http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2016/08/15/six-ways-you-lose-when-you-reveal-your-salary-history/#41e93ead16a3


If you have been job-hunting lately, you know that it’s become obnoxiously common for recruiters to ask, “What are you earning now?” or “What did you earn at your last job?” very early in the conversation. They will ask, but you don’t have to give them the number they want. It’s a very bad idea for you to give up your salary details. Is the recruiter going to tell you what the other employees in the department are getting paid, or what the person who last held the open position got paid? No way!

Instead of forking over your salary details, you can say, “In this job search I’m focusing on jobs in the $60K range.” All the recruiter really needs to know is what you are planning to earn in your next job — not what you earned in your last job.

You may want to be agreeable and polite and go along with the recruiter’s rude and unprofessional request for your private financial information. If you give up your salary details, you will have hurt yourself in six powerful ways:

• You’ll have set the wrong tone for the relationship. You’ve just told the recruiter, “You are mighty, and I am weak. Ask me whatever you want!”

• You’ll have made it clear that you’re willing to rely on the generosity of the employer. You are a professional. Does the plumber tell the homeowner what the plumber’s last client paid him? Of course not! The plumber simply tells you his or her hourly rate.




If you have been job-hunting lately, you know that it’s become obnoxiously common for recruiters to ask, “What are you earning now?” or “What did you earn at your last job?” very early in the conversation. They will ask, but you don’t have to give them the number they want. It’s a very bad idea for you to give up your salary details. Is the recruiter going to tell you what the other employees in the department are getting paid, or what the person who last held the open position got paid? No way!

Instead of forking over your salary details, you can say, “In this job search I’m focusing on jobs in the $60K range.” All the recruiter really needs to know is what you are planning to earn in your next job — not what you earned in your last job.


You may want to be agreeable and polite and go along with the recruiter’s rude and unprofessional request for your private financial information. If you give up your salary details, you will have hurt yourself in six powerful ways:

• You’ll have set the wrong tone for the relationship. You’ve just told the recruiter, “You are mighty, and I am weak. Ask me whatever you want!”

• You’ll have made it clear that you’re willing to rely on the generosity of the employer. You are a professional. Does the plumber tell the homeowner what the plumber’s last client paid him? Of course not! The plumber simply tells you his or her hourly rate.

• You’ll have given the employer permission to determine your value price based on your last job. If you were underpaid at your last job, by giving up your salary details you’ll be giving a new employer license to underpay you again. Why would you give someone permission to abuse you?

• You’ll have set yourself up to be subjected to even more salary verification. A funny thing about managers whose fearful desire to see the inside of their job applicants’ bank accounts is gratified is that they are never satisfied. Until somebody holds the line with them, they can start to believe that they not only deserve to know what you earned at your last job, but they also deserve to see six months of payslips and your tax return, too! Stand up for yourself and say, “I’m focusing on $60K jobs. Is that job in that range?”

• You’ll have branded yourself, appropriately or otherwise. You have allowed a completely different employer to set your value, no matter how different this new job opportunity might be.

• You’ll have given up negotiating leverage. When you name your target salary number and let an employer consider you in that light, they can still make you a job offer that’s below your number, but it’s not in their best interest to keep you in their recruiting pipeline if they’re planning to do that. If they did, they could easily waste their time. It’s in their best interest to get the salary discussion out on the table early in the recruiting process if they fear that they can’t afford you. If you give them the number they ask for — your current or most recent salary — you’ve set a low bar for your next employer to exceed. If you’ve got the words “excellent negotiation skills” anywhere on your resume, you can prove it by negotiating on your own behalf!

The world is changing fast. If it’s already illegal to ask a job-seeker for their past salary information in the state of Massachusetts — which it will be when a newly signed law goes into effect in 2018 — why would employers or recruiters anywhere want to engage in that predatory and impolite practice? Find your voice and your backbone and give recruiters what they need (your salary target) the next time you’re asked, “What are you earning now?”