I never answer that question.
Almost always it's been recruiters asking that (and only some recruiters, the less reputable ones).
This is a seller's market for IT talent. You don't have to give in to bullying tactics to get a good job. I've had to walk away exactly once when a recruiter wouldn't accept that I wasn't going to tell him my previous salary and refused to work with me on that basis. The other recruiters who've asked accepted my refusal to reveal that information. They're generally more interested in getting paid for recruiting you than in finding out what you used to be paid.
I also never reveal the salary I'm looking for and insist on doing my own salary negotiations with the employer. I let the employer make an offer they think is reasonable and go from there.
You do have to be willing to walk away in the handful of times when this leads to an impasse. Fortunately, the way the IT job market is right now, there are plenty of other fish in the pond, and not showing your hand prematurely puts you in a much stronger negotiating position.
I've been contacted by many many recruiters offering interesting jobs but won't discuss the salary range targeted for that position. So how much time are you willing to spend on resume polishing, phone screens, on-site interviews, getting to an offer...just to find out that they can't even come close to your current salary?
So now I just flat out say what my jump-number is. Any answer other than "yeah, we can work with that" is a reason to end the conversation and save everybody's time.
Can't upvote that enough! I've been doing this for years. I don't have time to waste and if they won't talk the numbers there is no point in having the conversation. Statements like "we are competitive" or my other favorite "can you send us proof of your current salary" are hilarious. The proof is my favorite. What is the point of that? If I won't talk to you for less than x dollars there is no value in proving what I currently make.
I've been on the hiring side as a manager in a number of companies, and I've NEVER seen a situation where a candidate was so uniquely awesome that the company was willing to make an offer drastically larger than their normal range for that role. A bit more? Sure. Some more stock or something? Often. But not, say, 50% more salary than anyone else at that level is getting.
After many years in this industry on both the candidate and hiring manager side, I believe that it's in everyone's best interest to make sure you can at least get in the right ballpark early in the process before you waste everyone time.
Fyi, at $DayJob we have one guy at my level who makes 50% more than anyone else at the level he is at.
So it does happen but its unusual. [e.g. Developer A-Z get $60-80k, Developer Unicorn gets $120k]
I think something often unsaid in conversations about stuff like this is that ageism is rampant in the tech sector. I haven't experienced it first-hand (and I'm probably just now approaching the age where it might be a factor, and I haven't looked for a full-time job in a couple of decades), but I know several folks who have. Even when they've been willing to take lower salaries, when applying for startups, in particular, older folks often get passed over. It gets called things like "cultural fit", etc.
But, the thing is, we're talking about a "low six-figure salary" here, which is not that high for engineering work. In fact, in many markets, it's the baseline for anyone with more than a couple of years experience. I can't believe salary is the primary motivating factor, if it is a reasonable salary, well within the bounds of expected pay for people with experience.
I haven't been in the job market since I was quite young (I've run my own companies since my 20s, with some contract work along the way to make ends meet), but, I know my dad experienced this to some degree; and he was an engineer in an industry that was not nearly as ageist as high tech fields often are (he worked in the oil and gas industry). His salary climbed through his 30s and 40s, and then finding work became more difficult in his 50s, and he retired early partly due to health issues, but also because of difficulty finding good long-term work.
I don't think salary is the only factor here, especially given that most of the folks I know who've experienced this aren't insisting on making more than their peers doing the same work. The people motivated by money tend to rise up to management roles. The engineers who are driven by the desire to build things just want to make a decent salary while being in an environment where they get to build things. The most productive software engineer I think I've ever worked with was in his late 50s, and was making less than a number of developers in the company (but he had a private office and a few other perks that no one else got, and got to work on stuff that excited him, so he seemed reasonably content).
I kept telling him how odd it was to be negotiating salary upfront, and he told me "that's just how recruiting works." I just shrugged and let him do his job. If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruiter. Truth be told, I'd take $95K.
I learned from the art world, a lot of times "market value" is a fiction created by people whose job it is to manage expectations on all sides. It's in everybody's best interest to simply accept the status quo. Sure, you can buck the system and gain an additional $10-20K, but that takes a lot of effort and I'd rather put that effort elsewhere.
People buy into the cult of individualism too much. There was an article a month or so back about the maple syrup cartel. People here were applauding the renegades bucking the cartel. Not me. I'd get on very good terms with my cartel rep, get him a very good gift basket for Christmas, jump through every hoop they want me to jump through. The cartel takes a nasty, volatile market and smooths it out and makes it into a nice, reliable engine. That's what I want to be a part of. Not a damn free-for-all.
