Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam. Here your seventeen minutes into an interview
Speaker 1: for your dream job, and you are, as they say,
Speaker 1: crushing it. They ask the usual questions about skills and experience,
Speaker 1: and you come across as confident but not over confident.
Speaker 1: You even get a few laughs about a story about
Speaker 1: a jammed copier. But now comes the moment you dread,
Speaker 1: so how much did you make it your last job?
Speaker 1: Do you try to parry the question or just give
Speaker 1: in and cough up the dollar amount, knowing full well
Speaker 1: that you were underpaid in your last job and that
Speaker 1: it will likely haunt you into the new job as well.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Heather Mills, the founder of Women Who Ask,
Speaker 1: a company that provides consulting and classes to help women
Speaker 1: negotiate for better salaries, promotions, and work life balance. She
Speaker 1: has three simple words of advice here, just say no A.
Speaker 1: Mills says that women in particular should avoid answering the
Speaker 1: salary history question because it's used against them to perpetuate
Speaker 1: the gender pay gap. Employers often try to base a
Speaker 1: salary for a new hire off of what the candidate
Speaker 1: earned at his or her previous job. If a woman
Speaker 1: was underpaid in the past, this question all but guarantees
Speaker 1: that she'll be underpaid in the future. In fact, the
Speaker 1: salary history question is so insidious that several cities, states,
Speaker 1: and individual companies have banned it outright from employee interviews.
Speaker 1: That list includes California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York City, and Chicago,
Speaker 1: plus Google, Amazon, and Starbucks. Unfortunately, most women live and
Speaker 1: work outside of these bastions of pay equality, and for them,
Speaker 1: plus anyone else who thinks divulging their prior salary could
Speaker 1: do more harm than good, a Mill suggests dodging the
Speaker 1: salary question with questions of their own, like what's the
Speaker 1: salary range for the job, what you have budgeted for
Speaker 1: the position? Or I'd really like to find out more
Speaker 1: about the role and see if it's a good fit
Speaker 1: before discussing salary. The truth, explains Mills, is that salary
Speaker 1: history has no real bearing on what an employer should
Speaker 1: offer a prospective employee. She said, the company has a
Speaker 1: budget for the role, they know the market rate, and
Speaker 1: they know the kinds of skills and training they want
Speaker 1: for the position. They really don't need your salary history.
Speaker 1: To negotiate. They're just making a power play to get
Speaker 1: an upper hand. In salary negotiations, there's a well known
Speaker 1: psychological phenomenon called anchor bias. The first number thrown on
Speaker 1: the table has an undue influence on the rest of
Speaker 1: the offers. It's called setting the anchor. If you answer
Speaker 1: the salary history question, explains Bill, then you risk setting
Speaker 1: the anchor way too low, undercutting your negotiating power. A
Speaker 1: better move is to refuse to talk money at any
Speaker 1: time during the interview process. Salary negotiations should only begin
Speaker 1: after both parties agree that you're a good fit for
Speaker 1: the job. Then you have a much stronger hand because
Speaker 1: they want you. Mills said, I tell my clients to
Speaker 1: be warm and professional and smile and just let it
Speaker 1: be awkward, but continue to not answer the question because
Speaker 1: it's really not to your benefit. You're not being difficult,
Speaker 1: you're not being unprofessional. You're being savvy. You're being art
Speaker 1: and playing the game well. Even in states where the
Speaker 1: salary history question is banned, employers and recruiters can still
Speaker 1: ask you for your salary expectations or salary requirements. If
Speaker 1: you ask for too much, you might knock yourself out
Speaker 1: of contention for the job too little, and you may
Speaker 1: perpetuate your previous history of being underpaid again. Mills strongly
Speaker 1: advises against answering any salary questions until the real negotiations begin,
Speaker 1: using some of the techniques mentioned earlier, but she adds
Speaker 1: that it's always smart to arrive at the interview knowing
Speaker 1: exactly what the market rate of the position is in
Speaker 1: your geographic area. You can find out this information by
Speaker 1: asking contacts and similar positions for their going rates and
Speaker 1: looking at websites like glassdoor dot com and salary dot com.
Speaker 1: Mills said, if you really feel like you're against a wall,
Speaker 1: I suggest giving the highest number that you can justify
Speaker 1: based on your market research. An anchor needs to give
Speaker 1: you room to come down and make concessions. But what
Speaker 1: about pre interviews where a recruiter or human resources representative
Speaker 1: calls up to see if it's worth bringing you in
Speaker 1: for a full interview with the employer. A common screener
Speaker 1: question is to ask about salary requirements. Is it okay
Speaker 1: to dodge the question even then? Well, yes, a Mill said,
Speaker 1: no good can come from giving a number During the
Speaker 1: pre interview stage. You should ask what they've budgeted for
Speaker 1: the position, and they should tell you. If they keep
Speaker 1: pressuring you to give your salary history or salary requirements,
Speaker 1: then they're trying to get a bargain, and that's a
Speaker 1: red flag for what you might be dealing with going
Speaker 1: forward in the employment relationship. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Playing. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other working topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.