Disclosing your salary during a job application

Should job applicants have to disclose their last remuneration to the companies that they are interviewing at? That's a debate that has gone on for as long as I can remember. Singapore has not made this practice illegal; however, applicants are similarly not obliged to disclose this information.

A closely guarded secret?

Some will claim that this is not helpful to applicants; companies can simply choose not to hire applicants who decline to disclose these details. That's certainly true. What's not true, I feel, is that this only disadvantages applicants. No, this disadvantages applicants who don't have many options. Similarly, this also disadvantages companies who don't exactly have a large pool of applicants to choose from. Your options, or lack thereof, are not anyone's problem but your own.

Why ask for this info?

Companies usually justify asking for the last drawn pay with this: it saves time for everyone if the applicant's previous remuneration was significantly higher than the budget for this role - thus the company avoids making an uninteresting (or worse, insulting) offer.

If this were the justification, however, it begs the question as to why the budget for this role isn't normally revealed. What applicants tend to feel, is that companies want this information so as to give themselves an edge in negotiations and an opportunity to lowball these applicants. And while this may not be true for every employer, enough employers have done this (and are still doing this) that this accusation isn't entirely unfounded. On the other side of the coin, employers may feel that applicants who aren't trying to pull a fast one on them, should have nothing to hide where their last drawn pay is concerned... and indeed, there are plenty of applicants who act just as shadily to justify those fears. Suffice to say, information, or lack thereof, is seen as the decisive weapon in negotiations.

All about the
strategic advantage.

Purely from a business standpoint, I understand that sentiment behind lowballing applicants perfectly. Let's say, for example's sake, that this was a role for a senior software engineer. If the applicant was last paid SGD 5,000 a month as a software developer, why should the company pay more than SGD 6,000 a month? Sure, SGD 8,000 a month is the budget for the senior software engineer role, but the applicant doesn't know that.

Conversely, applicants might feel that disclosing their last drawn remuneration unnecessarily limits them to a certain pay range. If their last remuneration was SGD 5,000 as a web developer and the software architect role they were applying for potentially paid SGD 10,000, they wouldn't want to have to settle for SGD 6,000 a month even though it was higher than their last drawn pay.

I have to agree, that doesn't make sense either. The value of the role doesn't change depending on who's being interviewed for it, so why should the offer differ based on the last drawn salary? Should applicants be permanently disadvantaged just because their last employers undervalued or underpaid them, or because they were paid lower for an entirely different job?

Here's my opinion: it's rarely just about the money. Sure, saving a little here and there tends to add up, but let's not kid ourselves - companies aren't doing this for the money. If saving a couple hundred or thousand a month meant that much, perhaps they shouldn't be in business at all. No, companies (or just the people running them) don't want to lose. And having to pay applicants significantly more than they were making in their last job, could be seen as losing, even if the job is now significantly different or more challenging. Honestly, again, just purely from a business point of view, employers would pay employees nothing if they thought they could get away with it; what more paying them a lot more than their last boss did?

Common advice

Most literature I've read on this subject, advise applicants to do the following when pressed to reveal their last drawn pay - politely explain that you're looking for a competitive compensation package based on your experience and the role's responsibilities. Turn the question around by inquiring about the company's salary range for the position.

Well... that's certainly an option. Diplomacy is great and all, but a little too indirect for my tastes. And, it doesn't stop the company from insisting on the information anyway.

And then there are some blustery corners of the internet, such as Quora and Reddit, who recommend that the applicant lie. I can't even begin to describe all the ways this would be a horrible idea.

Don't lie.

But, if the risk of being caught doesn't sufficiently scare you out of lying, consider this. The company is just one of a multitude of places to work at. You shouldn't have to lie in order to get employed. No one should.

Perhaps I'm speaking from a position of privilege when I say this: it's just a job opportunity. Don't lie. It's undignified. It's not so much that the company that you're applying to work at, deserves the truth. It's more that you deserve to be better than that.

My advice

Give them what they want. And at the same time, don't give them what they want. Confusing? Let me explain this.

They say they want last drawn pay information. Sure. Tell them. Give them payslips, even. But if what they really want is an edge at pay negotiations, don't give them that. When I provide my last drawn pay, I also explain that all the salary information in the world doesn't change my price. I want what I want for that role. This tends to put a damper on anyone trying to use my pay information in a cynical way.

Sure, you can say that now they know what your last drawn pay was, they'll want you to justify your asking price. And your point is...? If you can't justify that asking price, you have no business asking for it in the first place. Go get 'em, tiger.

Be prepared to walk if you don't get what you want. This is your career, not some wet market where you haggle over the price of a cod steak. The moment you find yourself haggling, you've already surrendered control.

The price of cod.

In no way am I suggesting that one should be inflexible when it comes to job offer negotiations. But that flexibility should always be on terms you are comfortable with. While they should know how much money you were earning in your last job, it should be made abundantly clear that this changes nothing where your asking pay is concerned. Not one iota. If they're unable to get over the fact that you're asking for remuneration significantly higher than your last job's, and you miss out on this opportunity as a result, why is that a bad thing? You dodged a bullet. You don't want a situation where your current employers are happy with your employment only because they thought they were taking advantage of you.

People have tried testing me with lowball offers before. They found out the hard way that His Teochewness doesn't play games. Is that an arrogant thing to say? Yes. Is it profoundly satisfying not to have to put up with this shit? Also yes. Absolutely.

I'm not saying you should take a leaf from my book and laugh in the faces of those who make insulting lowball offers after learning your last drawn pay. But cultivating a habit of not playing stupid games, can only be a good thing in the long run.

Conclusion

People should stop obsessing over "winning", especially if it's at someone else's expense. Candidates who get what they want, should be happy about it even if it turns out that they could have gotten significantly more. Companies who hire candidates on a price they're happy with, should remain happy even if the last company paid half that.

But under no circumstances should anyone's negotiating advantage be built on lies, or on lack of transparency.

What's your last drawn pay?
T___T