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