Each case is different. Join us, don't comply, and prosper!

by Glenn
(San Jose, CA)

I have never complied with salary history requests, no matter how intimidating the language. Each hiring situation is different, and so is its corresponding compensation.

I may be one of those dotcom millionaires who doesn't work because he needs the money. So I have the liberty of accepting anything from Steve Jobs $1 to 6 figures. I may also understand a certain company has something very interesting yet they just don't have the financial resources. Will another employer understand that too, or will they say "This guy must really not value himself"? To avoid premature erroneous conclusions, I don't reveal salary history.

Moreover, don't we always hear that when it comes to interviewing, you as the candidate need to focus a lot more on the work? Isn't it usually presented that if you make money the focus that you're somehow greedy? Sure, we may know if many of us won the lottery we'd quit our jobs and never work for anybody ever again. We know that before that, we apply for work because other lucrative forms of making an income from prostitution to drug dealing aren't societally approved career tracks. Yet heaven help you if you happen to say that one of your primary motivators is Donna Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money."

Therefore, why bring up money first so early like with a salary history request?

Here's another reason for you to not comply. Employers really never know who you are as a candidate. The more people don't comply, the more leverage candidates as a whole gain. If you show many other attractive attributes they've just got to have, the salary part will be extremely negotiable. Since they don't know if the next candidate will be even more difficult to deal with than you, they would like to get the whole thing over with. They don't want to lose you because of a number.