#22

Lie.

I bumped up my “current” salary by 12k when I applied for this job.

1 Like
#23

I’ve always asked for at least a (reasonable) increase on my current salary, and then lied about what my current salary is.

For my current job this meant them offering above the advertised bracket which was very unexpected and probably a bit risky.

#24

They’re asking for my yearly salary though

#25

Definitely lie. Nobody will ever check.

3 Likes
#26

they’re mainly doing that for market research/benchmarking reasons. They won’t actually check your salary with your employer, and your employer won’t ever give that information over if asked.

1 Like
#28

You could put it as pro rata, eg if full time is 35 hours a week at 20k a year and you do 17.5 with the same hourly rate ie 10k a year, put ‘20k pro rata’

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#29

Lack of experience has let me down in the past. I am quite good at disguising things as experience though.

#30

Asked for 8k more than what I was earning at the time the last time I did this, and ended up netotiating to a 5k increase, which is more than I expected tbh. I kind of think that if a potential employer tries to lowball you on salary and won’t budge at all, it doesn’t really bode well for the future.

2 Likes
#31

Depends who the job is with. Where I work, I know they’d check, and there are people who have been dropped like a stone in their probation period because of lies on the information they’ve provided.

If you want a bump up, put down a higher expected salary, and note that you were on the old salary for longer than you’d have liked to have been.

1 Like
#32

Isn’t that illegal tho? Like, to begin with, I assume salary is confidential and companies aren’t able to simply dish out how much their employees make on request? Secondly, doesn’t it constitute price fixing - also illegal under competition law?

#33

Who knows* - I guess it’s confidential if a company wants to keep it confidential, but what if the person had come from the civil service where grades and pay scales are public?

*probably someone who works in HR

#34

Imagine working for a company, and ringing another company to ask how much they pay someone.

Absolute 100% cast iron opportunity to lie with no chance of reprisal.

1 Like
#35

Your yearly salary is the bottom number in the bracket.

#36

I asked a competition law professor this once. When I did a pharma placement at uni, the company told their employees that they and the 11 other biggest pharma companies in the UK submitted their salary data to a third party, who then gave them reports of average salaries and deviations for every job role. They then used this to set their internal salary bands. They shared this with their employees in a meeting that was supposed to be reassuring them that they weren’t being underpaid, because they knew for a fact they’d be getting the same elsewhere.

The professor said “they must be acting on some very good advice”, i.e. that’s illegal as fuck

1 Like
#37

So I’d always say I was on like 3k-5k more than I actually am. And I’d say “I’m looking to leave for something a little bit more than that” so you’re sounding quite reasonable really and you’re going for the opportunity to step it up.

It’s pretty much what everyone does I think?

1 Like
#38

When they ask for your salary, you can be vague and say “My current salary is around the lower end of that bracket so I’m looking for something in the middle to upper end of that”

Also, they’re looking for the person who can do the job the best, not who is cheapest. They have had that bracket approved so if they need to go to the top end, they can and will. It’s just about proving you’re worth the top end of that salary rather than them wanting to save money. That’ll be done by someone else and not the interviewer.

#39

Where I work someone (a really high earner, doubt they’d have cared at the lower salary levels) was caught out lying because the year-to-date figures on their P45 were much lower than they should have been based on what he’d said his salary was, so it doesn’t necessarily involve contacting the previous employer.

#40

I cannot bring myself to lie about what I’m currently earning. I know I’m a mug but I just can’t do it.

1 Like
#41

The quoted salary for this job is actually 7-9.5 times what I earn now. Might look a bit silly if I go for the highest option and there’s bound to be someone more experienced than me.

I’m pretty desperate for a new job and I’ll be very happy with the lowest option so maybe I should just go for that.

#42

When I’ve done this I’ve had a go-to excuse of taking a month or two unpaid leave to travel which covers the shortfall (which I have genuinely done and could back up with ‘fun’ cycling stories)