Here is a new Human Resources controversy.
- Nick Corcodilos, of Ask the Headhunter, advises you to never disclose your salary to a recruiter or company during your job search.
- Dave Hardwick disagrees — and he asked for my two cents.
Most recruiters, HR professionals and compensation experts will initially hate this advice, which is why I really like it. Ideally, the job pays what it pays. If you are qualified to do the job, your salary history should not make a difference.
Unfortunately, as a former recruiter and HR professional, I know that employers feel entitled to this information. If you refuse to provide this information, we are worried that you have something to hide. It is stupid logic — not based on anything other than suspicion. Unfortunately, we all know that poor HR business practices and stupid assumptions will keep you from getting a job offer.
I have never withheld my salary history, but I absolutely love the audacious recommendation. It is bold, yo, and requires the candidate to prove — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that she has what it takes to do the job.
What do you think? Have you withheld your salary history? What are your thoughts as a Human Resources professional or a candidate for a job?
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I’ve never asked for salary history. I do ask for a candidate’s salary expectations. Largely, this is because I work for a nonprofit and we’re on a different salary structure than a lot of the for-profit world, so I want to make sure pretty early on that we and the candidate aren’t terrible far apart.
That said, for many, many jobs, I simply post the salary up front, so candidates know what it is from the start.
In the handful of cases where I don’t post the range, it’s because I might be willing to go significantly outside of the basic range for the right person, and I don’t want to inadvertently make someone think they’re priced out if they might not be.
The next time on the job-seeker’s side of this, I think I’ll use Nick’s idea about saying that my salary is covered by my confidentiality agreement with my employer. That’s pretty awesome.
I have always been wary of the “must include salary history to be considered for x position” line in some postings I’ve seen. If the employer has $40,000 in mind for salary, but you see I’ve been making $30,000 do they low-ball and offer the same salary or a smaller increase? I realize anything higher than current salary would be good, but what if I’m driving farther, or having to pay parking fees, or any other number of factors that might affect my salary requirements?
On the flip side, what if I’m making $40,000 now, but your job that pays $30,000 is closer to home, or more related to my field, or offers a benefit my current employer doesn’t or can’t? Will that exclude me because you think you can’t afford me before we’ve had a chance to talk?
It just raises a whole host of issues completely unrelated to how well I might mesh with Company X, or how this particular job fits in my career plan or your succession plan, or whatever. (And I believe “whatever” is the technical term for “everything else.” I’m not certified in HR so that may be wrong…)
Asking for salary history, for me, is pure stupidity. What’s the point? There’s a pay range assigned to the job — what’s to be gotten by asking what a person used to make? What if they didn’t make anything because they stepped off the career track for the last 10 years so they could save the world (or at least a small part of it). Why does what a person used to make matter for what they could make?
This is about qualifications. Otherwise, in my view, this is a latent form of discrimination. Stupid HR practices are indefensible. Asking for pay history is one of those.
Especially in this economy, previous salary is irrelevant to salary expectations. We interviewed a guy for controller recently who was making 30% more than we’re thinking the job is worth at our company, got laid off, and is now happy with 20% under market.
That said, until I got there, my company had gotten into a bad habit of asking for new hire W2s as part of the post-offer process, as a way of “building trust.” This is a good reason why you never let engineers decide on HR matters. They never once “caught” anyone and built up immediate ill will with the new hire. You can see why they needed me. (Or someone like me.)
I don’t care at all what someone ONCE made, I want to know what they WANT to make and how that relates both to market and to what the job is worth for our particular circumstances and strategy.
I’m in the same boat as Ask a Manager since we’re both from non-profits. Even though we have a salary range sometimes there just isn’t money budgeted for that position. In order to avoid wasting people’s time we post the salary with the job. Of course we still ask people what they’re looking for because they seem to think our number is just a suggestion and that we’ll magically pay them thousands more.
early in my recent job search, i had a wonderful phone interview for a super interesting position. everything was going great until the HR manager asked about my previous salary. and i, stupidly, told her. then she grew cold and they didn’t move forward with a f2f interview. the disheartening thing was, i would have taken a paycut without question (given the current economy and job marekt).
i recently accepted a job offer with a company who brought me in for three interviews over the course of one month. but before they even proceeding with that process, instead of asking what i had previously earned, the HR manager gave me a ballpark figure of what the salary would be, followed by, “is that acceptable for you in terms of moving forward with the interview?” it was, i thought, the perfect way of handling it.
I’ve only had jobs with five different employers, two via headhunters. I was always asked. I always revealed, but before I did, I asked if there was a range and said I expected to be at the top or close to it. (To the headhunter I would go further and say that if I found out I wasn’t at or near the top, I would, within a short period of time (vague), expect to be there at that company or I would be looking.)
When I hire, I don’t ask. As OP said, there is no point. I know what I can pay and at the second interview I will give the low end of the range, sometimes the middle, but I don’t hesitate to get to the top if I’m high on the candidate.
For the past five years, I’ve refused to disclose, and oddly enough, I also cite a non-disclosure. We all know it’s pure BS, but my salary is NOBODY’S business.
As a candidate, I am happy to discuss expectations — I’m not interested in wasting anyone’s time, and I understand that we need to be at least in the same chapter if not on the same page. But that’s as far as I’ll go, and if that’s a dealbreaker, I don’t want to work for you.
In my current line of work, negotiating skills are critical. If I were hiring for my team and a candidate DID disclose their salary history without forcing me to disclose corresponding pay information, it would be a strike against them in my mind. Information asymmetry is one of the most important factors in a negotiation, and I
**If you refuse to provide this information, we are worried that you have something to hide.**
HR could also be worried that a candidate might be gay, Iraqi, pregnant or a union instigator. So what? None of those things are any of HR’s business any more than salary history is. HR folks who worry about matters that are none of their business should seek counseling.
**Unfortunately, we all know that poor HR business practices and stupid assumptions will keep you from getting a job offer.**
True. Better that a candidate should know this up front, in order to avoid working for a company whose HR practices and stupid assumptions make working at the company a living hell. Acknowledging stupid HR practices doesn’t mean the rest of the world should just bow and scrape and think, “Aw, gee, we all know HR behaves this way, so let’s just be REAL MEN (you, too, ladies) and suck it up.”
Kudos to those who say NO.
To me, asking for a candidate’s salary history is like asking to see not just a company’s rates, but their actual invoices for their other clients. It’s none of their business.
I always ask for compensation information. This discussion has made me think a bit more of why and how I do it and why I’m okay with it.
Many of my clients are start ups, and some with a good understanding of the compensation they’ll need to pay, and others with no clue. I ask my clients what they’d like to pay and what they are willing to pay before getting started.
When I ask a candidate for compensation information I’m really looking to get an understanding of what is going to make them move from their current position. I don’t ask for proof. It’s motivation that I’m looking for. I explain my reasons for asking to every candidate.
Comp discussion aren’t limited to cash. Through that discussion, I find out how important health insurance or vacation time maybe. (or other benefits they may walk away from)
All of this is for the successful final negotiation should this be the right fit. If I know my client isn’t going to stretch to where the candidate expects, or I want to gauge my client’s true willingness to stretch for the right candidate. I have information to use and not waste anyone’s time.
If someone won’t disclose, I don’t rule them out, but I do try to get them to tell me what’s going to be important as they go through their own due diligence on this opportunity. Yes, what do you expect to be paid, is a fair question.
I was trained to shut down the conversation if a candidate refused to share exact figures or require a W2 if I was sucispoious. I’ve never done that. That’s just to much of a power play, “recruiter control” move. I’m more of a mediator.
I have NEVER felt comfortable revealing my salary history and NEVER gave out that info. Past compensation is between me, my past employers, and IRS. Period.
Yes, I have been pressed before to reveal it, but I never budged… and guess what, if I am a great candidate, HR just has to get over it.
