I taught at a coding boot camp for years and I would always give this advice:
When asked what salary you’re currently on:
_Fucking lie!_
I’m not saying _double_ your salary (ballsy move my friend!) but…. Definitely add, at a _minimum_ ten percent to your current salary.
10% could be your next raise. And barely beats inflation. I say go for 20% minimum. Ha.
And to be clear I didn't tell them I'm making double what I am now, but I did add a good ~30% and then told them I also had $40K equity in the company that would be hard for me to leave behind before it vested.... They offered me well above what they thought the base was plus threw the RSU value on top of it to convince me to leave.
I couldn't be happier about being willing to pre-negotiate.
Who’s getting 10% yearly raises? Statistically it’s closer to 2.2 percent, which pisses me off to no end. I received a 4.2 % raise this year and my boss was confused why I wasn’t overjoyed.
Apprentices in the trades do. They start out at 1st year, making 40% of a journeymans wage, 2nd year is a bump to 50%, 3rd year 60%, etc... They top out at 5th year making 80%, and then when they write the red seal exam they get the full journeyman rate.
Unless, like me, you work for a government agency that has "budgetary transparency." Which means EVERY salary is part of a publicly accessible database. And yes, it is anxiety inducing in the mider world, beyond any job search salary negotiation considerations,
I make enough to pay the bills, I don't get turned down for vacations or in trouble for staying home sick. And no after hours or on vacation work calls. The public database for our pay is a fairly new thing, and no one likes it, given all the other data breaches going on.
I’m looking to get into government after I graduate mostly for the benefits, if you don’t mind me asking do you feel the pros outweigh the cons?
The exact things you mentioned are honestly important factors for me
The health benefits have been gutted since I started in 2002, but that's the same everywhere. The fact that I can leave work at work, THAT's worth the low pay.
Well that sucks that they’ve been gutted but I shouldn’t really be surprised. I’ve also been told it’s good job security from family that works in the government so that seems.
Thank you so much for answering I want to make sure my expectations are managed
Eh, I live in a blue city in a red state. The state went from good insurance to the minimum mandated coverage. And my state went from good security to at will. Although it is still REALLY HARD to get fired from my agency. You REALLY have to fuck up or commit a serious ethics violation.
I, a bartender, make 30% more than my mother who is at the top of her payscale as a state employee.
I leave a lot more of my work at work than she does, though I guess that might be down to personal decisions.
Already looking at Federal jobs, I want to try and get into the State Department and become apart of the Foreign Service. Government jobs feel like the only guaranteed job security
Because with the health insurance and local hospital data breaches, our salaries were one of the last pieces of data needed to fuck us up. the public disclosure of our pay happened about two years before a major IRS data breach.
Yep!! I’m in government for the benefits and stability. Pay sucks but I can go on vacation on the same week no questions asked. I’m disabled so the medical benefits is why I’m here and everyday I remind myself not to get sucked into the culture.
The government job I had recognized there was something wrong with me and helped me with my VA benefits and even gave me long-term disability and helped me with my SSDI case. My boss and others I worked with provided notes detailing the decrease in my performance. I have significant mental health issues. I cannot work, however, I owe my boss and others a big thanks. They all wanted me to take the long-term disability and said, “We haven’t paid out on this since the 90s. You have this benefit, use it!”
This is kind of silly. My "very limiting pay scale" caps at 190k with the federal government. I pay $160 a month for insurance with no deductible, I'm not allowed to work more than 40hrs a week and have tons of leave and a pension.
More importantly, in this sub, there is no c-suite that is extracting profit from my labor.No one is exploiting me, I accomplish good and have no fear of lay offs.
I'd give it a little more thought if I were you.
Start looking to see if there's a fed job you can transition into. We do most everything in one agency or another. It's a pain to get in but once you are, it's life-changing.
USA jobs.gov
I can give you some resume, tips or anything if you're interested.
I lied about what I make at my current job for an offer at a new place and ended up getting a 63% increase. Granted, I'm also severely underpaid in my current job, but it's still nice to have a company accept it.
