Earlier quoted context omitted.
Explain
Mark Begor is the CEO of Equifax since April 2018. The Equifax data breach occurred between May and July 2017.
You're right
Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
141–150 of 805 posts
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#142Is this for the US only?
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could start your own co. and raise your salary to the sky, this can be gamed. But then, why would you even be an employee. However, for the average worker, this is awful
Wouldn't you still need to be a paying Equifax customer to supply that?
Say you were to increase your salary to 500k/y, you work in a lucrative industry for example, I think Equifax charges less than 5k upfront for whatever suite of services they're offering, and if I understood correctly, to gain entry into the service, you simply have to add data into the database.
There's a way to break Equifax, but they're expecting people not to have the balls/time to do it, and I think they're right. You can't expect your average mom of two that works at Walmart to figure this stuff out, it's a tilted playing field.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#144If this is correct, then it would be risky for someone to lie to a new employer about their former salary in order to receive an offer for a higher pay, because the new employer could use this service to cross check the employee's claims.
How can anyone say it’s accurate?
Silver lining is that I don't see any RSU compensation listed in my report! That's the biggest chunk of my earnings anyway, so that should be fair game during negotiations.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#145I checked earlier today and yep, my employer is selling my data and future earnings potential to the company that is infamous for poor data security. A confounding factor is that as a hiring manager, and at least for all the hiring decisions I have been involved in, I know we did not use this to check candidates. So what's the upside? EDIT: ADP Workforcenow appears to do this automatically. I'm curious to find out if…
you know, I spoke with a company not too long ago and they gave me an offer that was 30% lower than what I currently make. The gap was entirely due to not accounting for public company RSU grants (that I had already mentioned)
In hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if their department used this tool to check my current cash income and automatically generated an offer. I wouldn't trust this data for much, and I can almost guarantee that someone in HR/Finance thinks their clever for using it.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#146what is the work number? is this deliberately a confusingly made up name of company and what they do?
My first company out of college used it for when you needed employment verification for buying a house. Your bank could call the number and get all the info they needed.
Why wouldn't you just... call the company?
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I in no way suggested that, please don't pretend I did. We have plenty reason to assume she wasn't.
Then I'm not sure what the point of your post was. Software security is a mess in large part because of the phenomenon you describe.
> Then I'm not sure what the point of your post was.
That "but she has a music degree!" is the least relevant part of evaluating if someone is qualified for such a CISO role or not. Someone with the "wrong" degree but talent and relevant experience would easily beat someone with a fancy "Masters of Information Security" degree that then muddled around in less relevant areas. Focusing on people's degrees is almost always the wrong measure in IT.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#148Very interesting, I didn't expect the accuracy and detail in this data. All of my pay from Intel, Google, Facebook is in here. Qualcomm apparently did not report. Also, Google (my latest employer) pulled the data just before I started working, after giving me an offer. My credit card company pulls the data every month, sometimes 2-3 times per month. Several mortgage originators have also pulled the data even though I…
Does the system not ask for SSN to pull this data? If yes, how did Google get your SSN? Disc: Googler.
IIRC Google requests SSN data for all applicants ahead of interview.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
My first company out of college used it for when you needed employment verification for buying a house. Your bank could call the number and get all the info they needed.
Why wouldn't you just... call the company?
I assume because they wanted to outsource it and relieve HR. I'm not entirely sure but I'm sure offloading any compliance with that data is a benefit too.
Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale
#150Learning that this website exists, and then finding detailed and accurate information in my record is what convinced me to start sharing my salary data with my peers. As I see it, this database is a breach of an implicit social contract between me and the companies that I work for. Since my employers apparently have no issues sharing my salary with their peers, I see no reason not to do the same with my peers.
If all employees share their salary information with each other, it becomes a headache for the employer. Each employee may quote the other person's salary demanding a raise. This is the reason behind the "keep your data confidential" idea.
Rare to hear such a direct, strong argument for a union on HN.