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Comment by rev_bird | Hacker News Reader

> "OK, we can do that. But we have a policy of always making the lowest possible offer to candidates who won't share their compensation information. I just want the best for you."

This makes absolutely no sense to me. "Oh, we can't use previous compensation to effectively lowball this candidate we like, so we'll ineffectively lowball them instead."

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It makes perfect sense. If an applicant doesn't want to disclose their previous salary and disclosing it is the cultural norm, that indicates a) they're troublemakers (very privacy conscious or what have you), or b) their previous salary was very low.

You probably don't want troublemakers so there's no point in making them a generous offer. And if the previous salary was very low the lowest possible offer is probably not too far off.

It actually incentivises disclosing your previous salary because unless it was lower or as low as the lowest offer, you'll have a better bargaining position.

I'm not saying the reasoning is particularly ethical or nice, just that it is entirely rational.

That's interesting, I hadn't considered it that way. I was looking at it as, "We want this person to work here because they passed our tests, now we wreck the deal for no reason." You're saying the salary disclosure is just one of the tests. Makes sense.

If it's penalised, I'd say it's likely a "test" (or more of a checkmark). But I wouldn't go so far as to say every employer that asks for your previous salary is testing you.

That said, even if you disclose your previous salary that could affect how you are perceived:

* disclosing it at all without hesitation might mark you as either very open (positive) or untrustworthy (negative)

* if the salary is much lower than expected it might indicate you're not as good as you claim (negative) or that you're bad at negotiating (positive?) or that you left because you wanted a bigger salary (negative)

* if the salary is much higher than expected it might indicate you'll make unreasonable demands (negative) or that you're a strong negotiator (negative?) or that you are underselling yourself (positive?)

Again, it entirely depends on the employer and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

How//Why is being privacy-conscious troublemaking?

I'm not sure you're aware I'm speaking from the hypothetical position of the kind of company that would penalise candidates for not disclosing their previous salary.

From that perspective it should be obvious: if you're a privacy-minded individual, you'll be a bigger hassle to deal with than someone who's blissfully oblivious to privacy concerns. You might call out technically illegal practices others might be willing to put up with, for example.

I have blind-spots of dense thinking. I appreciate your response. In particular...

> You might call out technically illegal practices others might be willing to put up with, for example.

It routinely still amazes me that companies want armies of Yes Men to willingly go forth into that good night at the drop of a paper-clip without so much as a "yes but".

You know what that is? An army of dumb-AI robots, which we already have but not to grand-high scale.

Because that person values you jumping through hoops to train you to accept future hoop jumping you will inevitably do, and test your hoop jumping ability.

If you dont play ball with bureaucracy, you are punished in the only way they have available.

When I read that I immediately pictured a (very) pissed mob boss. What an asshole.

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