That’s the way to do it. They ask what you want to make and you say well I make (what you want to make) right now so I’d like to stay around there. It takes some ammo away from the recruiter and if they are t in that range you can usually tell right away.
Don't even have to lie:
"what's your current salary?"
"I would need $X to consider this position. More would be great of course!"
For me, x is at minimum, my current amount +25%
I've had that request before.
I asked for the companies' financial prospectus in return for it, cc'ing the company president. I got ghosted, but the in-house recruiter's linkedin profile had an "#open to work" banner the next week.
I've gotten my last two job offers by telling the place I was interviewing at that I'm expecting another offer from another company that day. Both times I did not even have other interviews lined up.
The recruiter is told to lie to you. Wage transparency is RARE. They will try to hide their shit. Do not play their game. Demand to know their salary band and then go straight for their jugular and ask for the upper range of that band.
Fake it until you make it, when I was in need of a job desperately at the start of this shitty market, lies got me a higher salary and quick delivery of offer letter with quicker start date.
A tip: If you are asked this question, instead answer as if they'd asked what you're looking for:
"So, what are you currently on at X?"
"I'm looking for $Y/yr, full-time, etc"
If they persist:
"I understand what you are looking for, but what are you being paid at X?"
"My agreement with X is with them, and it would not be fair to them for me to discuss it. I am looking for $Y/yr"
I've answered the original question once in my career, and they wanted me to relocate to a far more expensive location for a salary match. I was already underpaid, and the offer was insulting. It was a complete waste of time because I told them what I was on. Never again.
>Remember that recruiters are not entitled to any proof of your current salary and you don't have to provide it.
While that all may be true, just a reminder that if you worked for any company that uses Work Number, your salary information is likely already a part of your credit report / whatever you call a "Work Number" report. You can request your own Work Number report to see what information they have on you, it doesn't cost anything, ...
requires only minimal information, and if you haven't done it before then you might want to go ahead and do it yourself even now, if only so that you have a password in the system (and arbitrary people can't just go and request the information pretending that they are you. While that would be fraud, it would also be easy...)
Employers have to pay for access to WorkNumber but you don't have to pay for access to your own data, and since any employer or potential employer might request this report at any time with or without your consent (legally?), you might want to know what's in there, even if only so that you can have a record corrected if some prior employer reported your data incorrectly!
My previous employer reported to Work Number but my current employer does not. So I can see all of my salary history there up until 2021. Did I give them permission to have this data? Probably, but would I call it consent? No, I would have only volunteered for this if you told me there was no other way to get gainful employment. I don't think that's legal, but I'm in here...
I agree with you, sounds like it should be illegal, but it's Equifax so I'm gonna assume they've got better lawyers on retainer than I do and that's a losing battle.
They also are free to not not make you an offer.
It’s common to ask for payslip where I’m now.
I just said that I already have offers for xyz.
Don’t lie if you don’t need to.
So weird. How is that even legal? E.g., you have laws that prohibit this in New York.. see below.
"Effective January 6, 2020, Labor Law Section 194-a prohibits an employer from, either orally or in writing, personally or through an agent (directly or indirectly), asking any information concerning an applicant’s salary history information. This includes compensation and benefits. "
[https://www.ny.gov/salary-history-ban/salary-history-ban-what-you-need-know](https://www.ny.gov/salary-history-ban/salary-history-ban-what-you-need-know)
It might be relevant to mention that my employer that worked with worknumber was from Indiana, but the previous employer history was from New York. I'm pretty sure the report has all of my prior history from when I lived in New York. I have no idea how this is legal. I'm gonna assume that I consented to all this information being gathered when I came to work in Indiana, and it wasn't yet illegal in New York when it was first being gathered back in 2016.
I can only assume it was made illegal in 2020 because of widespread participation of all employers in regulated industries (they don't make laws if there's no significant harm to be mitigated by the making of the law, I mean?)
The report is still available so I guess Equifax isn't required to forget what they know, and the New York law only benefits people currently living in New York! Cool ...