Any other career field, it would be 10+ years before I can make $100K. Here I managed to do it in 3 years. Be a team player. Climb the ladder, pay your dues. It doesn't take as long as you think.
This attitude is why engineers get bullied and steamrolled into working for a small fraction of the value they create for their employers, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table over the course of their careers. Being a team player is for after you're on the team -- but before that happens it's not personal, it's business. Anyone who takes it personally and not as a purely business negotiation is not someone you should work for.
Many a second-rate fellow gets caught up in some little twitting of the system, and carries it through to warfare. He expends his energy in a foolish project. Now you are going to tell me that somebody has to change the system. I agree; somebody's has to. Which do you want to be? The person who changes the system or the person who does first-class science? Which person is it that you want to be? Be clear, when you fight the system and struggle with it, what you are doing, how far to go out of amusement, and how much to waste your effort fighting the system. My advice is to let somebody else do it and you get on with becoming a first-class scientist. Very few of you have the ability to both reform the system and become a first-class scientist.
From http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
There's a couple more quotes like that. Very similar to your point.
For me, recruiters are useful for two reasons: to find me interesting opportunities and to help me get an interview.
When they've served those two functions, I'd prefer them to just get out of my way. From that point on, I feel my own interests are best served by me representing myself.
The recruiter's real customer is not really any one particular candidate, who they might see just once in their whole career, but the employer, who will likely be a repeat customer if the recruiter satisfies their needs. Looked upon from that perspective, it's not always in the recruiter's interest to land the candidate the highest salary possible. That might get the recruiter a higher cut that one time, but their real customer might not be too pleased if the recruiter keeps sending them expensive candidates. They'd be far happier if the recruiter managed to get them a sweet deal on a good worker.
So I'll just keep doing my own negotiations, thank you very much.
Sure, you can buck the system and gain an
additional $10-20K, but that takes a lot of
effort and I'd rather put that effort
elsewhere.
All that said, a candidate that knows their market value should never have to fear talking about salary history or expectations. If you know your market rate, and you stick to that as your expectation, you never have to worry about being underpaid. Market rate can be hard to define sometimes, and there are clearly companies that are willing to pay above market rate in certain scenarios, but candidates who do their research (or trust the knowledge of others) never have to worry about talking compensation.
The main article starts with an anecdote about how talking about salary history prevents a guy from getting work.
I wouldn't necessarily walk away from a candidate who wouldn't share approximate salary requirements early on in the process but it would probably be an added red flag if it was someone where I already had this concern.
Personally, for me there are no salary-based dealbreakers. There's always room for negotiation, after both sides determine there's a good fit.
It also doesn't stop me from negotiating hard, since I have turned down drastically higher numbers than most companies are willing to pay, so they know I easily have options. I'm more than willing to walk away from recruiters (and employers) who want to coerce me into accepting bad deals. Setting number expectations upfront with knowledge of the market saves me time, and tends to be enough to weed out the crap.
I, jack up the rate Im currently making, which has worked once; got a better paying gig.
If recruiters are chasing me while I'm looking for my next gig...
I make up a fair livable wage salary that won't push me out of consideration
I've known folks who "grew up" in a single company; joined out of college, worked there 15+ years, got annual raises, then got laid off and then couldn't find work at their previous salary. And the expectation of an annual raise kept forcing up their salary but I don't think the company was actually evaluating whether or not the person was getting more valuable over time.
I once had an interesting conversation with a recruiter who wanted me to pony up my current compensation. I asked, "Why is that relevant? You are the one with the job, and you are willing to pay some amount for someone to do that job, isn't it up to me to decide if I would be willing to do that job at the price offered?" There are jobs I would do for free, and jobs that you almost couldn't pay me enough to take, and that has nothing at all to do with what I'm currently being paid.
And if someone insists, I really do think they are looking to have something on paper that they can point to which will give them a safe "out" for hiring someone else while minimizing lawsuits. So much safer than "we are looking for someone who has more time to spend in this position", or "we were really hoping for a masculine point of view", or "we don't think you could relate culturally to our customers." All of which would violate the equal opportunity guidelines.
Your experience in exactly what your current company does, the way it does it, the relationships you have within the organisation etc may mean that part of your worth within the organisation is related to how long you've been there.
However, I have also observed that this value is also quite hard to quantify. I have seen the key individual to a particular process get transferred or leave after a management change resulted in their "food chain" not understanding this value. Only later when they ask "Why can't we ship X any more?" do they find out that person they felt was over paid and under utilized was in fact quite essential. Sadly, management that clueless is prone to yelling at everyone else rather than do a little introspection.