On the other side, when I do interviewing and hiring, I never ask for salary history. You know what salary range you have in your budget and it is your job to figure out if candidate can provide the value to justify the salary and benefits.
If company is willing to walk away when I do not provide what I feel is none of their business… than I simply don’t want to work for that company. I don’t compromise my ethics or my principles. Period.
Last thought, if you are going from startups to larger companies or the other way, moving from lower cost region to high-priced one, and etc. etc. etc. is the HR person going to spend the time to add coefficients in the salary history to compare apples to apples… hell will freeze over before one will spend time to do that.
Maybe I’m bypassing HR strategy and nuance here because I’m not an HR professional, but it’s always bothered me how money is so taboo when it’s ultimately the reason why people want and need jobs.
Oh and BTW, in technology industries NDA that include non-disclosure of compensation are not uncommon. I know I have signed those with two startups I have worked with. So this is no BS.
NDAs I have created require the same thing, because I don’t want my competitors or anyone else knowing what we pay our people.
Your job as an HR professional is to get a clear understanding of your applicants. This is not an easy task when all you have to go on is 30 minutes (or whatever) of Q&A, a resume, and with any luck some references.
Your objective should be to get a good solid picture of who this applicant is, what their experiences have been, what kind of character they possess, their strengths/weaknesses, in what kind of environment they will excel, et cetera. To do this successfully, you need as much information as possible. Salary is absolutely a legitimate and critical piece of information to help put together the pieces of this puzzle.
If you are in HR you should stop treating salary like it is a protected class. You are doing your company a disservice by not taking this information into account.
If you are an applicant, don’t be foolish enough to risk losing a job over withholding this information. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. If you were underpaid, say so and explain why. If you were paid higher than the job you are applying for, explain why you are open and will commit to staying long term at the lower starting wage.
@BNCarvin
The following applies if you are asking for salary history in a job posting, or one of those god-awful online applications that many colleges and universities in particular require, and are increasingly being used by other organizations:
One’s salary has NOTHING to do with everything you said in your first sentence in your second paragraph. And a one-page cover letter hardly allows for space to do what you say in the last paragraph.
I resent it when postings ask for salary information. It is a recipe for discrimination and for personal bias to kick in even before a candidate can present his/herself, nothing else, and puts many applicants in a very uncomfortable and anxiety-producing situation for no good reason.
As for asking during an interview, I am ambivalent about it, as I do understand why an organization might feel it necessary to an extent (a huge difference in $$$ one way or another from a previous position, for example), but the way it is often handled is often clumsy and ham-fisted, and leads to the above. I think an indirect approach is best. I am with gemellen on this one.
There’s two separate cases:
If you’re going to ask what is my salalry from a personal standpoint, I don’t mind answering. I like to be in the open.
If you’re going to ask me doing a job inview, I’m with Frank that you’re looking for qualifications and fit. I tell people that you should worry about your qualifications for the positions and then study up on the interviewers. I would ask the critical questions after asking about the job is why did you apply for this company. If you’re in a non-profit, I would follow-up the person why they are making a transition from private to non-profit. Then, I give my short lecture about the difference between private and non-profit and if they can handle it.
Salary is involved after the offer is made. If they don’t like the offer, then try to find a middle, if they are asking too high or sticking with their guns, then cut it off and go to the next candidate.
@Ask a Manager You reminded me that ‘company culture’ is important in understanding where some people come from on this subject. Some companies (or n4ps) offer more progressive compensation packages and are much more transparent. I will say this much: I left my salary history off my resume at PFE and no one ever asked me about it. An offer was made and I was told, “We make our best offer first and we do not negotiate.” I accepted. It was pretty straight forward and awesome.
@Kelly Your ‘whatever’ is a HR technical term that’s trademarked by SHRM. We’ll accept it.
@Frank Reason #459 why we love you. The discrimination piece is totally appropriate but many HR folks miss it. We wonder why we’re having Ledbetter discussions in 2009, right?
@FrannyO I’ve never been asked for my W2 but I did work with a fellow HR Generalist who asked her candidates for copies of W2s even though it wasn’t part of our hiring process. There’s a lot of power around the idea that you may ‘catch’ someone lying.
@Rachl Do you ever just laugh at candidate expectations?
@Gemellen That’s actually elegant in its simplicity. I love it.
@60 You’re so progressive for a boomer.
@Elise Thank you. Awesome. You’re a good role model for women (and men) who have difficulty with this topic.
@Ryan Wow, spoken like a true businessman!
@Nick Thanks for weighing in… the current state of HR isn’t perfect (as you picked up through my verbal role playing) but I think blogs like mine (and yours) are important places where we can have these discussions. I hope my blog is a safe place for traditional HR professionals to come and learn about the issues and discuss their concerns & perspectives. Thanks for writing.
@Tim Strong opinion. Love it.
@nelking I recognized, through your comment, that we’re talking about compensation as if companies offer absolute total rewards packages. They don’t — and they’ll often throw in another $xx,000 and stock options, even though it’s not truly equitable to other positions internally, because a candidate is walking away from a better insurance/pesion/stock plan. A total rewards program is never as rigid as we pretend it is…
@Apolinaras Most HR people don’t know what a coefficient is…
@BN Very practical advice — and I tend to agree with it on some level. Until we’re all communists and make the same amount of money, this will be a tough subject.
@Rick What? I love working for the sheer joy of being annoyed.
Money is taboo, and it’s lame.
@Kathy Is an indirect approach good or does it just muddy up the waters? Do we need clarity on the subject of compensation once and for all? (These are all existential, rhetorical questions… but I wonder if we’ll have this conversation 50 years from now?)
@Tracy Salary is involved after the offer is made. Interesting. Some would ask — why go through the hassles of making an offer if the candidate won’t accept it? A good recruiter makes an offer and gets an immediate (& positive) response.
@ BNCarvin – How about spending your energy in learning the needs of the organization, what are those value points company needs in the candidate, and learn how to ask the right and proper questions. Even simpler stuff – write good job description that don’t act as an absolute turn off.
I have worked and met my share of very good HR/recruiting people. None of them needed the BS excuses. They are probably better sales people for the company than most “stars” in their sales departments. Not a single one of them has trouble finding even the hardest to find talent… and I have every one of theirs cell phone numbers in my rolodex (and more than happy to tap my network for them).
Cocky HR is worst thing for the organization. Candidates talk, there is such thing as internet. You treat candidates poorly and it will spread. Wait ’till PR people show up at CEOs door to have a conversation about brand image problems caused by poor human capital practices. Guess who will get pinkslipped
I have seen it happen.
I do a lot of procurement and vendor selection in my profession and I ALWAYS check websites to see what candidates, former, and current employees say about the company. There is a direct correlation between poor human capital practices and service my organizations will receive.
Some HR folks might feel mighty powerful now… but in 9-12 months the tables will turn… Talented people have good memory
What goes around, comes around. I have seen 3 of those huge waves in my career and it was not pretty.
How about focusing on taking care of the organization, finding best talent, and spending the time doing due diligence on what matters – value candidate will bring into organization.
@Apolinaras Not that anyone needs defending here, but @BNCarvin is not cocky. I think her points are valid, as are yours, and most of us come at this issue with good intentions. We want to protect our company, we want to ensure internal equity, and we want to create a culture of performance. There’s more than one way to achieve this goal. If your approach was so easy, Apolinaras, it would already be implemented in most global companies. It’s not. (Although, again, I largely agree with the points you made in your earlier response.) Anyway, I don’t think @BNCarvin is the enemy here. The enemy is inertia and complacency in our total rewards departments.
@ Laurie someone needs to stand up to bad practices. Human capital folks are my right hand people (I head business operations) and their good work makes our team and our companies successful. Without good human capital, production, and sales team companies do fail. Hence my strong feelings about the subject.
