salary

A reader writes:

I wrote to you recently describing how I was turned down for a position with an organization I volunteered for and was subsequently offered another position entirely to be the Executive Administrative Assistant/Communications Assistant. Well, I accepted the offer, negotiated an extra $1.50/hour, and was thrilled!

Two days before I started, I found out (from a coworker, not my supervisor) that the office manager had resigned and would be leaving less than a week from my start date. When I got to the office for my first day, I was told that I would be taking on the office manager’s duties in addition to my own. That was a bit of an unexpected shock, as it is not at all what I signed up for and the position could not be further from my own professional interests. However, it’s a nonprofit and I’m willing to take one for the team. I got as much information as possible from the office manager before she left, but I am still feeling very unsure about this. I am not at all a financial person and suddenly that has become 80% of my job. There are no plans in place to hire an office manager, so it looks like this will become a permanent situation.

This morning, I came to work and found out that our receptionist (who worked very closely with the office manager) has just accepted another job offer and will be leaving in the next couple of weeks. So, within my first 8 days on the job, I have gone from doing 1 job to being expected to take on 3.

If I had known that from the beginning, I’m honestly not sure I would’ve accepted the position. I certainly would have asked for more money! I realize that some of the office manager’s duties are a natural fit, but most of what I have been doing is not even remotely related to the job description I was given.

I know you have said before that it’s bad form to ask for more money this early in the game, but I honestly feel that dumping an extra 2 jobs on someone in the first month is just as bad! So my question to you is whether or not this changes the “don’t ask for a raise right after starting just because you didn’t negotiate” rule and, if so, how to start the conversation. Any insight you can give me will be greatly appreciated!

Well, first, before you assume that this is going to be a permanent situation, find out for sure. Just because the office manager’s role isn’t being advertised doesn’t mean that they don’t intend to fill it — they might be moving more slowly than they should, or they might already have a candidate(s) in mind so they’re not advertising. And it doesn’t sound like you have any reason to think that they’re not going to fill the receptionist job. So the first thing to do is to find out what their plan is. Sit down with your manager and ask what the plans are for filling these two jobs, and what the likely timeline will be.

You might be told that they’re working to fill the positions and hope to have them filled within a couple of months. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t ask for a raise — at least not yet. While it’s going to be temporarily more and different work than what you signed on for, sometimes this stuff happens — and in entry-level roles in small nonprofits, it’s pretty common to be expected to help out where you’re needed. It’s appropriate to talk about compensation if it’s going to be long-term or permanent — but if it’s helping out for a few months, you pretty much just do it or you’d come across as culturally tone-deaf in most of these situations.

However, that doesn’t mean that you never end up getting compensated for it — rather, it’s a question of timing. Your ability to pinch-hit like this is exactly the type of thing you can cite in making a case for a raise down the road. (Generally after one year, except in very exceptional circumstances.) Not as in, “I did this so you should pay me extra,” but more, “Part of my value to the organization is my ability to step in when needed, take on different and additional work, and keep things running smoothly, as I did earlier this year when I filled in for Jane and Bob when they left.”

Now, if that’s not how it plays out — if instead you’re told that there aren’t any current plans to hire for these roles and the work is going to be part of your role for the foreseeable future — then you’d handle this differently. And how exactly you handle it depends on context I don’t have. More specifically…

If it’s a very small nonprofit, it might not be unreasonable to combine all three positions into one for the time being — I’ve certainly seen small organizations that have one person who handles all this stuff all on her own. It’s not inherently unworkable, if the organization is fairly small. That doesn’t mean that you want that job, and it’s not the job you signed up for, but as far as asking for more money goes, you’ve got to keep in mind that it’s possible that they’d be able to hire a single person covering all those areas for about the same as they’re paying you currently. If that’s the case, it’s going to be hard to make a strong case for a raise right now … but you could certainly revisit whether or not this is a position you want. (And if it’s not, then you have nothing to lose by asking for a raise, if you’re planning on leaving if you don’t get one anyway.)

But of course, there are also cases where it wouldn’t be reasonable to combine all three — due to the organization’s size, workload, and/or the expectations associated with each role. In that case, you could more feasibly ask for a higher salary to reflect the significantly changed responsibilities you’re taking on. The problem, though, is that as a fairly recent grad, you aren’t necessarily in a great position to know if this is one of those situations or not. (But if you have mentors who have some experience in the nonprofit sector, you might ask them for their opinion.)

