Photo by thinkpanama
What job interview question really irks you?
For me, it’s one I’ve heard probably a hundred times between working in recruitment for nearly 8 years and interviewing with recruiters and prospective employers on my own. Though I haven’t been asked this recently, a number of people I’ve consulted with on résumé building and interviewing have:
“How much did you make in your last position?”
On the surface, this question seems somewhat logical, but it’s a terrible question to ask and even worse one to answer. Here’s why it’s a terrible one to ask:
- It suggests you’re ready to offer slightly more to make the candidate feel good and take the job you’re offering, should you offer it.
- It implies you’re putting the candidate into a box. Knowing how much they made before suggests the value his or her previous organization assigned to them, not the value that would be contributed to your organization.
And if you’re the candidate who answers this question, you’re committing beyond what you should:
- You are suggesting your starting point for negotiations is your previous salary or a small percentage more – a prospective employer will pitch you “opportunity” to offset the salary and with your previous one in their arsenal, they’re set.
- The focus of these conversations should be the market value of what you can contribute to the new organization and not what you contributed to your last one.
The question really bothers me because it shouldn’t be relevant. It’s definitely one that’s used to corner candidates and it’s unfortunate.