I always worked in industries that had “talent wars”. I have seen plenty good and bad techniques. Using old HR methodologies would have resulted not only in missing out on great team members, but also reduced company profitability.
For me personally, if you can’t work with me, because you won’t respect my previous NDAs and my need for at least some privacy, well than I am more than glad to take my experience, knowledge, and network to someone who does.
I know what I am worth and what I produce and I have to convince you just as much as you need to convince me that mutual investment is worth it to both sides. That approach has longevity and is fair to both sides.
{OK, I am off my soap-box}
As a recruiter, we always advised people to not give out their salary info unless it looked like it would really be forced out of them or could get them dropped from the short list. All companies have a range, and within that range the hiring authority knows what he/she wants to pay. If you’ve been interviewed and qualified, and are making it to somewhat of an offer stage, there is no reason that they need to know what you’ve made in the past. The right company/candidate match will provide an offer based your ability to provide mutual need fulfillment – if they need you as much as you need them, the money won’t matter.
On the flipside, when working with a recruiter, always tell them your salary history. Because a recruiter can’t know which jobs to bring you or not bring you if they don’t know what your limitations are with money, and then its a big waste of everyone’s time.
Employers who need to know what people are being paid for the kinds of jobs they’re trying to fill have access to salary surveys. So the explanation, “We need to know what people are being paid for this job,” is no justification for asking an individual candidate. If that’s what you’re really looking for, then surveying one person — the candidate — is a fool’s errand. One data point describes nothing but that person, and using a survey to judge an individual is NOT what surveys are for. General salary data is descriptive. HR and some headhunters try to use it prescriptively — to determine what an offer should be.
I’m trying to cover another angle on salary disclosure for HR folks and headhunters who might be interested: http://corcodilos.com/blog/405/why-you-should-tell-me-your-salary
I’m sorry that my ideas make you uncomfortable. Employment applications have always had fields for current (and past!) salary and they do so for good reason.
Here are a few of the many reasons why HR should be exploring this important area of the applicant’s background.
1)If a person is currently making $30,000 and they are asking for $65,000, they are generally more money-motivated than career/opportunity motivated. I prefer to hire people who are excited about my organization, the opportunity, the job, etc.
A person should be willing to take a lateral move for a great opportunity. I’m not saying they won’t get a better salary, I’m saying they should be open. The best employees always are.
2) If a person is currently making $65,000 and they are applying for a position that is $35,000 — I want to explore that with them. It might be a great deal for my company – I get a potentially really experienced person. But I also need to discuss the ramifications with them. I would be doing my company a disservice if I was just being a waiting-zone for the employee while they look for a job that pays them $65,000+. If I was looking to hire a TEMP, I would go through a temp agency.
3) Some HR people like to explore the applicant’s career progression by looking at their salary increases (or lack thereof).
4) Salary is also a good indicator of the true level of an employee’s experience level. If the applicant inflates their experience on their resume – describes themselves as being a senior level experienced person and yet their salary is that of an entry level clerk then that is a red flag. Now it might just be a case of an employee being underpaid, but the HR person needs to explore it with the candidate to find out.
And last but not least — one of my favorites –
5) It’s a good way to rule out liars. Every once in awhile, as all of you in HR know, you come across an applicant who lies about their salary. For example you might be interviewing a Receptionist who says on her application that she makes $55,000 in hopes that she can walk into your company at an inflated wage.
Now you the interviewer do not know if that is true or not but my advice to young HR recruiters is if you see a salary that might be suspect — to say something like this:
“I see that you are making $55,000 currently?” And sit quietly, look them in the eye for a moment. When they squirm a bit you then say, “Our company sometimes requires a paystub or W-2 for verification, would that be a problem?” and continue to look them in the eye.
At that point, the applicants that are lying will begin to make all kinds of excuses such as, “Well, that’s not my base salary but if you include overtime and the value of my benefit package then it comes out to about that.”
OK. They lied. One strike against them.
I may be old-school but if you are in HR this new idea of not asking salary does not serve the best interests of your company. You might like it when you are sitting in the applicant chair but when you are in HR you have to buck up and get all the information possible to make the best decision for your organization.
My thought is that in order to disclose what I expect, I have to know what kind of value I’m expected to contribute to the company.
What is the perceived value of the problem to solve or the opportunity to capture the employer wants to hire this person for?
If, as a marketing director, I’m expected to help the company to double sales from $10 million to $20 million, then I won’t do it for a competitive hourly rate. I want a hefty six-figure base salary and a good bonus regardless of what the HR manual says.
In every employee, employers hire expectations. The employee’s contribution is the proverbial ROI. So, the employee’s salary is the investment to materialise the sought after ROI.
Former salary history and competitive rates are retarded. Just because I have a history of driving $20,000 cars, I can’t buy a Mercedes for $20,000 because $20,000 is my so-called competitive rate.
Employers have to decide whether they want GM or Mercedes calibre employees.
Mercedes calibre employees cost a bit more but produce significantly more than MG calibre employees. And using Pareto’s 80/20 rule, a 20%-er produces 16 times more than an 80%-er.
So, it may be worth to hire 20%-ers for 2-4 times of the going rates.
At the career management programme where I teach, I tell my students to bypass HR altogether because HR doesn’t have the skills to judge their value. And what else matter if not the value the employee can bring to the table. Who cares about salary history, credentials or titles?
Let’s think about all the bailed-out companies managed by MBAs and other folks with fancy diplomas from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
They bankrupt one company and then move on to the next, because they know that HR will hire them based on their credentials and titles. And HR can’t judge the value of their contribution anyway.
It’s all about value and improvement in the employer’s condition.
My thought is that in order to disclose what I expect, I have to know what kind of value I’m expected to contribute to the company.
What is the perceived value of the problem to solve or the opportunity to capture the employer wants to hire this person for?
If, as a marketing director, I’m expected to help the company to double sales from $10 million to $20 million, then I won’t do it for a competitive hourly rate. I want a hefty six-figure base salary and a good bonus regardless of what the HR manual says.
In every employee, employers hire expectations. The employee’s contribution is the proverbial ROI. So, the employee’s salary is the investment to materialise the sought after ROI.
Former salary history and competitive rates are retarded. Just because I have a history of driving $20,000 cars, I can’t buy a Mercedes for $20,000 because $20,000 is my so-called competitive rate.
Employers have to decide whether they want GM or Mercedes calibre employees.
Mercedes calibre employees cost a bit more but produce significantly more than MG calibre employees. And using Pareto’s 80/20 rule, a 20%-er produces 16 times more than an 80%-er.
So, it may be worth to hire 20%-ers for 2-4 times of the going rates.
At the career management programme where I teach, I tell my students to bypass HR altogether because HR doesn’t have the skills to judge their value. And what else matter if not the value the employee can bring to the table. Who cares about salary history, credentials or titles?
Let’s think about all the bailed-out companies managed by MBAs and other folks with fancy diplomas from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
They bankrupt one company and then move on to the next, because they know that HR will hire them based on their credentials and titles. And HR can’t judge the value of their contribution anyway.
It’s all about value and improvement in the employer’s condition.
My thought is that in order to disclose what I expect, I have to know what kind of value I’m expected to contribute to the company.
What is the perceived value of the problem to solve or the opportunity to capture the employer wants to hire this person for?
If, as a marketing director, I’m expected to help the company to double sales from $10 million to $20 million, then I won’t do it for a competitive hourly rate. I want a hefty six-figure base salary and a good bonus regardless of what the HR manual says.
In every employee, employers hire expectations. The employee’s contribution is the proverbial ROI. So, the employee’s salary is the investment to materialise the sought after ROI.
Former salary history and competitive rates are retarded. Just because I have a history of driving $20,000 cars, I can’t buy a Mercedes for $20,000 because $20,000 is my so-called competitive rate.