Either way, though, the bigger issue is that you’re now stuck with a job you might not have signed up for if you’d known all this originally — at least not at this salary. If it’s short-term, then it’s just something to put up with. But if it’s long-term, go to your manager and say something like, “I’m glad to help out in covering these additional areas. But to be honest, if I’d known from the start that my job would include these responsibilities, I would have negotiated salary differently. Can we talk about adjusting my salary in order to reflect the new responsibilities I’m taking on?”

And one last thing, because it comes up here a lot: When three jobs are combined into one, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be doing the work of three people. You’ll be doing work from three different areas, yes, but not “the work of three people.” If three people were doing the work, there would be more work, it would be more in-depth, and there would be more responsibilities. I say this because people often use language like “the work of three people” in these situations, but it’s wrong and can lead you to make arguments that won’t hold water with your manager, so it’s important to think about it more clearly.

I want to be clear that I’m not minimizing what you’re being asked to do — you’re being asked to take on work you didn’t think you were signing up for, and it’s harder to keep track of three areas than one, even if the overall workload is about the same. But I do want to make sure that you’re thinking about this aspect of it clearly, so that when you talk to your manager, you don’t make arguments that she’ll be dismissing in her head. Good luck!

{ 76 comments }

I figured I’d bundle three somewhat-related salary-related questions into one post. Here we go…

1. Should my promotion come with a higher raise?

Today I accepted a promotion at work after waiting for the formal offer/salary for almost two weeks. The salary is about $5,000 less than I wanted (and I was aiming for $15,000 less than online pay scales state).

The thing is, it’s a decent raise from my current wage: 20%. It is also my first management position. However, I do bring skills that no one else in the company has and have produced work over the past year for which they would normally pay a consultant twice my wage. Am I being greedy in wanting more?

I feel foolish because I didn’t negotiate: the director who called me phrased it as though it was a great salary and I should be happy. I was stressed after waiting to find out the salary for so long (they told me right after my interview that they planned to offer me the job and they advertised for my current position a week ago). I felt like I had no choice but to accept.

They built this role up to sound very high-profile (significant responsibility nationally) and so I expected a salary closer to those I see online. Have I just accepted a much lower wage than this role would normally receive?

I don’t know. But it’s your first management position, so you represent a risk and you’re guaranteed to need to learn on the job, and so it probably makes sense for them to pay you less than they’d be paying a more experienced and tested candidate.

As for salaries you see online … are you talking about salaries that you see in job listings, or salary websites like salary.com? Salary websites, unfortunately, aren’t going to give you very accurate information; they generally don’t account for the fact that job titles frequently represent wildly different scopes of responsibility, or vary significantly by type of company or geography. (You can get a far more accurate idea by simply bouncing figures off of other people in your field, checking with professional organizations in your industry, or talking with recruiters.)

But what’s most useful is knowing what salary you can command on the market — you, with your particular set of skills, experience, and ability to market yourself. That’s very different from what knowing what a huge swatch of people all performing vaguely similar duties with very different skill levels at wildly different companies around the country can command.

2. MBA working as executive assistant, disappointed in raise

I’ve been an executive assistant at a large and prosperous firm for about a year now. Although being an EA wasn’t my original plan, when I graduated from my MBA program and spent many months applying like a madwoman and interviewing to no avail, I decided to take this job because of the security and great benefits.

I’ve ended up loving my job and excelling at it. I frequently have to ask if there is any more help I could offer because I finish my regular tasks quickly. I received shining evaluations from the two executives I work under, and was called in to talk about my “raise” at the end of this year. It was $1,000. I was disappointed because I have received nothing but praise since starting here, and was hired at nearly $10,000 less than what I initially asked for. I figured that after a year of proving myself, they would at least try to meet me in the middle. Now I know that I should have advocated for myself more, but I was in shock at the time and unsure how to react.

I’ve researched and even after my “raise,” my salary is significantly lower than even the low range of EA salaries listed on websites such as glassdoor.com. I have an MBA and finance/accounting experience, and now make even less than I did before I received my graduate degree. I am frustrated because I love my job, my firm, my coworkers and the company culture and don’t want to leave, but I also feel like I have sealed my fate by accepting what I was initially given and then this small cost of living raise. It’s now several months later and I feel it would be awkward to bring it up now. I don’t want to settle for less than I deserve, but I also don’t want to leave. Is it too late?

