I've only changed jobs once, but I do talk to enough people who are responsible for hiring to know some of the thought processes.
Potential employers want to know your salary so that they can avoid paying you more than required. What's the required amount? The benchmark that's informally thrown around is 20% more than the last pay. It seems that's the magic number to convince people that it is worth the hassle of changing jobs, trying to fit into a new environment...
One thing they (the hiring people) also like to know is how long you stayed at a job. Using industry standards for yearly increments, based on your past salary, they can guess your starting point or even guess whether you have had any increments.
What they will then do is make an educated guess whether you are a sucker for punishment. If they can tell you've been in a job for some time without any pay movement, they've won. They know it must have been some tremendous push factor that made you want to leave, something along the lines that you're tired of not getting more monetary compensation or job satisfaction has fallen till unspeakable lows. Power in the negotiation swings to their side.
I think when negotiating anything, it is always best to reveal as little as possible. Your past salary is one of them.
On another note, and this is anecdotal evidence - employers who pay just enough for you to jump ship and join their company and NOT pay you for the value of the work you're about to do or that they know you can contribute, are most likely employers who will bleed you to death in the work environment.
>employers who pay just enough for you to jump ship and join their company and NOT pay you for the value of the work you're about to do or that they know you can contribute, are most likely employers who will bleed you to death in the work environment.
"As a matter of professional courtesy, I decline to answer questions about specific policies of previous employers. Your client should be able to appreciate this, considering that a few years from now it will be their trust that I am protecting."
"Unfortunately, like many other aspects of my employment, my compensation is covered under NDA with my previous employer. I take my promise not to disclose very seriously."
If you did sign an NDA, in all likelihood you cannot disclose your salary without violating the terms.
Or, you could just be direct, like I was the last time I did interviews:
"How much do you earn at your current position?"
"The salary of an academic at a public institution, and I expect to be paid more if I work for your company."
It's not really true that you can't disclose your salary after signing a generic NDA, but it's a valid argument to say that it'd be discourteous to do so.
yes, great point. i've seen policies where salary information is to be kept confidential, and it makes sense. in many instances, the job-seeker will shift to a competing company. it is wrong for them to divulge confidential business information (i.e. salary) of their former employer to competitors, and it's crazy how divulging such information is standard practise!
Another way of putting it is "My current employer regards salary as confidential and proprietary information." If they push, ask if your potential employment would include information that they expect you to keep confidential.
I interviewed at a small company my friend worked at (he was highly placed so his reference all but guaranteed the job). Sailed through the interview process (standardized C/C++ programming test - ugh) until I met with the CEO. He asked me what my salary was and I declined, stating that I wanted to hear what salary range they had in mind for the position. The CEO became very angry, claiming that in all his years no one had ever refused to disclose their salary. Interview was ended promptly and I got an email a couple days later saying they couldn't offer me the job.
I talked to my friend about it after and he was very surprised about what happened. Everyone else on the team liked me but the CEO nixed the deal claiming I was difficult. I think you need to be prepared for this kind of reaction if you choose to not disclose your salary. Though in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't end up taking the job. My friend left after a year after butting heads too often with the CEO.
Sounds like you saved yourself a lot of pain. A nice rule of thumb for jobs can probably be- if you get axed from a job by doing something completely rational like this you should never work at that company. You got to remember once you get hired you have to work there.
I've noticed a disturbing trend for some of the larger recruitment agencies in London to insist on knowing your salary. They've refused to pass on my CV without it. Worse, they claim it's the HR departments who are driving this, but that's plainly false - I've asked several very senior HR people and they've never heard of an HR department requiring current salary details along with CVs.
I suspect that the agencies are aggressively trying to gather valuable salary data, for their own purposes.
On the flip side I'm hiring in London for Yell and our HR use agencies. I've seen the salary information be used by agencies to pitch someone fractionally above what they're currently on, and lower than we're prepared to pay, just to help ensure they get the placement and kick back. They're more concerned with getting placements at all rather than finding the right person for the job (and making me a happy client) or increasing their revenue per placed candidate.
