Comments on: Should you reveal your salary expectations on job applications?

By: Evil HR Lady

Evil HR Lady — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:53:49 +0000

In reply to Jay from Philly. It's not just executive jobs. There's almost always wiggle room in exempt level jobs. Hourly jobs? Not generally as much.

By: Jay from Philly

Jay from Philly — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:25:45 +0000

Evil HR Lady, I do wonder about those salary negotiations. Perhaps in some level executive jobs this goes on, but I’ve been in the workforce for 25 years, and every job I ever had paid what it paid, no matter who the candidate was.

By: Evil HR Lady

Evil HR Lady — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:33:16 +0000

In reply to SunnyCA. Honestly, I'm not sure I could tell you my salary at every job I've ever had. And the salary at my last job is deceiving because it was part time. And with the pay bands, it's extra stupid to ask about pay, because as you said, it pays what it pays. And as someone who has spend untold hours battling a wage discrimination case brought by the OFCCP, I know just how important those paybands are. (We won, by the way.)

By: SunnyCA

SunnyCA — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:11:04 +0000

Our company not only asks for your salary expectations, we also require a copy of a paycheck from your current (or most recent) job and your salary at every job you’ve ever had. It’s very invasive and it does cost us some good applicants. I would say that 8 times out of 10 the salary expectation figure is used to the disadvantage of the applicant and savvy candidates tend to leave it blank. If you have confidence that your skills and experience are a match, leave it alone. They can always call you and ask. Also, occasionally, people refuse to provide us with a pay stub and usually, if they are qualified for the job and we like them, it doesn’t matter. The prior salary history is basically ignored unless there’s a huge jump from say $15/hour at a first job to $100k per year at the next one, with no obvious reason (e.g., finished MBA). If you have this issue, be prepared to explain. When you apply to a larger organization, typically, the compensation bands are pretty well established. The company doesn’t want to have to justify in court why they happen to pay employees in some protected category less than white males, so regardless of what you made before, you will be offered compensation that puts you within $2-3k per year of current employees doing the same job with the same level of experience and education. To get more than that, you have to show that you belong in the next higher band –which could lead to your being considered “overqualified” for the position, so be careful.

By: Henning Makholm

Henning Makholm — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:39:46 +0000

@JC: An even quicker, lazier and easier way to simply reject people would be to say “we’ve decided not to move you forward” and not volunteer an explanation.

It’s not as if employers NEED a sneaky way to weasel out of hiring somebody. If they’d prefer not to hire anyone, the quick, lazy and easy way to achieve that is simply not to post a job! If there’s someone in particular they don’t what to hire, then the quick, lazy and easy way is to don’t. If they want to arbitrary exclude a random selection of the field in order to make evaulation easier, then the quick, lazy and easy way to do that is to throw dice. Or ask everybody which tree they’d be and only consider those who answer the same as the guy you’re replacing.

By: JC

JC — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:34:31 +0000

No, it is just a quick, lazy and easy way to simply reject people. In today’s “new normal”, HR, nor anyone, should be allowed to think and feel for potential talent on what they will and will not accept for a job opportunity. Life is not always a simple statistic.