Live data from Hacker News

New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

m.sfgate.com

151–160 of 680 posts

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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

Ok, but know that completely rational nations have decided to go with OPs way(like Norway)

"completely rational nations"

Ah yes, of course, Norway is a rational nation and others are not. For whatever value of "rational" there is. Maybe you mean Norway exceptionally tightening immigration rules after the Swedish terror attacks? Or is it just public reporting of salary you like so much?

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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t need to ask you anymore. You self-reported it to a credit agency and friends, family, potential employers can get that plus other financial information from these agencies.

Where are you seeing this? There is zero income information on any of my credit reports. In addition, if it was so easy to obtain how come my credit card bank still constantly begs me to update my income information?

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-y...

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

They don’t need to ask you anymore. You self-reported it to a credit agency and friends, family, potential employers can get that plus other financial information from these agencies.

[deleted]

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

#154
post #60

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. T…

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

>No thank you.

>My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.

But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entire concept of salary being private was fostered and encouraged by employers for that very reason, because it gives them enormous leverage.

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

#155
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Posting a range "job pays X to Y" runs the risk of every candidate assuming they'd be on the "Y" side, not the lower "X" side. If a candidate wows you, you want to impress them, so you have to have room to go above your posted range, in that case. But then you're being less transparent, once again.

"Posting a range "job pays X to Y" runs the risk of every candidate assuming they'd be on the "Y" side"

Employers know this, so they just adjust their advertised range downwards so that the "Y" in "X to Y" is actually at the low end of the range they're actually willing to pay.

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

#156
post #53
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.

I've done the same, on one occasion I still got the offer. The only time I've given tax info is when I was working for an industry that mandated it (due to working on critical infrastructure and DOE regulatory requirements).

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but know that completely rational nations have decided to go with OPs way(like Norway)

I'd laugh my ass off if the CEO/upper management of any company in the US had to actually report to their employees how much they made, and not just through salary. There would be an uprising.

The full compensation for the officers of any public company is available publicly in their filings.

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

#158
post #60

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. T…

> make all salary information public.

It's a disastrous idea.

First of all, if you mean public as in "the whole world can know", I can't imagine anyone being comfortable with that. Advertisers, family members, people who don't like you, etc... surely you see the problem here.

If by public you mean "only within the company", even this approach will create resentment and hundreds of hours wasted in discussions and negotiations instead of doing productive work. People will constantly argue that they should be paid as much as "X", and then "X" will complain that she needs to be paid as much as "Y", etc...

As someone running a large organization, this is also a logistical nightmare since I usually have very good reasons to compensate X more than Y even if Y might think they should be paid the same amount.

Back to the topic, I've never cared what someone was paid at a previous employer, mainly because they can lie and there's no way to know. Besides, even as a hiring manager, I really think it's none of my business how much that previous employer valued this person.

What matters is here and now. I just ask people how much they want then I counter with what we're comfortable paying, and then we negotiate.

The only thing from past employers that matter is what the person used to do there.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because every time I told a candidate a range, I'd hear back "ok so the salary is {{max_salary}}, cool." Nobody in the contracting world wants to undersell themselves. If somebody on the team is getting 75/hr, everybody better get 75/hr or hell gets raised. This is why the O&G industry out in Houston pushes back hard against any salary-sharing.

But not too hard, right? Because that’s a crime with an outragrous fine. Actually, just the fact you said that might violate the FLSA.

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t need to ask you anymore. You self-reported it to a credit agency and friends, family, potential employers can get that plus other financial information from these agencies.

Where are you seeing this? There is zero income information on any of my credit reports. In addition, if it was so easy to obtain how come my credit card bank still constantly begs me to update my income information?

> In addition, if it was so easy to obtain how come my credit card bank still constantly begs me to update my income information?

I suspect this one has more to do with trying to engage you so that they may sell you more credit.

Post reply on HN