I dislike this, it's not helping me find the best candidates, and it's not rewarding the best candidates accordingly (I want them to not have money as an issue so that they are not stressed at work about silly things outside of work... so I want to pay them more than they need to a point of comfort). In fact it closes career progression off from the candidate, as progression is usually paired with salary increase to acknowledge the maturity of experience and skills acquired.
As a result of this I flatly refuse to act on salary information and keep it out of the interview. I'm not interested in money and hope that the candidate isn't either... we'll pay well enough for it not to be a worry without paying too much that it is a burden too much for us. The rest of the game, other companies can play that.
I'm possibly naive.
[edit]If you're wondering, whilst I do entertain the process and do act on agency CVs, we've hired way more people directly (us finding them or them finding us) as the quality of the candidate is way higher. CVs are so bad at communicating passion, creative thinking, actual technical skill... even more so once an agency filters them.
I'm currently working as a programmer in London, and I'd love to know how do you go about finding them, and what I could do to be easily found. I realise it's a little off topic but I'd appreciate any response you may have.
There are two approaches I use:
1) You find one of us (we're tweeting, we're on linkedin, we have blogs, we're on hackernews, etc).
2) We find you.
The earlier one depends on who you're aiming at, but go follow the people you want to work with, engage in them and if they ponder ideas try fleshing them out or producing prototypes and blogging about it... it will get their attention.
The latter one is a question of where we're likely to look. My preferred option at the moment is IRC dev channels for the specific skill I'm looking for, or a search of github for projects that are somewhat related and then approaching those people. If you do the github route then make sure there's a way that people can get in touch... leave a readme markdown with email address, and ideally a link to a fuller profile page (just not one that requires a login... don't link to facebook).
Also on the "we'll find you" route would be open source projects related to the area in which you want to work. Go fix bugs, lots of them... get yourself known amongst those teams. Want to work in a devops shop? Then fix Puppet and Cobbler bugs and make well-made Puppet scripts. Want to work in a rails team? Then go find some large open source rails project or rails itself and get known there.
This all falls into networking of course, but this isn't meet for a beer networking, it's doing stuff that we're mutually interested in... constructing the opportunities to cross paths. It works.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write a response, it's very much appreciated. I've recently started playing with node.js and it's capturing my imagination. That coupled with what you've written makes me think it's time for me to find an open source module to help contribute to.
In terms of direct company-to-developer advertising, Twitter seems to be very popular these days, and to a lesser extent local programming language groups/mailing-lists.
Recruitment based upon github activity seems to be popular among startups as well.
I'm currently working on a UK based startup that should hopefully make direct company-to-developer hiring easier for both parties (in the US you have StackOverflow's Careers site, but there's nothing really comparable for Europe).
Last time I went for an interview I learned that you should not be honest about your salary ... let me try to explain.
I am at a certain level in a big company with a salary range that is quite large. Many people at my level earn £5000 - £7000 more than me, mainly because they have been around in the company a lot longer.
In my last interview, I was offered a job and the company offered me my current salary + about £5000 (I was honest about what I was earning when they asked). Now, being that many of my collegues were currently earning that for doing the same job as me, I always wondered if they would still have offered me a £5000 bump if I had exaggerated my salary by £5k to start with.
I guess I will never know, and I didn't take that job for other reasons, but the guy really wanted me to work there, and I got the impression that he was trying to tempt me in with an offer that is just big enough compared to my current salary, without really reflecting on my skills and what they were worth.
I decided then that my salary would be exaggerated a little to any agencys or interviewers who ask so I can try and negotiate a better deal, ethical or not.
Maybe correct. Ideally I'd like them to make me an offer based on what they think I am worth, considering market rates etc.
However if they insist on me revealing my salary, I am going to assume its so they have try and gauge how much it would take to make me jump to them, which is (in my mind) on the same ethical level as my exaggerating my existing salary to try and negotiate a better deal.
Interesting - I think think that is way out of line, but maybe it adds weight to the argument of point blank refusing to reveal your salary at all. Perhaps I should reconsider my strategy :-/
I think there are a few edge cases where you can disclose your salary, like if you're on the high end because you've been at a company for a long time, and don't expect to get that much elsewhere, you can tell them, and also tell them you're flexible.
