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Here in California, our government has passed a strange new law.
Although intended to force employers to stop offering different pay rates to men and women, the new law has the strange side effect of forcing recruiters to play fair - and recruiters aren't liking it. The law also forbids asking candidates for their prior compensation history. Again, recruiters and hiring managers aren't liking the new shift in the balance of power:
Assembly Bill No. 168
SECTION 1. Section 432.3 is added to the Labor Code, to read:432.3. (a) An employer shall not rely on the salary history information of an applicant for employment as a factor in determining whether to offer employment to an applicant or what salary to offer an applicant.
(b) An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment.
(c) An employer, upon reasonable request, shall provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment.
(d) Section 433 does not apply to this section.
(e) This section shall not apply to salary history information disclosable to the public pursuant to federal or state law, including the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code) or the federal Freedom of Information Act (Section 552 of Title 5 of the United States Code).
(f) This section applies to all employers, including state and local government employers and the Legislature.
(g) Nothing in this section shall prohibit an applicant from voluntarily and without prompting disclosing salary history information to a prospective employer.
(h) If an applicant voluntarily and without prompting discloses salary history information to a prospective employer, nothing in this section shall prohibit that employer from considering or relying on that voluntarily disclosed salary history information in determining the salary for that applicant.
(i) Consistent with Section 1197.5, nothing in this section shall be construed to allow prior salary, by itself, to justify any disparity in compensation.
(emphasis added)
To drive salaries and wages down, Silicon Valley has for many years outsourced their recruiting efforts to other states, where the cost of living is much lower and recruiting agency employees were less likely to respect the inevitable protests from candidates over the low wages being offered, because the wages being offered were comparable to the wages being offered in the state where the recruiter was located.
Now Silicon Valley's employers have the unpleasant duty of educating their remote, far-flung, outsourced networks of workers of the new law.
If you're a job-seeker, here in California, how has this new law affected your ability to seek employment and your experience with recruiters?
If you're a recruiter - inside or outside California - how is this affecting your business? How are you treating candidates who inform you of this new law?
If you're a hiring manager, are you informing recruiters of this law? Are they informing you of this law?
Violation of the law is a misdemeanor.
The California Legislature is interested in receiving feedback from employees and candidates, also.
Obviously, the Legislature has already heard, and is hearing, from employers. But they need to hear BOTH sides in order to make (and defend) their decisions.
It's tempting to badmouth the California Legislature - but I was pleasantly surprised to discover legislative information was available, via Archie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine), from the leginfo.legislature.ca.gov website, two decades ago.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday January 26 2018, @07:48PM (3 children)
There were a couple years in which I only asked for what I felt I needed and no more. I did this because I had the idea it would enable others to get jobs too.
Not. One. Offer.
The last time I applied for a job I requested $130k and they offered $135.
Next time I'm going to ask for $150k.
I have been contract programming [soggywizards.com] for just one client for a little over a year now. Last year's gross income wast $21k.
I'm doing just fine.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:32PM (1 child)
Mike,
You should usually ask for the "going rate."
If you deviate too much from that, things get difficult for everyone.
I assume you finally learned what "the going rate" is by your last post.
Offering to work for less than that does not help you or gain you respect, as you stated.
Demanding more than that makes it harder to find work--although it is not impossible. Just harder to pull off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:19AM
Actually, what you really should ask first is "are you offering me the job?" If they say no, that is a bad sign. A very bad sign. More than likely, what they really want is to have a good documented reason for not making you an offer. If, on the other hand, they say that they are offering you the job, then you can start salary negotiations. Instead of asking for the "going rate", it is much better to ask them what they are prepared to offer their best applicant. Depending on how hardball you want to play it, you could then make a counter offer that is about 5 to 10 percent higher. That's the way to maximize any potential salary offer. And, depending on what position you are interviewing for, they may actually be quite impressed with your negotiating skills.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @10:00PM
Empathy, buddy, empathy.
Think about it from their point of view not yours. They have no idea what you want or need, but they "know" they need $135 worth of something (per hour, I assume?) to accomplish what they want based on market experience. So if you offer something that does not gel with their opinion of what they want.., no contract.
Bad SN car analogy, lets say they want to buy a nice Cadillac and are willing to pay $48K MSRP. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer expert who can scientifically prove they actually need a nice $20K Yaris to do the job, because they already decided they want the caddy. If you offer them the Yaris they're gonna be pissed off.
Now if you want to work like a rented mule for less than minimum wage mostly to do rich kids homework assignments, let me introduce you to the Upwork website. Thats the other empathy side, don't ask real companies for joke pay, you're essentially insulting the company. The real company probably isn't a Stanford rich kid who just wants an "A" in java 101 class.