Advice on Salary Histories and Salary Requirements

I’ve answered similar questions in the past, but since you ask for a little more detail and because it is an important subject, let me go over this issue again.

Employers ask for a salary history as a screening device. With salary histories in hand, they can easily screen out the underpaid and overpaid applicants and focus on the applicants within their chosen range.

Because salary negotiation is partly based on information, most certainly the employer has the upper hand in negotiations if he or she knows exactly what you have made in your past jobs. In this situation, in fact, the employer holds all the cards, and you have very little power to do any kind of negotiating.

My advice has always been that you first need to find the salary range for the new position. Once you have this information, you can decide whether you are willing to work for that amount and begin to position yourself in case the salary is a big leap from your current pay.

How do you position yourself? Do not put your salary information on your resume. You could put a simple table in your cover letter giving “ballpark” salary figures. But remember, the more information you give out, the less room you have for any type of negotiating.

You can find a lot more about salary negotiating by visiting Quintessential Careers: Salary and Job Offer Negotiation Tutorial.

One of the best books on the subject is Jack Chapman’s Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1,000 a Minute.