A job situation is no different. If it's a role requiring only "commodity" experience which dozens of qualified candidates are available for and wanting, they're going to pick the best combination of price and performance that they can find. If you have special talents that only you are uniquely suited for, you're the one who will be asking them about their offer.
Patrick MacKenzie's article on salary negotiations is excellent (I would maybe even say "required") reading on the subject.
I think the quoted moral still applies - you obviously have to disclose what you want to earn if you expect to actually earn that. However, what I made at my last job had zero bearing on my expected salary at my current job. If a recruiter is just trying to find out what I want, they can ask. However, I think more often than not they're getting paid on the spread and if they can place me in a job with a cap of $180 for $150, they'll do so and pocket whatever their percentage of the spread is.[0]
[0] I know this isn't how all recruiters are paid, but many are.
I realize those places were likely toxic, but it can be never-wracking to someone who needs a job.
If I heard that and felt I was going to walk away anyway, I'd be tempted to throw back "How much do you make?" And watch to see if they squirm to not share.
If they came back with "what I make has nothing to do with this position you're being interviewed for" come back with "then neither does my previous salaries, if they do then I need to know how much other folks in other positions in this company make so I can gauge whether I think this company will still be here in the future."
This. If you're asked early on just flip the question back to them.
Companies don't publish salaries for jobs because they're afraid of turning people off from applying to the job in the first place. They know applicants are more likely to take a lower offer after they've invested time into the process and maybe have a little rapport with the interviewers. You can use the exact same strategy as a job seeker. Companies can be more likely to accept a higher ask after they've put resources into interviewing you and gotten to know you a bit.
That said, an honest chat about expectations early on - where the hirer says roughly how much they're looking to pay and asks if it's something you'd be interested in - can be a really nice way to save everyone's time.
As for big companies, I've never had any of them even notice that I didn't fill in that field. So that's never been an issue.
Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money (3x mean personal income in the US, and ~1.75x mean HHI, give or take), but I'd expect most senior folks in any engineering field to be in the mid 100k range if not pushing 185ish.
> Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?”
Your last salary has absolutely no bearing on what you are worth or what the market rate is for the position for which you're applying. You have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing a previous salary.
> A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before.
I don't think this is that surprising, is it? If I make $100k and lose my job, often with little notice, I will take $80k. If I make $100k and leave of my own volition, it's unlikely I'll entertain anything below $110 or $115.
Almost everywhere in the Midwest, except Chicago perhaps.
Unless your remote working, low cost of living doesn't come without a big catch.
I knew a guy who was about 50, brilliant, brilliant engineer working for one of the big IT players. Well respected and trusted advisor to many customers. He got vaporized in some big restructuring that hit his division.
Because of non-compete and what he did, he was basically out of work for almost a year, and was stuck in career purgatory for a few years doing random contract work.
Anyone older cut their teeth on assembly or C, NetBIOS, and CLI and may or may not have stayed current afterwards. Consider that the industry was a lot "older" (just look at old pictures) until those technological shifts happened and shook out all the people that learned in the 60s or 70s.
If something like quantum computing or a parallel functional computing revolution or VR/augmented interfaces or anything else grossly disruptive to current development practices comes around, we're all going to be in the same boat: learn or die. Getting through that is not so much a factor of age as the circumstances around age and one's willingness to keep at it.
It's one thing to be at the low end of the totem pole, where anonymity and insecurity force you to hedge against the possibility of suddenly losing your job. But once you clear all that and find a bit of professional success, you're still not necessarily secure.
So you have to extend this hedging behavior further out. Keep building your skills, expand into other fields so that you are more employable. Complacency will put you into this position eventually, it's just a matter of time.
Don't leave a secure position to take one with more earning potential but less security. Constantly keep building bridges at your current job and don't give them a reason to fire you.
Above all, try not to hate your job. You may find 5 years down the road that it was the best thing you had going for you. As nasty as the work world can get, it's better than not working.
Pull your weight and support the people around you but don't grovel to your company! You're a free-thinking human being with value creating skills!
Masking how you feel and trying to work the system will only lead to regret. Find out who you are and what your principles are and stand by them, only then will you be able to live with yourself when you get old.
Also work can happen outside of the bounds of a company. Your post makes you sound really burned out, I hope you're doing ok = )
If you do that then you have two things in your favor already..
1. you are cheaper to hire because there are no recruitment feeds associated with you.
2. you showed some initiative to zero them out, and you demonstrated that you have creative writing skills which are an important trait in software development
As the realtors I worked with used to say about houses, "there's no problem that price won't fix", and that works for labor as well as real estate.
If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.