Employers have to decide whether they want GM or Mercedes calibre employees.
Mercedes calibre employees cost a bit more but produce significantly more than MG calibre employees. And using Pareto’s 80/20 rule, a 20%-er produces 16 times more than an 80%-er.
So, it may be worth to hire 20%-ers for 2-4 times of the going rates.
At the career management programme where I teach, I tell my students to bypass HR altogether because HR doesn’t have the skills to judge their value. And what else matter if not the value the employee can bring to the table. Who cares about salary history, credentials or titles?
Let’s think about all the bailed-out companies managed by MBAs and other folks with fancy diplomas from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
They bankrupt one company and then move on to the next, because they know that HR will hire them based on their credentials and titles. And HR can’t judge the value of their contribution anyway.
It’s all about value and improvement in the employer’s condition.
Tom – that’s great but the GM car doesn’t start performing like a Mercedes just because it decides to start charging as much as the Mercedes, does it?
Maybe this is the the I/O psychologist in me talking, but shouldn’t we only be measuring (asking) for information that tells us something about a candidate’s ability to do the job successfully?
Salary history does not do this (so far as I know). However, it does give the potential employer information that can be misused in the selection process. I do not want potential employers asking me irrelevant questions. More importantantly, I do not want my HR department screening out otherwise good applicants because of what they “think” about salary history.
Show me the data.
I have to agree with BNCarvin. An employer does not begin to value a position when they see what a candidate puts down for salary history. Human Resource professionals, especially those who specialize in Compensation, use a variety of tools to discover a position’s worth for their market.
Bald Dog, I’m sorry but your Mercedes/GM analogy is flawed. You could find a Mercedes for $20,000 of course. It would be pre-owned.
However, let me say “pre-owned” employee is a GOOD buy for an employer, almost always. If the employer can get a seasoned employee with excellent skills for less money than they usually make and they are content with their position and your organization, you’ve found yourself a bargain. We could now discuss the ramifications of how do we bring value to the employee beyond his/her paycheck in order to retain them.
BNCarvin, I agree with you that it can be useful to know if a candidate is taking a major pay cut, but I have to disagree on other points.
Regarding some HR people liking to explore the applicant
BNCarvin: Maybe the car example is the wrong example here. Nowadays many jobs are knowledge work, and it’s up to the employee’s discretion how much of her expertise she activates to create value for the employer.
GM would need a new mindset to make Mercedes-calibre cars. Similarly, hiring top-tier talents is impossible with the mnindset that is used to hire competitively (low) priced workers. HR must learn the difference between talent and worker.
In 1954 Peter Drucker coined “knowledge worker”. 99% of HR professionals are stuck in the age of the industrial worker. It’s time to catch up.
And people can adjust their levels of value-creation. They can spend days and weeks on end on a task, and they can look duely efficient but achieving nothing.
guajardoforesight: “shouldn
BNCarvin: Maybe the car example is the wrong example here. Nowadays many jobs are knowledge work, and it’s up to the employee’s discretion how much of her expertise she activates to create value for the employer.
GM would need a new mindset to make Mercedes-calibre cars. Similarly, hiring top-tier talents is impossible with the mnindset that is used to hire competitively (low) priced workers. HR must learn the difference between talent and worker.
In 1954 Peter Drucker coined “knowledge worker”. 99% of HR professionals are stuck in the age of the industrial worker. It’s time to catch up.
And people can adjust their levels of value-creation. They can spend days and weeks on end on a task, and they can look duely efficient but achieving nothing.
guajardoforesight: “shouldn
BNCarvin: Maybe the car example is the wrong example here. Nowadays many jobs are knowledge work, and it’s up to the employee’s discretion how much of her expertise she activates to create value for the employer.
GM would need a new mindset to make Mercedes-calibre cars. Similarly, hiring top-tier talents is impossible with the mnindset that is used to hire competitively (low) priced workers. HR must learn the difference between talent and worker.
In 1954 Peter Drucker coined “knowledge worker”. 99% of HR professionals are stuck in the age of the industrial worker. It’s time to catch up.
And people can adjust their levels of value-creation. They can spend days and weeks on end on a task, and they can look duely efficient but achieving nothing.
guajardoforesight: “shouldn
Wow. I take a day off and miss a good one.
I’ll chime in with my agreement. If I’m going to consider trying to squeeze money out of the budget to pay someone more, it’ll be because they have buckets of talent and experience and their stated target is near my range. I don’t care what they made previously – if they don’t want what I can pay them, they don’t want to work for me anyway, and I’d be stuck wondering when they’ll wander off to greener pastures.
Welcome to reality boys and girls. Yes, we ask for your salary so that we can low ball you and eliminate you from consideration. It’s completely true. I won’t deny it. Have I been low balled in return, of course. You know how it works, but for those who don’t:
Bosses (at every job I’ve ever had, except the one non-profit) tell me to hire for job XYZ. When I ask what the salary range is, I don’t get an answer. I push (because you have to include that information on most job posting sites) and they tell me a max, but I am told to NEVER post that rate. If someone sends in a resume, regardless of how qualified they are, that shows a salary history of 10% or more than my max, they are immediately placed in the no pile. If they don’t give me their salary history, they are placed in the no pile (they can’t follow directions).
The winning candidate is always offered from 10-20% more than they made at their last job (unless it is more than the max, which is never is). Do they negotiate a higher rate, of course. Everyone does. The companies save beaucoup bucks this way.
Have I been required to ask for W2s? Of course. Are they still considered if they refuse to provide one or can’t find them? Absolutely not. They are clearly lying about their salary history.
Have I caught candidates in lies? More times than I can count.
As for those who profess to never reveal their salary history; me thinks they doth protest too much.
Ask A Manager — I’m wondering what I said that gave you the impression that salary was the only thing I suggest HR people use to learn/understand an applicant? Of course you are going to explore the areas that you mention.
If you can show me that you can pick the perfect candidate 100% of the time, then I will say – fine, go ahead and make your decision with a big chunk of useful information missing.
The problem is that hiring is an art not a science and it’s NOT simple to hire the best person that will do an awesome job and stay long term with the company. (I can’t wait to get into the debate about job hoppers!)
Therefore, as HR people we need all the information we can get so we can begin to draw a clear picture/understanding of each applicant.
I have a question for all of you — What possible benefit do you derive by NOT getting the information? If you end up not using it – fine — by why not have it just in case it tells you something important?
Beth–I think you and I debated on this issue before, a long, long time ago.
I agree with all of your points–provided it’s far enough along in the recruiting process that serious mutual interest has been established. At that point, I am comfortable explaining why I took a pay cut to work for this one, why this one paid above/below market, etc.
My problem is when people ask for the salary history at the time the initial resume is submitted…like, for example, running an ad on Monster and saying that only resumes that include salary *history* (not requirements, but history) will be considered. That, in my experience, is mostly done by HR people who want to know what everybody else in town is paying. In fact, here in Milwaukee (a town known for being, well, a little cheap), that’s called a poorman’s salary survey, and it’s pretty common.
Picking a job, or a candidate, is like picking a spouse. Before you marry the guy, you should have a good sense of who he is, including his finances. That’s fair. But if his Match.com profile is asking for that info up front..well, RED FLAG. That’s not on the up-and-up.
I skip over employers who want me naked before the first date.
…and by “Beth” I meant “BNCarvin.”
@BNCarvin
You make a good point, and one of the things employers can learn from salary disclosure is whether they’re competitive in the industry.
Still, especially with the economy the way it is now, I’d be veeery careful about hiring someone who I knew made a substantial amount more at a previous job than I could offer.
I want to agree with you that salary shouldn’t be treated like a protective class, but if it’s disclosed and there’s a gap between their history and the current position, reasons for the current target and willingness to commit need to be made well in advance of that disclosure.
