According to a new survey by PayScale, women being interviewed who will not reveal their salaries tend to earn an average of 1.8% less than women who do disclose their compensation.
Lydia Frank, vice president of content strategy at PayScale, which provides compensation data and software, states "There's a lot of research out there around unconscious bias that shows that we expect women to be cooperative and collaborative, so when a woman refuses to answer that question, it could rub people the wrong way."
Between April and June, PayScale interviewed 15,413 job applicants and the survey asked the following question:
At any point in the interview process, did you disclose your pay at previous jobs?
The replies received were:
- No, and they did not ask.
- No, but they asked.
- Yes, they asked about my salary history.
- Yes, I volunteered information about my salary history.
- I do not recall.
PayScale analyzed the responses by industry; job title; job group; job level; gender; age and income bracket - it was found that when it came to job groups, 44% of those applying for jobs in HR, 43% in marketing and advertising and 40% in accounting and finance were the most likely candidates to disclose salary history during an interview.
Lydia Frank said "With HR, if you've been on the other side of the table discussing compensation with candidates, where salary history is something you asked of candidates, being asked yourself might feel pretty typical."
Of the applicants for C-suite jobs, 40% said they were asked about their compensation whilst 26% refused to answer the question. However, when job candidates did refuse to say what they earned, they tended to earn more than those who revealed their salaries.
"When it comes to higher-paying positions, an employer doesn't want to waste anyone's time - theirs or yours," Lydia Frank said. "….so making sure you really understand salary expectations for those roles makes a ton of sense." Where executive-level candidates had a tendency to sidestep the question, "….that has to do with confidence," she said and added, "If you know your skills are sought after and you're at a level in your career where you're in a highly paid role, you probably know your value and are more confident in saying hey, I don't really want to talk about my salary, I want to talk about the position and what the role is worth.”
When it came to industry, those most likely to be asked about their salaries were people applying for jobs in finance and insurance - 45% and 49% percent of the applicants revealed their compensation.
However, when it came to the older applicants they were more likely to refuse to disclose what they earned. The survey showed that 28% of baby boomers refused to disclose their salary histories when asked; 22% of members of generation X refused and 18% of millennials also refused.
Lydia Frank remarked that by forbidding the question in the first place, women won't be put in the position of having to refuse to answer and said, "That's absolutely the advice we're giving to employers: Don't ask the question and put candidates in an awkward position of having to decide whether to answer. It's easy enough to switch to 'salary expectations,' and that's really what the employer and candidate should be talking about anyway-the market rate for the position, not an individual's salary history. If salary history does manage to influence the offer then that could lead to internal pay inequities and employee turnover."
In at least six states or cities the question of salary history being asked by prospective employers has been banned - or the possibility is being considered. Delaware; Massachusetts; New York City; Oregon; Philadelphia (effective May 2017, but delayed pending litigation) and Puerto Rico are those already banning or planning to ban, whilst California is considering similar legislation.
