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Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

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Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#271
post #97
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume such situations occur often in Sweden where it's really awkward if you want to hang out with a crowd from lower social class because they know your earnings. You don't have to be in Sweden to have a pretty good idea within a few minutes of talking to someone, of what the ballpark for their earnings is. Your social class is written all over your face, your clothes, your manners, your manner of speaking, the…

I am technically in the upper class based on income and place of residence. I drive an 11 year old vehicle, wear inexpensive clothes (often plain tees), eat out infrequently, etc. I unintentionally spend more in areas that tend not to be obvious to non-friends. I'd be upset if people could easily lookup my income.

Yes, you are very exceptional. A well-paid employee (or former employee) who lives somewhere nice, dresses like they are in college and drives a beat-up Civic and hopefully saves all his money, I can close my eyes, spin around, throw a rock, and have 20/80 odds of hitting someone who matches that exact description in this town.

But yes, it's possible you are sufficiently outside the grain that you don't have any obvious tells about your social class. And, of course, a dedicated confidence man could fake enough of them to fool enough people enough of the time.

But that would be the exception that would prove the rule. And even if they were publicly available, you have to be deeply pathological to be looking up the tax records of your acquaintances, I can't expect that to be a regular problem in Sweden.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#272

Many years ago, back when companies could ask for your previous compensation [0], a hiring manager once said to me "don't ever lie about your past compensation". I wasn't sure how they could figure this out at the time until someone later pointed out that many corporations do a credit history check on you as part of the background check. This gives them access to past compensation. The information asymmetry here is,…

Lying about my compensation always worked so far

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#274
post #243
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better strategy is to push the conversation in another direction: - My current comp is X, but that's not what I am worth to you. - I've done my research, and someone with my experience is worth Y. I expect at least Y. You set your salary expectations with your opening bid instead of letting them make the opening bid. It's also contingent on you having done your research =)

I cannot dísclose muy current compensation due to an NDA: salaries are company propietary information. I am unable to dísclose that information.

If you are a non-managerial employee, the NLRA explicitly prohibits your employer from restricting you from discussing your compensation.

And anyway, if you’re not in a state that has banned employers from asking for salary information, the recruiter always has the option of shit-canning your application for being non-responsive.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#275
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was being a bit joking and hyperbolic about the billion dollars, though obviously that wasn’t communicated clearly. I don’t really need a billion dollars. I don’t think anything I have right now is very monetizable; most of the fun stuff I work on now ends up being formal methods stuff, which is cool but hard to make any money with. I guess what I was saying is that I think I am ultimately think I am too cowardly t…

Ah, okay. I didn't realize that. My bad!

Given that two separate people didn't understand the joke, clearly bad communication on my end. I do not accept your "my bad!", and instead insist on it being my bad.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#276
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An old neighbor of mine was a headhunter. He once told me that some companies had a trick to get around the law. Upon getting hired, you'd sign a document saying that you'd agree to all policies in the employee handbook. Pretty standard stuff. One of the company policies was that you needed to prove any previous salary you stated in the negotiation. If it was too far off, they'd just terminate you. The trick is that…

Isn’t that too late to negotiate compensation? I had figured most of the value is knowing how to properly lowball candidates

Dunno, kind of sounds like hiring and then negotiating compensation.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical. Credit checks don't give you an accurate picture of your compensation and it's not like they get your transactional banking history or tax documents (yet). Even with that it would be impossible to get an accurate compensation figure within 25%, so while I agree there's an informational imbalance if that's how you're negotiating you've already lost.

The Work Number by Experian gives all past income information. I think many (most?) companies participate in it, so it's somewhat likely your current income is being reported.

See also sibling comment, the Big Three offer free annual credit reports through https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action but I haven't seen work history included. I believe that they do collect & report on this information, but I have been unable to get them to share it with me.
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