However, if you're looking to move up, don't tell anyone. Let them give you a number, and you can then choose to negotiate. If you're getting 110 now and want to move to 120, but they offer 80, obviously this isn't a good fit, even if they could be convinced to go higher.
When a recruiter calls you, demand two things before spending time on an interview (even a phone one). Salary expecations, and details about the team, like the manager's name, or the specific product, or something. This will weed out the recruiters who just scan public job listings, and let you deal with the ones who are actually doing their job and playing matchmaker. It will save you a ton of time and stress.
Ummm, for the high end case, it's more like "You can tell them and have them not hire you because they fear you'll be dissatisfied at making less money".
You might be surprised how many people out there have fooled themselves into thinking their company is so great that people will work for them for a discount.
“I don't pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.” - Robert Bosch
I find overall HR/recruiting at big organizations are totally out of hand lately, not sure if they have always been. They ask a bunch of probing personal questions, such as salary, if they offer you a job you have less then 24 hours to decide, even though the whole interview process took several weeks, and the job might involve packing up and relocating across the country, etc.
I've trained myself to start each conversation with the recruiter with the following: I will not divulge my salary information, and I will need at least 14 days from the time I get the job offer to decide. If you are up front it usually isn't a problem. Also it is best to get the hiring manager's contact information so you can potentially go over the recruiter's head. At the end of the day, the HM will care much more then the recruiter.
I think you're right. They want to close the deal because they may have been searching for a new hire for a while, and they can only field ONE offer at a time. If you decline, they want to know as soon as possible so they can offer to the next choice. If every offer takes two weeks to resolve, it could take a month or two to make a hire AFTER a number of good candidates have come through.
Me: I insist on maintaining certain personal requirements when conducting any business. One of those requirements happens to be never revealing salary data.
Them: Not willing or able to respect my personal requirements.
I relocated to US in 2007 after working in India for about 8 years. My best friend also moved to US and we were both working in the same company in the US. Once, while negotiating a raise, my friend brought up my salary since he knew what I was making. The HR manager sent me a polite, but firm email asking me never to discuss my salary with colleagues in the future. She painted it as a cultural thing -- that in the US people don't discuss what they make. Since then I have never disclosed my salary details to my colleague - the subject never came up actually.
It is funny how it is totally uncool to discuss your salary with your colleague, but you are expected to disclose it when asked by a stranger working for a competitor.
Not true. My friends and I discuss this often. There are some people you don't want to tell, those that obviously will get jealous or tell the world. But friends? Friends are friends for a reason!
Though, using someone else's salary point as a reason for your salary is not really a smooth move. No two people are the same, and just because you make more or your friend makes more, doesn't mean one is better than the other.
Is this common in the states? In Denmark, employers usually ask you what you expect to be paid for the job you're interviewing for, but they never ask what you are currently being paid. Ofcourse, you should always dodge the question to let them give a number first and take it from there, but still, I've never had anyone ask me specifically what I make at my current job.
If they don't now, they will in a few years. We had the same evolution here in Belgium & the Netherlands, late 1990's or early 2000's recruiters wouldn't ask overly let alone require it. Nowadays they try hard to get you to disclose. I think one of the reasons is what is cited above, for the statistics for internal use. In time they will get more sophisticated and they'll start asking.
Aside, isn't there a website in Denmark where you can look up people's salaries? Or is that in Sweden?
As far as I know, your tax records are private. There are however surveys and a lot of unions ask members to disclose salary (with no personal information) so they give out "average wages" for specific areas, such as system development, web development, general programming, etc. (these samples were taken from one of the IT-focused unions). So it gives you an estimate of where your average should be and you can work from there.
I still haven't been aggressively asked by employers what I make now, but I have been asked aggressively what I wish for (as in, you tell us first and we'll say yes/no/maybe).
How are you to be sure what above-average salary is? You may think you are asking for above-average but instead just asking for average. Your better selling your self as above-average and use that to bump up the salary after their initial offer
My wife had this experience a while back when interviewing at a mid-tier semiconductor company. She was asked to disclose her current salary and refused. They became very insistent that the process could not continue until she disclosed it, and that they had a company policy of not giving any new hire more than a 10% bump. They ended up wanting to make her an offer anyway (she turned them down), so it's certainly possible to refuse and not lose the opportunity in some cases, even when they are very insistent.