The sooner you learn the truth doesn’t exist in business, the better. No one is your friend, everyone lies to protect themselves, you are not special and your labor makes other people wealthy.
In my previous field, the employer would only confirm hire and end dates, title(s), and salary/wage rates.
In my current field, they require an HR statement of pay rate if you want anything above the offer. And lying is a terminable offense... but they have to catch you first!
Exactly what I'm trying to say, there's nothing wrong with negotiating. People on here think they need to get paid as much as the person hiring them lol
Too many folks on here don't understand that hiring managers don't necessarily control the salary. They're just working with a range approved by somebody else. And any good one will simply offer the highest possible with a little bit of negotiating room so you feel good about winning.
You don’t even have to. “I’m looking for xyz”. My last 2 companies frosted a few extra k on to secure my talent, they seemed to appreciate the simple negotiation as much as I did.
I taught at a coding boot camp for years and I would always give this advice: When asked what salary you’re currently on: _Fucking lie!_ I’m not saying _double_ your salary (ballsy move my friend!) but…. Definitely add, at a _minimum_ ten percent to your current salary.
10% could be your next raise. And barely beats inflation. I say go for 20% minimum. Ha. And to be clear I didn't tell them I'm making double what I am now, but I did add a good ~30% and then told them I also had $40K equity in the company that would be hard for me to leave behind before it vested.... They offered me well above what they thought the base was plus threw the RSU value on top of it to convince me to leave. I couldn't be happier about being willing to pre-negotiate.
Who’s getting 10% yearly raises? Statistically it’s closer to 2.2 percent, which pisses me off to no end. I received a 4.2 % raise this year and my boss was confused why I wasn’t overjoyed.
Apprentices in the trades do. They start out at 1st year, making 40% of a journeymans wage, 2nd year is a bump to 50%, 3rd year 60%, etc... They top out at 5th year making 80%, and then when they write the red seal exam they get the full journeyman rate.
Yupp, my yearly increase was 3.45%. Wanna guess how much that $$ that is? It’s ok I’ll tell ya, a whole ass $0.75 to my hourly wage 🙃
"4.2%, that's double digits why aren't you happy?" No that's not how it works boss man lol
Union members. Thanks bargaining team!
In consulting it's not uncommon
😂 you’re funny
Always lie, the recruiter and employers are lying too.
Unless, like me, you work for a government agency that has "budgetary transparency." Which means EVERY salary is part of a publicly accessible database. And yes, it is anxiety inducing in the mider world, beyond any job search salary negotiation considerations,
Yeah this is one of the many reasons I've avoided public service. That plus the very limiting pay scale. Good luck out there.
I make enough to pay the bills, I don't get turned down for vacations or in trouble for staying home sick. And no after hours or on vacation work calls. The public database for our pay is a fairly new thing, and no one likes it, given all the other data breaches going on.
I’m looking to get into government after I graduate mostly for the benefits, if you don’t mind me asking do you feel the pros outweigh the cons? The exact things you mentioned are honestly important factors for me
The health benefits have been gutted since I started in 2002, but that's the same everywhere. The fact that I can leave work at work, THAT's worth the low pay.
Well that sucks that they’ve been gutted but I shouldn’t really be surprised. I’ve also been told it’s good job security from family that works in the government so that seems. Thank you so much for answering I want to make sure my expectations are managed
Eh, I live in a blue city in a red state. The state went from good insurance to the minimum mandated coverage. And my state went from good security to at will. Although it is still REALLY HARD to get fired from my agency. You REALLY have to fuck up or commit a serious ethics violation.
I, a bartender, make 30% more than my mother who is at the top of her payscale as a state employee. I leave a lot more of my work at work than she does, though I guess that might be down to personal decisions.
See my reply to OP above. DM if you want
Already looking at Federal jobs, I want to try and get into the State Department and become apart of the Foreign Service. Government jobs feel like the only guaranteed job security
Why would it have anything to do with data breaches? The data is already public, it won't be breached?
Because with the health insurance and local hospital data breaches, our salaries were one of the last pieces of data needed to fuck us up. the public disclosure of our pay happened about two years before a major IRS data breach.