I think for a lot of us it’s that “once bitten” mentality in play. We’ve had people work for us for brief periods and bolt the minute a better offer came along. Which, actually, kind of makes your point.
If the information is collected, though, I do think the interviewer should be extra vigilant in putting together a complete picture of the candidate’s motivation.
BNCarvin: I just don’t find it provides anything particularly helpful, and many candidates rightly feel like it’s no one’s business but theirs and the IRS. I’d rather not make a good candidate feel her privacy is being violated, when I can determine the info I need in other ways. I do insist on talking about the person’s salary expectations, but that’s different — that’s about the prospective relationship they’d have with me/my company, not about their personal arrangement with a past employer. I continue to think that insisting on salary history is the mark of a lazy HR department.
@Kerry I’m not keen on asking people to respond to an ad with salary info either. (Though I suppose I can understand why one might do that in this economy when you get 4000 resumes for each job.) The appropriate place is on the job application for those invited in and then discussed during the interview.
Sadistic (May I call you Sadie?) – I absolutely agree with your last statement. Not just about salary but about anything regarding the applicant that raises a red flag. The red flag just means that it’s something that you need to explore further with the applicant not that you are going to immediately screen them out based on the red flag.
Your job as an interviewer is to uncover as many red flags as possible and then explore each one of them with the applicant so that you can make the determination that either:
A) No problem
B) Problem
For those of you who are not in HR but are job applicants, please do yourselves a favor and don’t die on this sword. You are not going to impress a future employer by giving the perception that you are stubborn or difficult to work with.
Remember if you follow his advice, Nick Corcodilos is not the one who is going to be missing out on a great job opportunity, you are.
AskAManager – I’ll just ask – who is in charge – you or the applicant? If you are in HR the answer better be you.
I get the feeling that you are coming at this as a third party recruiter (or as an applicant with something to hide.)
If you are a third-party recruiter, I can see where you would love to have your applicants not disclose salary. Your job is to gloss over those red flags. (I worked at a third party recruiter for many years before working in HR. I understand your situation.)
If you are in HR, your job is to find those red flags that the recruiters don’t tell you about.
And if you are an applicant, for heavens sake, your job is present yourself as someone agreeable with whom people would like to work.
@Laurie This is a much-needed dialogue. Thanks for goosing it. Not always sure who the devil is really advocating what, but the angles are sharp! Dave Hardwick has this going, too, with some interesting angles of his own. http://jobhacking.typepad.com/job_hacking/2009/03/what-happens-when-you-dont-pay-attention-to-statistics.html
@BNCarvin I’m really trying to see this from your point of view, but every one of your justifications for wanting salary history seems to have the same refrain: It’s good for my company to know that. I don’t dispute it. But it’s not good for the candidate. I think the bottom line is, just as candidates need to be able to deal with your saying the buck stops here, you must deal with candidates who say NO.
Likewise, it seems to me that all the “need to knows” you cite for requesting salary information could be satisfied by assessing the candidate’s worth to your company.
Hiring a candidate who was earning lots more than you’re willing to pay and worrying he’s doing it for the wrong reasons — that’s just beyond the pale. If you want to assess integrity, I think you can do it without making an enormous assumption about salary.
Liars? I advise people not to divulge their salary because it’s a good way to avoid making a fatal mistake. Once a person is on board, what’s to prevent a company from requiring a pay stub from the last job as a condition of continued employment? If the stub is different from the numbers that were bandied about (yes, some candidates will fudge), it’s grounds for dismissal. No salary quote, no lie. Makes it cleaner for everyone. The “no disclosure” approach keeps people honest.
BNCarvin: I’m a hiring manager, not a third party recruiter or an applicant. (See my blog for more about where I’m coming from.) And yeah, I’m in charge during the hiring process, not the applicant, but I’ve found there are far more reliable ways to make good hires than salary history. It’s really that simple.
You say that not telling their salary is better for the applicant but I promise you this — not telling your salary when asked is much worse for the applicant.
If you work through a recruiter and your recruiter asks you not to speak about salary, by all means follow your recruiter’s instructions. Generally that will mean saying something like, “I’m open for opportunity and you can speak to Recruiter Nick about my salary situation.”
But if you don’t work with a recruiter you are just giving the perception that you are difficult to work with. When it comes down to you and one other applicant who are both about equal, who is the company going to choose? The one who was open, forthcoming, pleasant and helpful? Or the one who was evasive, controlling and difficult? The answer is obvious.
I’m a little flabbergasted about the last point about not answering the question for fear that it will be checked later and you might be fired for “fudging.” There’s a much easier method than being evasive. How about telling the truth?
Ask A Manager — If you are that good that 100% of your hires are superstars then touche’ to you. I’m glad it’s working for you.
If you are like the rest of us then I’ll continue to suggest that more information to work with is always better than less.
Lots of things would provide more info but aren’t reasonable to require. I maintain it doesn’t provide information sufficiently useful to justify the invasion of privacy, and that it’s a crutch used by weak interviewers. And I’d put my hiring record up against anyone else’s, any day. Sorry!
Wow, I’m just catching up with the streams from @bncarvin and @askamanager. Throw in @Kerry and a few others — sadistic manager, tom, bald dog, foresight — and we have a real controversy.
Who haven’t we heard from? Ann Bares? I think we need Ann Bares and maybe HR Bartender to weigh in…
@BNCarvin I’m stunned at the conclusions you draw and the way you re-write my comments.
**I
Should salary history be a confidential and closely held piece of information? Of course. But there are lots of things in this world that should be but are not. (or should not be and are). The simple fact is, I don’t want to waste your time if you’re a $150k/year HR VP/Chief People Officer when I’m looking to hire a $40k/year generalist to help me accept applications, key PeopleSoft data and plan company events. If we wait until we’re at the salary negotation phase to figure that out, we both look and feel stupid. Now you could argue that both the candidate and I are pretty na
I have seen two deals collapse this year because of this issue: One resulted in a protracted negotiation with the candidate which gave him time to consider (and take) a counter offer from his new boss at his current current company.
The other resulted in the candidate getting pissed at my client and deciding she didn’t want to work there. In both cases, my clients were very sad to lose the candidates, and one position remains unfilled. Slick.
In ALL markets — and the employment market is no different — price is what you pay and value is what you get. “Historical cost plus a reasonable mark-up” is a good way to go if a hiring committee’s only interest is getting candidates all the way through the hiring process before it loses them, and before the spurned candidates tell ten friends about the incident.
Hi Harry, I’m not sure I follow you. Why did the applicant get mad that they were asked about their salary? There has been a little box on employment applications for salary probably since the dawn of employment applications, hasn’t there? What would even make an applicant THINK to be upset about that?
Although I’m sure the company is frustrated that they haven’t yet filled the position, I would say it’s a case of being lucky that they learned about the person up front before they became an employee. My guess is that this person would not be very fun to manage. (Easily pissed off for no reason, won’t follow the rules, etc.) With a little luck and hard work they will find someone more excited about working for their company. A better hire for the long run.
I’m going to really start chuckling when applicants start saying they refuse to discuss what they did at their last job too. “It’s confidential! It’s not important what I did at my last job, it’s only important what I will do for you!”
Ahh, always a few laughs in HR, eh?
Well said Scott!
BNCarvin: I
BNCarvin: I
BNCarvin: I
@BNCarvin **I
We’re talking a lot of concept here and I understand that HR is (frequently deservedly) villified for procedures that seem arbitrary or processes that require a little more time to complete that some hiring managers would prefer. Just to advocate the devil a bit… To use two recent examples, pay equity is mandated under the Fair Pay Act and the statute of limitations for litigants who believe they’ve been discriminated against with regard to pay is virtually eliminated under Lily Ledbetter. You may not agree with the processes HR puts in place to ensure that applicants are treated consistently and employees are paid conistent with their roles in both the industry and the company (for the record, I frequently get frustrated with some of those limitations as well), but sometimes there are reasons for these decisions that extend beyond pleasing a candidate, headhunter or hiring manager.