I'm with everyone else that you don't want to work at a place so unreasonable that they won't hire you for something like this. I assume that if you asked them for a salary histogram for the position you're applying for, you'd get laughed out of the building. Maybe it would be help to mention that.
In my experience these steps have helped me get a higher salary.
1. Say your current salary is 20% higher than it actually is when interviewing.
2. Once you get a job offer say you are very interested in the position you just need $5k more to accept this position today . If they say no the 1st offer will still stand.
3. When yearly reviews come around, act grateful but slightly disappointed in the raise (unless it is HUGE).
If you feel these are dishonest that is fine, but the reality is that most companies will take advantage of you if you don't look out for yourself.
For example, If you interview for a position where the industry average is 60k and you say the range you are looking for is 45-75k. Your offer will be very close to 45k. Even though the company knows 60 is the industry average.
It's always seemed a little odd to me that there is such a culture of secrecy around salaries. It seems so counter-productive: it means that salary doesn't really reflect competence, effectiveness or anything else related to the work someone is doing - it just reflects someone's ability to negotiate well in an interview. I think that's a shame.
Wouldn't it be great if companies could just come out with a figure they thought you were worth to them, not how little they could get away with or anchored on what you were worth to your previous employer.
I have noticed a stigma, admittedly on low/no skilled jobs, of people asking for salary details as part of the interview process then accepting jobs without even knowing pay rate. Does this happen at all in software, I guess with new graduates some companies would give off the "we're doing you a favor in hiring you at all" vibe.
I asked someone for advice on whether or not I should tell my salary if asked during a interview or by a recruiter over the phone. My friend said, tell them. Big mistake.
It was early on my career so I was making 40K. I applied for a job that I could do with my eyes closed. I aced the interview with flying colors. Then I got a call a day after the interview from HR and the first question was "May I ask what your current salary is?" I told them. Now before I say anything someone from within the company recommended me. He told me that the average for that position and title for the company is 55-65K.
The HR person low balled me at 45K. We talked and the highest she was willing to go was 48K, she would NOT budge above that. I did the standard, let me think about it and I'll get back to you. Called her back a few days later, with my case and she still would not budge, so I turned it down.
Don't mistaken, until they give you the offer and you are filling out HR forms, do not tell them your salary, that doesn't mean lie just tell them you dont want to reveal it. One of the things I have done is give them a range if they are really pushy, usually a huge range just to make a point that I dont want to reveal it.
Time ago, I remember being offered the same salary I had, or even less. They (it happened more than once) must have thought I was lying. Those interviews were very brief. Once trust is broken, there's nothing they could do to restore it.
Worse. Similar job in a not so prestigious company. I would also take a cut (not now, I just can't earn less) to get a more interesting job. But that wasn't the case.
Sounds like someone wants to get both goods of an issue. They wish to know your salary so that they can minimize the offer they give you. On the other hand, afterwards they firmly demand that you won't tell your colleagues what your salary is.
As long as I don't know what they pay to their employees (and thus have no reference point for negotiations) I certainly wouldn't give them my salary (and give them a nice reference point). It's an open negotiation situation, then. I have a hard limit below which I won't accept and some soft limit that I expect from the company. They have theirs. Then it's bracketing down until both are happy or the deal blows up.
though compensation is not necessarily the main thing that retains an employee, it is important. for that matter, any good hr clown will know that a compensation satisfied* employee is going to be a longer term, happy employee. why try to stiff someone out of a few potential ten's of thousand just to make the books look better?
noted that no one's really ever satisfied with their compensation, but the point being that it's not hanging over your head daily that the work you do is not commensurate with what they pay you relative to others.
Some dishonest advice about this - Give them false data to boost your own negotiation. If the perceived delta between your old salary and the new one your are asking for doesn't seem unreasonable, then you can likely get it.
This is a pet peeve of mine. So often it seem to be one of the very first questions asked, it basically seems to be de rigueur these days (and I can understand why potential employers do it, from a negotiation standpoint). It's not that I think you should try to inflate your current salary or mislead in any way, but it just seems so forward and plain impolite.
I'd be interested in any real-life experiences others might have had similar to this and whether you've managed to avoid coming off as sneaky/deceptive/dishonest as a result.