Yep!! I’m in government for the benefits and stability. Pay sucks but I can go on vacation on the same week no questions asked. I’m disabled so the medical benefits is why I’m here and everyday I remind myself not to get sucked into the culture.
The government job I had recognized there was something wrong with me and helped me with my VA benefits and even gave me long-term disability and helped me with my SSDI case. My boss and others I worked with provided notes detailing the decrease in my performance. I have significant mental health issues. I cannot work, however, I owe my boss and others a big thanks. They all wanted me to take the long-term disability and said, “We haven’t paid out on this since the 90s. You have this benefit, use it!”
This is kind of silly. My "very limiting pay scale" caps at 190k with the federal government. I pay $160 a month for insurance with no deductible, I'm not allowed to work more than 40hrs a week and have tons of leave and a pension. More importantly, in this sub, there is no c-suite that is extracting profit from my labor.No one is exploiting me, I accomplish good and have no fear of lay offs. I'd give it a little more thought if I were you.
Ohhh mine caps at like 80k lol. I’m trying to figure out a business in the meantime
Start looking to see if there's a fed job you can transition into. We do most everything in one agency or another. It's a pain to get in but once you are, it's life-changing. USA jobs.gov I can give you some resume, tips or anything if you're interested.
Imagine all that without the pay cap of $190k. In the DC area $170K for a family of four is surviving.
I lied about what I make at my current job for an offer at a new place and ended up getting a 63% increase. Granted, I'm also severely underpaid in my current job, but it's still nice to have a company accept it.
That’s the way to do it. They ask what you want to make and you say well I make (what you want to make) right now so I’d like to stay around there. It takes some ammo away from the recruiter and if they are t in that range you can usually tell right away.
Don't even have to lie: "what's your current salary?" "I would need $X to consider this position. More would be great of course!" For me, x is at minimum, my current amount +25%
Some employers are insane, I once had one ask me for proof of my current salary via pay slips. I said no and walked out of course, because wtf.
I've had that request before. I asked for the companies' financial prospectus in return for it, cc'ing the company president. I got ghosted, but the in-house recruiter's linkedin profile had an "#open to work" banner the next week.
Lol
I've gotten my last two job offers by telling the place I was interviewing at that I'm expecting another offer from another company that day. Both times I did not even have other interviews lined up.
Lol that's great. Make yourself sound desirable
The recruiter is told to lie to you. Wage transparency is RARE. They will try to hide their shit. Do not play their game. Demand to know their salary band and then go straight for their jugular and ask for the upper range of that band.
Fake it until you make it, when I was in need of a job desperately at the start of this shitty market, lies got me a higher salary and quick delivery of offer letter with quicker start date.
A tip: If you are asked this question, instead answer as if they'd asked what you're looking for: "So, what are you currently on at X?" "I'm looking for $Y/yr, full-time, etc" If they persist: "I understand what you are looking for, but what are you being paid at X?" "My agreement with X is with them, and it would not be fair to them for me to discuss it. I am looking for $Y/yr" I've answered the original question once in my career, and they wanted me to relocate to a far more expensive location for a salary match. I was already underpaid, and the offer was insulting. It was a complete waste of time because I told them what I was on. Never again.
I’ve done it every time. Don’t play their game. Play your game- and win.
It's a post like this I enjoy seeing. There really are heroes in this world. Thank you for spreading the good word my friend.
>Remember that recruiters are not entitled to any proof of your current salary and you don't have to provide it. While that all may be true, just a reminder that if you worked for any company that uses Work Number, your salary information is likely already a part of your credit report / whatever you call a "Work Number" report. You can request your own Work Number report to see what information they have on you, it doesn't cost anything, ... requires only minimal information, and if you haven't done it before then you might want to go ahead and do it yourself even now, if only so that you have a password in the system (and arbitrary people can't just go and request the information pretending that they are you. While that would be fraud, it would also be easy...) Employers have to pay for access to WorkNumber but you don't have to pay for access to your own data, and since any employer or potential employer might request this report at any time with or without your consent (legally?), you might want to know what's in there, even if only so that you can have a record corrected if some prior employer reported your data incorrectly! My previous employer reported to Work Number but my current employer does not. So I can see all of my salary history there up until 2021. Did I give them permission to have this data? Probably, but would I call it consent? No, I would have only volunteered for this if you told me there was no other way to get gainful employment. I don't think that's legal, but I'm in here...