I’ve been a recruiter. Most of the folks I worked with were ethically well-grounded, smart, productive people. Some were not. ALL were motivated to get the req filled at the highest possible salary because they had a financial incentive for doing so. ALL (myself included) preferred to deal directly with hiring managers because that was the fastest route to a closed deal and the one that was most likely to bypass as many administrative hurdles as possible. As an HR Manager I have an entirely different perspective on that. Just last year I settled litigation where a minority internal candidate was passed over for promotion in favor of an external candidate who was bullied through the hiring process by an aggressive recruiter and a hiring manager who was hostile to “unnecessary bureaucracy” in the hiring process. So that hire cost the company ill will with a competent minority employee who was qaulified for the job, disciplinary action with a manager who bypassed established procedure, a placement fee to a recruiter who is no longer an approved vendor to our company, PR problems in a department that were unnecessary, and a cash settlement. To boot, our salary curve was thrown off by a candidate who interviewed beautifully, but whose management skills don’t match his technical accumen.
**”You promise me? Is that a threat? It sounds like the classic, bureaucratic threat HR makes to any candidate who won
*Some like to mis-quote a standard phrase you
@scottthekentuckyhrguy
What does employment discrimination law have to do with whether a candidate discloses salary history? Would the (obviously bad) hire you discussed have been prevented if the salary history had been disclosed? Unlikely. The hiring manager probably was, in fact, discriminating, and had to go around HR and game the process to do so. Bad for him, bad for the company, irrelevant to this discussion. He should have been fired rather than simply “disciplined”.
@CylonLvr wrote “The winning candidate is always offered from 10-20% more than they made at their last job … ”
– This is the biggest point of this discussion! You make no attempt to figure out what the candidate is actually worth to *your* company; you take the previous companies judgment and salary policies and apply them to your company. This approach is lazy, leads to mediocrity rather than excellence, and replaces judgment and thought with checkboxes and formulas.
When I was interviewing at (what is now) my current employer, I was asked for salary history by the HR gatekeeper. I declined, and instead discussed my (general) salary requirements. When pressed, I referred to the Employee Handbook and NDA that I would sign upon hire. Both have clauses indicating that salary information is company confidential. I noted that my previous employers have similar policies, and I would not violate them. It worked.
*tomjedrz*
It was an example of why an HR procedure or process that a headhunter or department manager views as arbitrary actually has a point. A bottom line point. Just not a point that’s obvious on the surface. Kinda like my post, I guess.
Scott – your posts are beautifully written and abundantly clear.
I think where the confusion is coming in is that non-HR people are assuming that the reason HR wants that information is purely to undercut on wages. That’s not the case.
What some of us have been trying to explain is that the HR wants the information to help round out our understanding of the applicants. It’s just one more little shred of information to help draw some conclusions. You put all the dots together and you begin to understand who the person is and how they might or might not fit in with your company.
With the costs associated with a bad hire, we need all the info we can get.
@BNCarvin **I think where the confusion is coming in is that non-HR people are assuming that the reason HR wants that information is purely to undercut on wages. That
@BNCarvin wrote “I think where the confusion is coming in is that non-HR people are assuming that the reason HR wants that information is purely to undercut on wages. That
*No, I think the reason HR wants the information is because some in HR do not exercise proper diligence in assessing candidates. Instead, they rely on salary excessively.*
>>If it
>>As an aside, I have found it interesting how rarely HR folks ask candidates what they think the market price is for the job being discussed.<<<
Tom-That is an interesting question.
I’d venture to say the answer is because it’s not always about what the market is paying. Sometimes it’s about what that particular company is offering. Some companies have compensation philosophy of paying lower in salary and higher in benefits and perks. Some companies pay lower than market but have great opportunities. Other companies pay on the high end but they are awful places to work.
Most applicants would be wise to look at the opportunity and not worry so much about getting the highest dollar. A few extra dollars in your paycheck doesn’t make you happy if you are at a miserable job.
Seek opportunity, do a great job and generally the money will come.
*No, I think the reason HR wants the information is because some in HR do not exercise proper diligence in assessing candidates. Instead, they rely on salary excessively.*
My original post repeatedly said there were other factors that were/are more important. I don’t even exclude someone from the process because they refuse to disclose. It just means they have one less data point on which we can make a hiring decision, so the other data points have to more strongly make the case for the candidate. That’s not even a terribly difficult obstacle to overcome, but it IS an obstacle.
Right now I have a surplus of resumes for every open requisition in my company. As much as I’d like to say every candidate gets a top to bottom review and the decision to interview or hire someone allows them to get past the willingness to disclose a piece of information we’ve asked them to share, the truth is there’s too much volume for us to go through on the first pass/first batch of resumes for that kind of review to happen. The former headhunter in me screams “But wait, that’s what we’re here for. We’ll do that review for you!” Yeah. I know you will. But I have ten+ headhunters begging for an exclusive on each of those reqs and unit president who wants to know why I have to pay a 5-figure fee to fill a job when he’s getting unsolicited resumes in his e-mailbox every day. (I can hear your little violin playing for me, but we’re being real here, right?)
As mentioned in Tomjedrz reply, much of this is supply and demand. I’m willing to view arrogance, salary compression, and even reduced minimum skill requirements for a job as a necessary evil when times are good. But they’re not when they’re not. This stuff is all cylclical. Right now is not the cycle is strongly tilted in favor of employers being as demanding as they darn well please. For the record, I don’t agree with or support that approach. I believe the best companies treat their best people as the assets they are when times are worst, but if the top 10% of employers act that way that means 90% don’t. And, again, when you refuse to provide an employer with a piece of information they’ve asked for you self select out of the process with most of that 90%. And let’s not forget the original point of your article… to paraphrase, sharing the information sacrifices negotiating position. The principle is nice and all, but the objective for the candidate isn’t really to stand on principle because sharing salary data is a violation of working-class values or to avoid breaking an NDA. It’s to make more money. So why would a potential employer sacrifice negotiating position themselves? Immovable object, let me introduce you to unstoppable force. We could go in circles on this forever.
@BNCarvin Why do you persist in suggesting that a candidate who politely but firmly (that’s how I put it earlier) declines to disclose salary is being difficult or a jerk?
If **it
Holy crap.
I gotta say, comparing asking candidates for their salary history to Jim Crow is pretty far over the line.
Maybe you want to rethink that analogy, eh?
I’m not going to argue with you Nick. For those in HR, I’ve offered five reasons above plus the excellent reason about gauging the applicant’s willingness to answer a question that has been asked of them.
If you are advising applicants, you are doing your applicants a disservice if they otherwise would have received an offer.
BNCalvin wrote “If an applicant firmly declines to answer a reasonable question then it makes me wonder how they will act when they are hired and their manager asks them to do something that they don
>>Why do you persist in suggesting that a candidate who politely but firmly (that
>>>As has been noted repeatedly, the salary question is only reasonable in *your* mind. It isn
@scottthekentuckyhrguy
In many ways you have made my point. When you have a slew of resumes, you look for arbitrary reasons to toss some of them, so as to get down to a manageable number. Fine .. but don’t pretend that you are serving the company by using the salary history requirement as a filter. You are serving HR, making your life easier, and then rationalizing why it is good for the company.
HR does a disservice to the company when it uses criteria unrelated to potential performance as reasons to evaluate candidates. When you reduce the pool you reduce the quality and increase the cost. That is Econ 101.
