4 ms·

Because companies want to get you for as little as they can, and if they know your previous compensation, instead of potentially offering you 30, 40, 50% higher

Because companies want to get you for as little as they can, and if they know your previous compensation, instead of potentially offering you 30, 40, 50% higher than what you're currently making, they will think they can get away with offering you {your previous salary} + 5% or 10%. That's why a bunch of companies ask what your previous salary was in interviews and why you need to absolutely not give that number in pretty much all circumstances. Like I got a 60% bump from my previous salary my last job search, in part because I hadn't gotten raises for several years at my previous company as they had wage freezes, and in part because I had been behind on compensation for a while due to having to take whatever halfway decent jobs I could get while unemployed, but if the prospective employer knew I was getting paid so little, they probably would have significantly lowered the salary they offered to me, and I'd still be behind the market rate for my skills, and the next time I went looking for a job I still wouldn't be offered enough to catch up to what I'm making now. It's a vicious cycle when they know your current salary.

hardware2win 4y ago
You can always do not accept their offert.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Not if that's all the offers you get, because they keep using your previous job's salary as a baseline. Or you have to churn through a 2-3 dozen job offers to find something closer to the going market rate, which is exhausting and time consuming. Even for that 60% bump, that was after talking to 20 recruiters over the phone, 8 online code exams, 5 multi-stage interviews, and getting 2 offers, over an exhausting three week period, and juggling all those with a day job was super difficult, and I had to schedule enough of those during the work day that it got to the point where my former boss probably started to notice. I'd hate to have to double, triple, or quadruple that effort just to get maybe a 30% bump if my previous salary was public knowledge.
  - ProZsolt 4y ago
    Maybe they know your previous salary, but they don't know how many offers you have. You just have to put your foot down and say you won't move if they offer less than X and state that you current salary is irrelevant as they up against other companies not your current one. I managed to get a significant salary bump even without having a job, because I made sure they understand from the beginning I'm happy to walk away.

hardware2win 4y ago

You can always do not accept their offert.

cableshaft 4y ago
Not if that's all the offers you get, because they keep using your previous job's salary as a baseline. Or you have to churn through a 2-3 dozen job offers to find something closer to the going market rate, which is exhausting and time consuming. Even for that 60% bump, that was after talking to 20 recruiters over the phone, 8 online code exams, 5 multi-stage interviews, and getting 2 offers, over an exhausting three week period, and juggling all those with a day job was super difficult, and I had to schedule enough of those during the work day that it got to the point where my former boss probably started to notice. I'd hate to have to double, triple, or quadruple that effort just to get maybe a 30% bump if my previous salary was public knowledge.
- ProZsolt 4y ago
  Maybe they know your previous salary, but they don't know how many offers you have. You just have to put your foot down and say you won't move if they offer less than X and state that you current salary is irrelevant as they up against other companies not your current one. I managed to get a significant salary bump even without having a job, because I made sure they understand from the beginning I'm happy to walk away.