Sometimes companies will pay for experience but often they'll hire someone younger who screws up more because they cost less.
Now I'm continueing the search, but openly talk about what I'm looking for salary wise, I've wasted quiet a lot of my own time this past month.
It does need to be mutual though. I expect employers to include some salary guidance in a job ad. And if they claim to offer market rates, I expect them to live up to that.
The problem would occur when someone had lots of years working but their skill level is below par. Basically people who have done a narrow set of skills over the years and haven't broadened their knowledge. If we give them a low salary, it would be insulting and if it is too high for their skill then it would be unfair to some of the current employees (salary inversion.)
No it doesn't. The hiring company needs to be upfront, but the candidate doesn't. The company has a budget range set for the position whereas the candidate is asking the question 'Am I willing to do this job for the money they are offering me.'
In the UK a ballpark pay figure is normally expected information
The number I told him I was being paid at the time was actually the number it would take for me to leave my job. He came back with an offer that was slightly higher than that and I accepted.
Perhaps that's not the best idea?
After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Now, as he looks for a job following a layoff, he finds that salary success a burden.
Although his experience includes the sought-after field of 3-D printing, the 53-year-old hasn’t been able to land a permanent full-time job. Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?”
That question comes up sooner than ever nowadays. Hiring managers used to broach salary history or requirements only in later stages, after applicants had a chance to make an impression and state their case.
Today, pay increasingly is mentioned early in the process, either as a required field in online applications—which are used more often—or during initial interviews, say recruiters, compensation consultants and job seekers.
The shift is vexing applicants, mostly those of a certain age and pay level, who are concerned that a salary they worked to attain now gets in the way of having a job at all. “I’m unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree,” Mr. Edwards lamented.
ENLARGE Josh Rock, a recruiter at Fairview Health Services, a 20,000-employee health system in Minnesota, said that during the last recession, recruiters used compensation queries as a quick way to cull the large numbers of candidates for open jobs. The habit has stuck, he said. “Why not figure out what’s going on sooner in the process than doing a dance?”
Human-resources executives say asking about pay right off the bat helps contain compensation costs, ensures that candidates have reasonable expectations and spares recruiters from chasing prospects they can’t afford.
“Unfortunately, some clients use salary as a pre-screening question,” said Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer at iCIMS Inc., a provider of recruiting software in Matawan, N.J. “So if the role tops out at $55,000 and they say they want $60,000, it might knock the candidate out of consideration” even if the person would be open to salary negotiations.
Screening candidates this way may be a factor in wage stagnation, some analysts suggest. Average hourly earnings rose 2.5% in 2015, modest by historical standards. Wage growth has averaged only about 2% for the past five years.
Focusing on compensation history “holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations,” said Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. “We have a whole generation of people who are permanently adversely affected.”
ENLARGE Though hiring tactics have received little attention in the economic debate about wage stagnation, Mr. Kochan said they could have profound effects: “The decisions of firms individually are…creating collectively this macro phenomenon of stagnation,” yet are hard to measure because they are shrouded in secrecy.
U.S. employers continue to hold the line on wages despite six years of economic recovery and an unemployment rate of 5%. Finance chiefs are “probably looking ahead and saying they want to keep the escalation of labor costs from going up in a way that will put pressure on earnings,” said Ajit Kambil, global research director of Deloitte’s CFO Program.
In Deloitte’s most recent quarterly survey, 47% of chief financial offers said they plan to work to lower or control labor costs this year, by taming compensation growth, reducing benefit costs or other means. Moreover, employers may feel they can lowball applicants because they believe there is still a surplus of qualified candidates.
“Workers are still a little discounted” in most fields, said Linda Barrington, executive director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University’s ILR School. “Employers won’t pay what the last person in the job was paid because labor is now on sale.”
Steve Carpinelli recently applied for a public-relations position with a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. The role called for a minimum of five-to-seven years of experience. He has more than 14.
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How to Field Questions About Salary Expectations Mr. Carpinelli’s pay reached high five figures before the 45-year-old switched to the generally lower-paying field of nonprofits. While preparing for a phone interview with the Washington organization, he discovered that the last person in the job earned $101,000. So when asked early on about his salary expectations, he put his range squarely around what the last employee earned, seeking $85,000 to $110,000.
“After that, the conversation was very robotic, not a two-way conversation about what they’re truly looking for,” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I definitely got the impression that I’d priced myself out.”
In his experience, “there has been a definite shift or emphasis on beginning the conversation with: ‘What is your salary range?’” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I was always told you never talk about salary until you’re given an offer. But I’ve noticed the salary-range question comes up far earlier in the conversation.”
