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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

#341

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Basically if this doesn't already exist I could start a business tomorrow recommending salary offers to employers based on position and applicant. Possible sources of salary info include Job sites where people review and report on salary at their employer, even if anonymous its super likely that figuring out exactly who you are could be less than rocket science. Credit reporting agencies. Bullshit surveys where peopl…

That would be illegal under this new law as well: > The bill also would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information about an applicant for employment and would require an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant for employment. They're not allowed to try to find out from someone else, either. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xht…

They don't have to find out they just have to employ someone who can do so because they aren't beholden to california. You contract out to me wanting only to know how much you should offer. I give you a number. You offer your applicant that number.

I'm not a lawyer but that doesn't seem to be illegal or even a loophole its out of scope.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But have you thought about why you feel this way? Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. I very much understand the concept of leverage and have no problems privately discussing my salary amongst groups that I trust. That doesn't include the entire Internet.

That's a legit concern. Assuming it was possible, if only those in your company could see your salary (and you could see their salaries), would you be in favor of it? I'm also assuming that people in your company don't live in your neighborhood/wouldn't be burglary threats.

If your coworkers know it, everybody knows it. Not only are there blabbermouths and gossips everywhere, a coworker may have an axe to grind against you and will surreptitiously leak the information.

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

#343
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time you apply for a credit card or other form of credit, you generally have to give your income.

I've only given fairly vague numbers on these things. Can't say it's hurt my creditworthiness.

You don't need to be honest in your applications, just consistent. The data you enter becomes "the truth" in their system.

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

#344

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?

While they may have that information, federal laws require them to have you self-report income in regards to credit offers.

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. And what, hide cash in your mattress?

I have read stories about people being taken at gunpoint to the ATM to withdraw their cash, it can happen.

It happened to a close relative of mine. These things DO happen.

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

#346

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As a manager, it's my job to open those cans of worms. It's also my job to be continually helping people improve, so that issues like this never get to the "can of worms" stage.

Surely as a manager you understand that pitting people against each other is a recipe for disaster and not a path toward improvement. In other words, never say "John's code is cleaner than yours", say "I suggest you work on polishing these pull requests".

I think there are plenty of ways to tell person A that they should learn from person B without pitting them against one another.

Normally I talk about this in terms of rubrics for roles and levels. E.g., it's not about Amy versus Betty; it's about how Amy can get from SWE 1 to SWE 2. In the course of that discussion I am totally willing to say, "Pay more attention to the code Betty submits for a code review. She's a solid SWE 2 and you could learn from the way she does X, Y, and Z."

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

#347

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. 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 entir…

>>But have you thought about why you feel this way? Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. I very much understand the concept of leverage and have no problems privately discussing my salary amongst groups that I trust. That doesn't include the entire Internet.

If we had more equality, which would be a result of forcing all salary info to be public, you wouldn't have to worry as much about being robbed.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any prospective employee who asks me is going to get an answer that is 20% lower than the other job description they were eligible for prior to asking.

Why are you so hostile to someone wanting to know the most basic parameters of the job?

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

#349
I doubt this will work as intended. Candidates who have been well paid and know it will volunteer this information. Candidates who do not, one could assume, have a lower salary history.

Not having salary history increases the risk of a bad hire. Hence, I expect offers in general to be lower under such a law to compensate for the extra risk.

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living below my means doesn't mean I live like my neighbors. My house is roughly the same as everyone around me. The contents of the house are not (and they are private), and yet I still live well below my means. I have a semi-nice TV, and more importantly, expensive computers like pretty much everyone on HN to do my job.

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Because robbers tend to rob wealthy people? You get looted or shot more likely, because the robbers don't know this guy lives a humble life. They think this guy must have cash and big TV.
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