Finally, why would you pay a five figure fee to a recruiter who will not narrow the field down to a manageable size? Tell each recruiter you want to see his 5 best candidates .. end of story. You may have to actually *talk* to the recruiter to discuss the job rather than just sending a req, but that is a good trade off. Don’t allow the recruiters to flood you with resumes so as to claim the fee when you hire someone.
Salary history: Will HR put up or shut up?
http://corcodilos.com/blog/408/salary-history-will-hr-put-up-or-shut-up
@BNCarvin wrote “Ummm
When calling passive candidates it is interesting to note that over 90% will answer compensation questions on the first call.
>>The idea that you are entitled to an answer simply because you ask is the most farcical part of the whole discussion.<<
Well, I’m not going to randomly ask people I meet at a dinner party about their salaries. Only people applying for a position at my company and asking me to pay them for their work.
BNCarvin: “Ummm
Minds and opinions are not changed through blogs. Or are they? Will anyone read this post and these comments and change their povs on salary disclosure? Those are my existential questions.
This is by far the best blog post I’ve read on your blog… Keep it up!
*In many ways you have made my point. When you have a slew of resumes, you look for arbitrary reasons to toss some of them, so as to get down to a manageable number. Fine .. but don
@scottthekentuckyhrguy
OK .. let’s agree to disagree. But I do want to make a couple of comments on the last message.
scottthekentuckyhrguy wrote .. “Tom, you’re calling the screening criteria arbitrary when, in fact, you just disagree with it. It’s not arbitrary.”
I disagree. I call the Salary History an arbitrary screening criteria because it is disconnected from candidate qualifications, the job requirements, and from how well a candidate can do the job. But it is a convenient thing that can be used to exclude. That is why the word arbitrary fits.
The only value (that I can see) of screening on previous salary is to mitigate the risk of unsuccessful salary negotiation. But mitigation of that risk serves HR rather than the company as a whole, particularly when the cost is a reduced pool of candidates.
Here’s the rub. I don’t maintain that it is *wrong* to ask about salary history. I maintain that it is a mistake to exclude a candidate for refusing to provide it, a mistake to use it as a proxy for actual qualifications, and a mistake to give it much significance in determining the market for the job at your company.
scottthekentuckyhrguy wrote .. “You infer(wrongly) that I don
>>I call the Salary History an arbitrary screening criteria because it is disconnected from candidate qualifications…<<
Well, there’s the rub, isn’t it? Nine time out of ten, salary is NOT disconnected from candidate qualifications. On the tenth time, the candidate can explain why they were underpaid or why they are willing to take less than what they were making.
@BNCarvin wrote … “Nine time out of ten, salary is NOT disconnected from candidate qualifications.”
Nonsense .. HR drones act as if it the case because they want it to be the case, then maintain that it must be true because they all are acting as if it is so. In fact, every company is different, every facility is different, every job is different, and every employer is different.
In fact, it is typical HR / Corporate policies which *separate* salaries from the market. No company I know of sets its annual increase pool based on the market. And the salary difference between the marginal performer and the phenomenal performer is rarely more than single digits.
The only “logic” to using current salary as a benchmark is that it is safe and easy. It is hard to fault a “current base + x%” offer if it is refused .. you can easily paint the candidate as unreasonable. It requires no research on the market, no understanding of what the job really means to the company, and no understanding of the candidate’s qualifications relative to the rest of the candidate pool. Just ask the manager which one he wants and put the current salary into the calculator. It is just so convenient that you have to use it, then rationalize and justify why you use it after the fact.
If you won’t hire me because I refuse to give you that crutch, then lucky me that I don’t get to work there!
>>If you won
Tom — just out of curiosity, what is it that you do for a living? Derisively referring to HR drones kinda suggests a bias.
Wow,
Thanks a lot everyone. I have had the opportunity to work in HR and and I always wanted to find out what the fuss was about on salaries.
Regards
*True, but you did mention that you had 10+ headhunters and too many resumes to properly review. So I concluded that the headhunters were gaming your system rather than doing meaningful screening. My apologies for that extrapolation.*
No — I said I have 10+ headhunters begging for an exclusive on every req I have. I don’t use them. I prefer retained to contingent search anyway. Nick makes the point on his other site that headhunters who think they have a 50-50 proposition in their client base (50% client – 50% candidate) have it wrong and that headhunters work for the client. That’s false. Headhunters work for headhunters. There are those who do so in a way that benefits their client, and their client is more likely to benefit them, but in the end the contingent headhunter is seeking a fee. That fee is not paid if the placement is not made. I more frequently choose to pay a retainer to get that motive off the table.
This is what irritates me about the condescending manner of this assault on requesting salary history. It’s couched like it’s some big battle of principle and that the employer is evil, HR is an administrative obstacle to be overcome, the potential employer is gonna be soooooooo sorry because they removed the folks who didn’t want to play their reindeer games from the pool, and that this is all a ploy to change those reindeer games in a way that benefits everybody involved. That’s nonsense. This is a negotiating tactic that only makes sense in a high demand skillset or for a superstar candidate who can truly take or leave an opportunity. But when you’re that person, do you really need this advice and will your salary history really not tell that story (read “Getting to Yes,” — the person who can walk away from the table most easily ALWAYS has the leverage)? And if it doesn’t, would you not be able to explain the situation adequately to compensate?
No, this about situations in which a candidate wants to leverage their future potential and their ability to “work it” in an interview into a big pay increase, and a recruiter who needs wiggle room to make a deal. I don’t devalue that approach — we all have motives for what we do and those motives are not always to make the world a better place. I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to take a big leap in pay (or a cut in pay for that matter) if they have the credentials and motivation to make it happen. But let’s call it what it is instead of continuing this facade.
If salary history is so important, why don’t we demand payment history of other things? Some things depreciate, others gain value over time.
When you become a manager, you do gain some insight to how so much of the hiring world operates. Reality is many positions are already budgeted for with a req. That req has a salary range.
When I’ve been confronted to divulge a salary history, I merely tell the employer, “As one manager to another, we know how budgeting is done. How do you do your budgeting?”
Let me ask you one other thing. Since when did making money become such a big taboo? If workers and managers of the world were 100% honest, do you think most of them would say they do the work for the love? No, they’re in it for the income. So what is so bad about somebody who used to make $30K and now wants to make $65K? Wouldn’t you want to capitalize on that person’s drive so you too can profit?
Money isn’t evil, and if only those in HR would get mature about it, our workplace would really prosper.
@scottthekentuckyhrguy –
You stated, “I respectfully, but enthusiastically disagree with the assertion that work history review and behaviorally event interviewing are antiquated. The interview should be all about how you
James — yes I would and I have. Over the summer I hired an HVAC technician as a Chemical Engineer. He finished a Master’s Degree porgram in Chemcial Engineering and had done a co-op, but otherwise he was 100% green. He made a little bit more money than the other fresh-out grads (but not much) because he understood construction codes, pipe routing and building lay out from his work experience. In that case, yes. We considered relevant past experience and adjusted salary upward, despite the connection being less than obvious from the resume. And, incidentally; because his salary history didn’t tell very much of his story, it was little or no consideration in either his candidacy or his offer. My strongest HR Manager was an admin who felt like she’d hit her ceiling with her former employer. She went back to school, obtained a degree in Human Resources, passed her PHR certification and I hired her. Were a TV repair technician, a dog groomer, or a professional wrestler to do the same; I would consider them. And their salary history wouldn’t be much of the discussion. Just be aware that the peer group for fresh out grads in a new field becomes other fresh out grads, so the pay may drop commensurately.
So if “salary history didn
Scott, if you’re one of those in HR who really believes in recruiting the right people, you’re in the minority.
But HR has a terrible track record dealing with human beings even though the word “human” is in their profession. HR ultimately isn’t to do good by the employee nor the candidate, HR’s prime responsibility is to the company.
