiter from GooglAmaFaceSoft tell me in advance the max may for a position.

[1] I consider this to be a bad idea. An employee who won't negotiate a higher salary will often instead test his or her market value by interviewing elsewhere. Because these employees feel uncomfortable in salary negotiations, they are surprisingly likely to simply take the new job as a way of getting a raise. I think the reason this happens a lot is that negotiating types, who often end up in management, have trouble grasping that someone would actually quit and find a new job for a 10% pay raise rather than simply asking.

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

#110
post #44

Next: Employers should compensate interviewd candidates for their time at a rate equivalent to the position for which they are interviewing.

That’s like a store charging you to try on the clothes you don’t buy. I wouldn’t like that.
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