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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday January 12 2017, @06:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-start dept.

The The Center for American Progress reports

When applicants apply for a job with the New York State government, they will no longer have to worry about handing over a salary history.

As part of a slate of proposals in his State of the State address on [January 9], Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced he is issuing an executive order [PDF] that bans state entities from asking applicants for their salary histories or from evaluating candidates based on what they were paid in the past. Prospective employees can only be asked to provide the information after getting a job offer with compensation.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday January 12 2017, @05:07PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday January 12 2017, @05:07PM (#452978) Journal

    There is no technical reason as to why salary should be discussed prior to an offer being made.

    Yes, it seems to actually reverse the direction of the "offer." By revealing salary information, you're letting an employer know what you've previously been willing to do and for how much. Of course they're going to exploit that information. It's a bit like going into some big appliance store and the salesman starts by saying, "What's your price range?" Not what features do you want. Not what models are you interested in. He just wants to know how to maximize his commission, and you're giving him information about how high you're likely willing to go.

    Now imagine that no prices are shown on any appliances. And the salesman asks, "What did you pay for your last TV and what features did it have?" It doesn't matter if TV values and costs of manufacture have gone down by 75% for equivalent models -- this guy now has a sense of what you're used to, and he can exploit that to jack up the price in his favor.

    In a job interview, you often don't know what the offer is going to look like ahead of time. You're giving over a major advantage in negotiation by offering your previous salary (or, as the question sometimes asks, your "salary requirements," essentially asking you to start the salary negotiation even before you're considered for the job).

    And aside from taking advantage of candidates unlucky enough to have had bad salaries before, this practice also can discriminate against people who are overpaid. Or people who want to relocate or take a different job for a reason other than salary -- and they might even be wiling to take a paycut -- but they get thrown out of the pool of possible interviewees as "not feasible".

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  • (Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Thursday January 12 2017, @08:08PM

    by SecurityGuy (1453) on Thursday January 12 2017, @08:08PM (#453041)

    It's a bit like going into some big appliance store and the salesman starts by saying, "What's your price range?"

    Actually, when looking for appliances, cars, houses, etc, I do want to filter that way. Show me all the washers that cost less than $XXX, because I don't care what it does, I'm just not paying more than that. Similarly, with jobs I'd love to filter out every position or company that wouldn't pay me at least $X. If I won't accept less and they won't pay more, then there's no point spending either of our time deciding we want to work together.

    A neutral third party would by handy so that the company could tell someone (but not me, if they aren't willing) what their range is, and I could tell that same someone what range I'll accept, and all they tell us is that yes, there's an overlap, so we should talk, or not, and we both more on. Obviously, there's potential for abuse there that would have to be dealt with. You don't want a bunch of fake accounts binary-searching what the range is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13 2017, @05:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13 2017, @05:06AM (#453189)

      Actually, when looking for appliances, cars, houses, etc, I do want to filter that way. Show me all the washers that cost less than $XXX, because I don't care what it does, I'm just not paying more than that. Similarly, with jobs I'd love to filter out every position or company that wouldn't pay me at least $X. If I won't accept less and they won't pay more, then there's no point spending either of our time deciding we want to work together.

      Well, in principle, I could agree with this. In practice, though, the negotiations are typically rather one-sided. If the prospective employer were to state up front what range they were willing to pay for the job, then I could agree with this. Barring that, no way. Then it becomes a losing game for the prospective employee: if you can guess how much they are willing to pay you, you have a chance to get the job. In that scenario if they really want the job then the prospective employee will be safer to bet low rather than high. In that light, this looks like yet one more way for employers to depress employee wages.

      A neutral third party would by handy so that the company could tell someone (but not me, if they aren't willing) what their range is, and I could tell that same someone what range I'll accept, and all they tell us is that yes, there's an overlap, so we should talk, or not, and we both more on. Obviously, there's potential for abuse there that would have to be dealt with. You don't want a bunch of fake accounts binary-searching what the range is.

      Yes, there is tremendous opportunity for abuse there. Do you honestly not see how this could be abused by employers? Really?