HR has derailed too many careers and candidacies, which is why many of us when looking for jobs purposely stay away from HR. When we’ve made the grand mistake of contacting HR thinking that they had the humane idea of connecting candidate to boss, we have been severely disappointed. They couldn’t talk about the work cohesively.
This helps answer your question of 3/13/09 of why people don’t want to let HR operate according to its profession. Your colleagues have bungled too many hiring plans, and I have had to rectify HR’s catastrophes both as a manager and as a person looking for work.
Go ahead and apply to another job that is not in HR. Then see how many of your HR colleagues are as accommodating as you are. Keep in mind that Fast Company once had an issue that on the front said in big white bold letters “WHY WE HATE HR!”
Great article, James
WHY WE HATE HR!: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/97/open_hr.html?page=0%2C0
“1. HR people aren’t the sharpest tacks in the box. We’ll be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding career in business, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance. (At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which arguably boasts the nation’s top faculty for organizational issues, just 1.2% of 2004 grads did so.) Says a management professor at one leading school: “The best and the brightest don’t go into HR.”
Great article, James
WHY WE HATE HR!: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/97/open_hr.html?page=0%2C0
“1. HR people aren’t the sharpest tacks in the box. We’ll be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding career in business, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance. (At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which arguably boasts the nation’s top faculty for organizational issues, just 1.2% of 2004 grads did so.) Says a management professor at one leading school: “The best and the brightest don’t go into HR.”
Great article, James
WHY WE HATE HR!: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/97/open_hr.html?page=0%2C0
“1. HR people aren’t the sharpest tacks in the box. We’ll be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding career in business, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance. (At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which arguably boasts the nation’s top faculty for organizational issues, just 1.2% of 2004 grads did so.) Says a management professor at one leading school: “The best and the brightest don’t go into HR.”
@BNCArvin: * If an applicant firmly declines to answer a reasonable question then it makes me wonder how they will act when they are hired and their manager asks them to do something that they don
*Ummm
Welcome back everybody!
@scottthekentuckyhrguy – ” … the condescending manner of this assault on requesting salary history.”
Sorry, but the salary history question itself is condescending and invasive .. for HR to be irritated at being challenged on it demonstrates a fair degree of hubris. Certainly, you have not demonstrated nearly as much of that is BNCarvin, and I have had my moments as well.
Also @scottthekentuckyhrguy, about the HVAC tech and the HR Manager hire — the fact that you intelligently hired without salary history info is precisely our point. Salary history is not nearly as relevant as most HR folks pretend, is highly invasive, and it is (frankly) hypocritical to ask it if you expect it to remain confidential among your employees.
It is not (at least for me) that asking about salary history is “evil”. The issue is that it is a mistake for a candidate to reveal it, and a mistake for HR to take said refusal as a strong negative. Salary history is too often used as a crutch to avoid the real work necessary to actually set the value of a candidate to the company.
I have still not seen any of the “defenders” describe how they would react or respond to a candidate who asked for the salary history of the position, which is just as relevant as the salary history of the candidate.
An apology … I used the term “HR Drones” in an earlier post. I did not mean to imply that all HR folks are drones. There are drones in every area, mine (IT) has more than it’s fair share. My apologies for the overly broad brush.
@scottthekentuckyhrguy asked what I do for a living. I manage an IT group for a manufacturing company. I have hired quite a number of staff over the years, with generally good results. I have worked with great HR folks, and with “drones”. Hires made when working with a good HR person have been uniformly successful. OTOH the “drones” have made life miserable and made good hiring far more difficult. So what’s new, right? The same can be said of every profession.
Take care. Sorry for the novel.
James
– in that case I didn’t ask for salary history directly. I saw it on his application. And I didn’t say it did NOT tell a story. It didn’t tell me what,exactly, we should pay the guy. But it DID tell a story. It told me that I had an educatable person who entered a skilled trade following military service. It told me that he accepted progressive levels of responsibility and was perceived by his former employer as someone who had the ability to lead others and that they wanted to retain him. It told me that he had the ability to hold a leadership job in a skilled trade while also self-funding his education in a very demanding major and — not only that — that he chose to pursue a post-graduate degree under the same program was not accredited for the purposes of obtaining his engineering license. It also told me that this candidate, who was at an age where most people have accepted their lot in life and are cruising into middle management, was willing to step out of his comfort zone and compete with engineers 10-13 years his junior. WOW. That’s a lot to know about someone without even having a conversation. And, once we had conversations, it gave us lots to talk about.
I’m involved with few individual contributor hires, but was asked for input on this one because his salary requirements were a little higher than someone with a comparable education. I not only approved, but championed his hire because of the reasons outlined above. So, in short, yes — his salary history told a story. Not much of one about his ability as a chemical engineer, and not much of one about how we wanted to frame his salary negotiation, but a story nonetheless.
How in the world does this call into question the maturity of an HR person?
Tom –
I’ve read the Fast Company article. I read it when it came out and I thought it was poor journalism. It’s an interesting editorial topic, but the front page of national magazine is not the place for an editorial. Editorials, when treated as news, make peopel think that their strongly worded opinions are somehow validated as fact. They’re not. You just happen to be in a position where someone with a bigger forum (e.g. — the editors of Fast Company) agrees with your opinion. “HR sucks” is a blanket statement that doesn’t have any empirical support. HR only sucks in organizations where the worst and most dim are put into leadership positions for that function. It’s not that the best and the brightest aren’t drawn to it. It’s that operational leaders who don’t have a commitment to effective HR practices hire incompetent (translated: inexpensive) people to process the transactional stuff. Then people get disappointed when they feel like they’re dealing with an overblown admin when they go to HR. Guess what? More often than not they are. And that’s not HR’s fault. That’s poor leadership decision making.
**HR has derailed too many careers and candidacies, which is why many of us when looking for jobs purposely stay away from HR. When we
scottthekentuckyhrguy
I was wrong. It’s not HR that sucks. It’s individuals in any department.
However, I still maintain the HR as a science/discipline needs major overhauling for the knowledge age.
Industrial age HR is no longer appropriate to be applied to knowledge workers.
scottthekentuckyhrguy
I was wrong. It’s not HR that sucks. It’s individuals in any department.
However, I still maintain the HR as a science/discipline needs major overhauling for the knowledge age.
Industrial age HR is no longer appropriate to be applied to knowledge workers.
scottthekentuckyhrguy
I was wrong. It’s not HR that sucks. It’s individuals in any department.
However, I still maintain the HR as a science/discipline needs major overhauling for the knowledge age.
Industrial age HR is no longer appropriate to be applied to knowledge workers.
I am having a George Costanze moment “The jerk store callled….”
Anyway — Nick, this is for you re:
**Some like to mis-quote a standard phrase you
ELOC – British publishers said J.K. Rowling’s book about a young adventurous boy named Harry Potter wouldn’t sell.
ILOC – J.K. Rowling persevered.
ELOC – HR’s role isn’t to screen in, it’s to screen out
ILOC – Avoid HR if you want to get hired.
My profession doesn’t matter, especially because I’ve had several.
James, you have a sadly prejudiced view of entire profession. You have my sympathies for whatever experience(s) closed your mind like that. I appreciate the opportunity for the dialogue nonetheless.
IMHO, salary history is more likely to hurt than help.
Not including it when asked = automatic circular-file.
Including it when not asked = “we can’t afford this one” = automatic circular file.
Not including it when not asked = left for interview.
Shouldn’t the “achievements” (certificates of apprciation from employers, plaques from industry groups, or other honors) count for more than how much money an applicant made at any given job? How about glowing references from our oh-so-important social networks?
I’m not saying that both sides should not negotiate salary and benefits. I am suggesting that such things be left for after more important decisions, like whether the candidate can actually do the job or whether the candidate will fit in with the corporate culture.