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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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611–620 of 805 posts

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#611
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get it, and you're not wrong - you'll probably end up with a higher salary operating that way. It's just not for me. I've already reached my "good enough" salary (the hard way), and at this point I'm more focused on what I can give back.

You don't get it. It's not about you. Statistically, with this setup, companies will constantly underpay. Yes, there will be some outliers being overpaid or those happy with their salary, but most will be in fact underpaid.

What don't I get exactly? I said "it's just not for me." I'm not sure how I can be much more clear that the sentiment was in fact about me.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but probably by being much more conservative and relying on the branch managers to have a close working relationship, or long standing banking relationship with the people seeking credit. When that gets more automated - i.e. giving credit to somebody you've never met, then a centralized automated system for verifying trustworthiness is also needed to compensate. It may even have the net effect of allowing some p…

Nothing is stopping anyone from lending, afaik, on other basises. Basees? Ba...sis.

Biases I'd say

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#613
post #606

I've used this before as an employee. While it may also be a bulk dataset of employment information (which any HRS or payroll provider would have), the ostensible use of this solution is, to quote their homepage, "credentialed verifiers with permissible purpose access to income and employment data". Key words there are credentialed and permissible purpose . In other words, it's an automated way for me as an employee…

without having to hunt down someone in HR

When I worked for UPS they specifically told me there was absolutely no way that HR would verify salary/employment over the phone for mortgage applications and the only way to do it was via theworknumber.com. UPS has ~500,000 employees so you can understand why they'd want to offload this work to a third party. I was working with a smaller mortgage company so they grumbled about having to do it this non-traditional way but it all worked out in the end.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Abolish credit Expand? I and probably you are probably working in arrears for our employers. That is, we don't get paid until after the work is done. That is extending our employers a credit line. The same applies for rent, for utilities, for phone data, for taxes... Credit is at the root of every economic crisis because credit is money.

I get paid as soon as my work is done. Sometimes literally and in physical cash. I'm working on transitioning to getting paid for my time before people even enter my office. Credit is money, but it shouldn't be. We allowed it to become money and it's the reason for so much of the insanity we face today.

So you will be indebted to your customers until their time is up.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#615
Did something change recently or did someone just notice this? Verification of employment/income is standard practice in many finance-related fields, and is required to get a mortgage in the US, for example. My company integrates with TheWorkNumber to provide that feature through our app. I can see why people are sketched out by not knowing this was happening, but as someone else said your pay rate is not _really_ private info. I care less about this than I do the credit agencies that have a full record of all of your credit activity, despite definitely not wanting them to have that info.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#616
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Google requests SSN data for all applicants ahead of interview.

Nope. Didn't in my case.

If you work in the US you should be getting a W2 from Google in a month or two. The top left corner will contain your SSN or it's an invalid W2 because the IRS won't be able to verify this is your W2 when you submit it with your tax return.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#617
If I remember correctly, Massachusetts has a law that says that potential employers are not permitted to ask candidates what their previous salary was. The intent of this law is to ensure that people who have been discriminated against in the past will not continue to be discriminated against by new employers who "copy" the treatment of previous employers.

(a) Can anyone confirm that I'm remembering this correctly?

(b) Is this behavior by Equifax not a violation of the Massachusetts law (at least as far as it concerns citizens of Massachusetts, and in the spirit if not in the letter of the law)?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#618
post #606

I've used this before as an employee. While it may also be a bulk dataset of employment information (which any HRS or payroll provider would have), the ostensible use of this solution is, to quote their homepage, "credentialed verifiers with permissible purpose access to income and employment data". Key words there are credentialed and permissible purpose . In other words, it's an automated way for me as an employee…

I think the issue is - do companies who give them information also get access to it for people outside their org

Others have wrote this in the thread, but anecdotally I once tried to push up what I considered a low ball offer, and lied about my current comp. HR quickly said - no, thats not your current comp

I'm pretty sure they didn't reach out to my current company to ask, so the only other option was abusing a system like this

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#619
post #88

NOTE: It is possible to freeze access to your employment data here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze That being said, it doesn't stop employers from continuing to hand Equifax your data on a gold platter, and therefore does nothing to protect you from the inevitable data breach that will result in Equifax being required to give everyone affected $0.36 or one year of free credit monitoring.

Wow placing a freeze requires filling out a PDF form, attaching a scan of your ID, and then sending it in over email, mail, or fax. The PDF lacks built in form fields you can type in. The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...) The Equifax CCPA reques…

>The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...)

I don't get it. how is "PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010" relevant to the claim that "extra friction is probably a feature"?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#620
post #376

I can't even log in because they want to text verification codes to phone numbers that have never been associated with me (maybe they're old work cell numbers?)

Same here. If I try other ways to validate it seems to offer email addresses for people at the company (I'm guessing HR).
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