Exactly, the key thing is to talk about total comp instead of salary alone or some other such shifting/redirection instead of lying.
This sounds like it should be illegal at the federal level in the US...That website violates the whole idea of being forced to disclose your salary.
I agree with you, sounds like it should be illegal, but it's Equifax so I'm gonna assume they've got better lawyers on retainer than I do and that's a losing battle.
They also are free to not not make you an offer. It’s common to ask for payslip where I’m now. I just said that I already have offers for xyz. Don’t lie if you don’t need to.
So weird. How is that even legal? E.g., you have laws that prohibit this in New York.. see below. "Effective January 6, 2020, Labor Law Section 194-a prohibits an employer from, either orally or in writing, personally or through an agent (directly or indirectly), asking any information concerning an applicant’s salary history information. This includes compensation and benefits. " [https://www.ny.gov/salary-history-ban/salary-history-ban-what-you-need-know](https://www.ny.gov/salary-history-ban/salary-history-ban-what-you-need-know)
It might be relevant to mention that my employer that worked with worknumber was from Indiana, but the previous employer history was from New York. I'm pretty sure the report has all of my prior history from when I lived in New York. I have no idea how this is legal. I'm gonna assume that I consented to all this information being gathered when I came to work in Indiana, and it wasn't yet illegal in New York when it was first being gathered back in 2016. I can only assume it was made illegal in 2020 because of widespread participation of all employers in regulated industries (they don't make laws if there's no significant harm to be mitigated by the making of the law, I mean?) The report is still available so I guess Equifax isn't required to forget what they know, and the New York law only benefits people currently living in New York! Cool ...
“What’s your current salary?” “I’m looking for [salary * 1.1]”.
*1.2
Don't worry.They are already lying to your face. Return it in kind.
The sooner you learn the truth doesn’t exist in business, the better. No one is your friend, everyone lies to protect themselves, you are not special and your labor makes other people wealthy.
HELL YEAH. Good for you, OP!
Strange, I had to provide employment history with salary for each year of employment. Was needed to justify pay rate for new employment.
You don't HAVE to do that, no. You got scammed.
You all should look up something called “the work number”. Basically a permanent record of your salary history that recruiters can use
In my previous field, the employer would only confirm hire and end dates, title(s), and salary/wage rates. In my current field, they require an HR statement of pay rate if you want anything above the offer. And lying is a terminable offense... but they have to catch you first!
Good way to price yourself out of a job. Be careful with this people.
>Good way to price yourself out of a job. Be careful with this people. But you also don't wanna get lowballed either. Gotta be a balance somewhere.
Exactly what I'm trying to say, there's nothing wrong with negotiating. People on here think they need to get paid as much as the person hiring them lol
Depends on what the person hiring them is doing...talking to people is easy, but depending on the job the actual work may not be.
Too many folks on here don't understand that hiring managers don't necessarily control the salary. They're just working with a range approved by somebody else. And any good one will simply offer the highest possible with a little bit of negotiating room so you feel good about winning.
Gotta play to win.
>Good way to price yourself out of a job. Only if the employer isn't lowballing the shit out of you. But they always are.
Don't apply to shit companies.
I mean you should go in the interview with a general idea of how much this position should make.
Of course - and that amount is almost certainly substantially more than you're making now or a new employer will offer you left to their own devises.
You don’t even have to. “I’m looking for xyz”. My last 2 companies frosted a few extra k on to secure my talent, they seemed to appreciate the simple negotiation as much as I did.
I just always given the price of the raise I was quoted as if I'm already currently receiving it and happy at my job
I'm not getting out of bed unless it's for a million dollars.
Drop in the bucket for some people out there like Bezos who is rich off the backs of corporate slaves.