The organization ultimately hired a young woman with five years’ experience. Mr. Carpinelli is still looking for a permanent job.
Older job seekers sometimes see such outcomes as evidence of bias. But “employers can make financial decisions and it’s not necessarily age discrimination,” said Raymond Peeler, a senior attorney-advisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “What an employee would have to prove…is that the employer is using the salary level as a proxy to disqualify all the older applicants.”
Businessolver Inc., a benefits-administration firm in West Des Moines, Iowa, recently hired more than 100 people for its Denver office. Human-resources staffers ask about compensation in the middle of a six-step hiring process and use the answers to gauge applicants’ “level of reality,” said Marcy Klipfel, senior vice president of HR. “A lot of times what you’re looking at is are we going to waste time and get to the end of the process, and it turns out the person is way out of our range?”
A majority of workers take a salary cut when they get a new job after a stretch of unemployment, but those over 45 usually take a bigger hit than workers under 35 years of age, according to research from Ms. Barrington and a Cornell colleague, Hassan Enayati.
A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before.
Some employers hesitate to hire at far below a past salary, concerned that the employee would resent earning so much less. “If someone wants $100,000 and settles for $75,000, they’re not going to be happy,” said Steve Gross, a compensation specialist and senior partner at consulting firm Mercer.
Workers, however, say they would like the chance to decide for themselves.
“The presumption that I would walk into a job and get $150,000 is not there,” said Rosemary Lynch Kelleher, a baby boomer who has earned at that level during her 25-year career in international trade policy, and has been looking for a permanent job for several years.
“I realize very clearly that it’s not there. And I would take something for $100,000 or $75,000.”
In Austin, a woman who lost her six-figure position as a data architect in 2014 but recently landed a job, said she had been tempted to say she earned $60,000 to improve her chances of getting hired.
While she was searching, the 63-year-old said: “I hate putting down what I want” in salary. “If you put down too much, they think you’re expensive. If you don’t put down enough, they think you’re undervaluing yourself.”
Much of this ambiguity could be avoided if employers published a pay range for positions, but they don’t want to tip their hands. So experts suggest job seekers research market rates for particular positions and try to finesse salary questions.
“Say, ‘I’m open to a salary commensurate with the job,” recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. “And if they keep going, ask: ‘What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?’ ”
Some applicants, faced with a salary-history question they fear would exclude them from the start, have toyed with putting a bogus number in a required field in an online form.
Mr. Edwards, the electronics engineer, says he tried that once. Not hearing back from the company, he contacted its HR department and was told he was too expensive. That baffled him because he had listed $1,000 as his previous pay. It turned out HR had changed that to $100,000, assuming it was a mistake.
"a quick way to cull the large numbers of candidates for open jobs"
"holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations"
"U.S. employers continue to hold the line on wages"
"looking ahead and saying they want to keep the escalation of labor costs from going up in a way that will put pressure on earnings"
"47% of chief financial offers said they plan to work to lower or control labor costs this year, by taming compensation growth"
gauge applicants’ “level of reality"
Very interesting language in this piece.
Between culling applicants, testing their level of "reality", taming their unrealistic expectations, and holding the line, I think we can speculate that perhaps CFOs are panicking about rising wage pressure, using propaganda pieces like this one to reassure themselves, and trying hard to pressure applicants to be "realistic."
If employers want to try to save money by flying budget instead of first, they should be encouraged to do that. Maybe eventually they'll understand how that works out for them.
For me it's definitely negotiable. If you can't afford me then after negotiation then any gulf can be made up with a guaranteed longer contract or shorter hours; it's as simple as that.
Disqualifying off the bat is stupid, especially as some places pay extra because they need someone urgently for a short period.
Some companies are willing to pay top dollar, others are more interested in getting someone in their range, so name your price and move on if they blink.
This shows a lack of understanding of the market and poor self-awareness for someone who claims to be at the top of the tree.
The average company is looking to employ someone who will do the same job cheaper.
In order to earn more, it's necessary to identify employers who are willing to pay a premium for convenience or for an unusually skilled or experienced worker, and be aware of those before getting laid off.
This man seems particularly aggrieved that he lost a role to a "young woman with five years experience". A white man should not and does not automatically trump a woman - if he costs more (which he doesn't actually know for sure) then that's his problem.
That's it. I'll generally let them know it is open to negotiation as well.
Indeed.
After all, some companies suddenly become "flexible" once they find a candidate who really blows them away. Their alleged "top range" becomes malleable. So their range can be imaginary as well. In the information war that both sides are waging, similar tactics can be used.
Off topic, but I've said I won't answer it because of commercial in confidence reasons before.