I will disclose my total compensation (but not my salary) to competent recruiters/headhunters from good companies. The reason I disclose total comp is that it enables a like-for-like comparison. Now, because these recruiters know my current package, they will only contact me about substantially larger opportunities. I think this is a win-win. Based on my experience so far, I don't think that disclosing my total comp necessarily 'anchors' the package for the new role.
Somebody enlighten me: in this day and age, with, you know, the Internet, why do recruiters exist at all? Why don't people just go up to companies and ask for jobs? Why don't companies go out and try to find people themselves? It seems like the results would be completely guaranteed to be better.
I have no problem telling my salary, and getting screened out for it. My salary is in the upper range for my position already, so I prefer to be screened out vs. wasting my time in interviews for a position on which we never could have reached an agreement.
Also, your initial salary at a company is just a starting point. If you come in low, then prove your worth, you will get decent raises.
On the other hand, if you negotiate your way to a high salary, and fail to perform, you are first against the wall when the revolution comes.
for the record, i've always disclosed my salary information directly when asked during the offer phase, this was in america. i agree with mr. sethi that this information should include all benefits, that's actually sage advice, stock options, gym benefits, that should all be factored in or else you're selling yourself short.
in china it seems that HR and headhunters really want to know about your salary information even before you're offered an interview, perhaps this is to save everybody time if say your expectations are widely over the range.
hr for each company typically gets a benchmark against other companies for a certain position, this offers them a range, high, low, average. the question really becomes where they place you in that range, if you tell them what you're currently making, they'll probably just throw you a standard overage on top of your current and make sure it fits the range. if you don't tell them what you're currently making, they'll just try to guess where to put you in that range, if the hiring manager really wants you then you're probably in luck, this also has advantages if you're relatively certain that you're underpaid as you could see increases well over your current salary + overage.
either way, i don't believe in lying about your salary even though you know they probably have no way to check.
This is something I've dealt with as well. My usual strategy, when asked, is to ask what the employer plans on offering and if they push to see what I was making before I'll give them a ballpark figure of what I'd like to be making in the new position (usually what I was making before +10-20%). I've found that in the US in certain industries (such as finance) this question is almost always asked and if you refuse to answer, they'll just find out in the background check and will revoke the offer if they find too much of a disparity in the numbers. I've always been told it's better to be honest about it up front than to have them find out after the background check that you've exaggerated your numbers.
Wow Ramit must be happy with that piece, it is like NYT reposted one of his blog posts verbatim! Ramit has some great tips, his general message seems to be get off your lazy ass a do something about your finances!
I think it's in your best interests to avoid disclosing it if you can do so without losing the opportunity. However once you've been selected and the company is negotiating an offer, disclosing your compensation to the employer (and not a recruiter) isn't so bad.
The two worst cases are that you lose the offer (because you're too expensive or too cheap) or get a low offer (because they are willing to pay more but decide to base their offer on your previous compensation). If you go your separate ways, you are free to start the negotiation process all over again with another employer.
Disclosing your compensation to a recruiter is an absolute no. You are instantly and immediately disclosing your compensation to every employer, for all time.
Potential employers want to know your salary so that they can avoid paying you more than required. What's the required amount? The benchmark that's informally thrown around is 20% more than the last pay. It seems that's the magic number to convince people that it is worth the hassle of changing jobs, trying to fit into a new environment...
One thing they (the hiring people) also like to know is how long you stayed at a job. Using industry standards for yearly increments, based on your past salary, they can guess your starting point or even guess whether you have had any increments.
What they will then do is make an educated guess whether you are a sucker for punishment. If they can tell you've been in a job for some time without any pay movement, they've won. They know it must have been some tremendous push factor that made you want to leave, something along the lines that you're tired of not getting more monetary compensation or job satisfaction has fallen till unspeakable lows. Power in the negotiation swings to their side.
I think when negotiating anything, it is always best to reveal as little as possible. Your past salary is one of them.
On another note, and this is anecdotal evidence - employers who pay just enough for you to jump ship and join their company and NOT pay you for the value of the work you're about to do or that they know you can contribute, are most likely employers who will bleed you to death in the work environment.