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kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com wrote:
> Have you managed to avoid disclosing your salary when interviewing? And
> managed to do so without torpedoing the interview?
All the time.
> I'd love to know how.
[...]
> Got any tips/techniques you'd be willing to share?
Be firm, but friendly and polite. The way I look at it, an
interview is an opportunity to showcase as much as possible
about the way one works. I'm not there just to answer silly
questions and play show-and-tell with my writing samples;
I want to demonstrate that I can communicate clearly in a
verbal format as well as a written one, that I can think
quickly on my feet, that I'm warm and friendly, and that I
can deal skillfully with difficult situations.
It is this last point that I'm demonstrating during the
negotiation stage. When the interviewer asks me what I was
paid at my last job, it is my responsibility to demonstrate
my professional savvy by not disclosing an exact figure,
yet satisfying the interviewer's need. The way I accomplish
this varies from situation to situation, but it generally
involves some combination of: trying to get the interviewer
to state a number first; deciding whether we know enough
about each other to know what the job's worth and what I'm
worth in the job; and offering a starting figure that's
well above my minimum required salary ("make them gasp,"
as (I think) Andrew Plato once wrote). If they're not being
flexible about the negotiation process, then I haven't done
my job in making myself seem invaluable to the company.
Also, by this point in the interview process, I've usually
spoken to enough people to have some sense of what their
problems are, and where my key contributions are going to
be. Thus, if the interviewer persists in wanting to know
what I made at the last company, I might say something to
the effect of "what I made at XYZ Corporation was based on
their unique needs and the tasks I performed for them. The
question now is how much my contribution to ABC Corporation
will be worth, given that I can do the following...."
Honestly, this approach has very rarely failed me. I'll be
curious to see other tips and techniques.
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