Well, again, websites like glassdoor or salary.com aren’t going to give you very accurate information. See #1 above. But you could probably get more reliable information by talking with recruiters or people with similar jobs at similarly sized companies in your area.

However, what you definitely don’t want to do is to base your raise request on having an MBA or on what you made before your graduate degree. It needs to be based on the value you bring to the company. Simply having an graduate degree doesn’t generally warrant a higher salary in most fields, particularly in a role that doesn’t require one; salary is about the value of the work you’re doing to the company. Are you using the MBA in significant ways in your role? If not, then you can’t reasonably expect that it will factor in to what you’re paid. (Although if you are using it in significant ways, and if that’s not something generally expected of the person in your role, then it can become part of your case.)

Keep in mind, too, that depending on what percentage it is of your total salary, $1,000 might not be such a paltry raise. The average raise nationally is 3%. I don’t know what you earn, but if you’re earning close to the national average income of $43,000, 3% is $1,290, or pretty close to what you got. Of course, if you’re not an average performer, you deserve more — but it might be useful to know that it’s not the shocking insult that it might have seemed at first.

In any case … It’s not too late to go back and say that you think you’ve earned a larger raise. Here’s some advice on how to make that case. Just make sure that you base it on your value to the company in your current role and what you’ve achieved there.

3. Boss doesn’t care if people leave over money

I have worked in the accounts department of a property management company for 5 years. There are approximately 45 employees. I am happy in my job, most of my coworkers are great, the hours are flexible, and it’s close to home.

My boss is the owner of the business and is very tight when it comes to paying anyone what he should or what they are actually worth. Four years ago, I spoke to him about a raise and questioned whether he does performance reviews because I had been there over a year and nothing had been mentioned. Prior to speaking to the boss, I asked a coworker about the procedure for a review and pay raise, etc. and they told me not to bother, because “the boss doesn’t give raises.” I was really surprised, but I didn’t let it stop me from asking for one anyway. So, when I spoke to the boss and stated my case as to why I deserved a raise, he confirmed he doesn’t do annual reviews, but would consider my request for a raise. A month went by before he told me he had decided to give me the raise, but it was a very small one.

Since then, I haven’t approached him about another raise, but I know I certainly deserve one! Mind you, the company has had quite a few employees leave because they have asked for more money and the boss has knocked them back. He thinks everyone is dispensible, so he doesn’t care if they leave. So, recently, I have been thinking perhaps I should state my case again, but instead of asking in person, should I put it in writing? I’m not sure if it’s going to be worth my while even though I know he doesn’t pay me what he should. I feel stuck inbetween a rock and a hard place — I don’t want to leave my job but I am finding it hard to earn so little. It also makes me feel unappreciated too. I’m not afraid to ask him for a raise in person but I feel like it would be a waste of time. What do you think my next step should be?

There’s no advantage to putting in writing over asking in person. In fact, asking in person is usually the better route, since it allows for an actual conversation.

But, you know, you’ve been there five years. If your boss won’t give you the salary you want, it would make more sense to either move on or accept that you’re staying for reasons of your own (whether it’s liking the work, your coworkers, the flexibility, or whatever). This is what your employer pays for the work you do and it’s up to you whether to accept it or not accept it, but it’s not really fair (or good for your own state of mind) to accept it and then complain that he’s cheap and not paying people what they’re worth.

So either you want to stay under these terms, or you don’t. But trying to have it both ways is going to frustrate you endlessly, and probably won’t get you what you want.

{ 48 comments }

A reader writes:

I have been offered a promotion to a manager position, recommended from my current manager. He has already begun to train me in doing his duties, since he is leaving for a different job. He has already told the owners that he recommended me becoming his replacement. I have asked him several times about discussing my pay and benefits package, but he keeps giving me the same answer: They are in still in the talks about final approval, etc. Now he has started his new job, and I am currently scheduled to manage the store, without having actually sat down with the owners to discuss my salary. I’m not sure how I should approach this. I like this company, but the way they are approaching this has me worried.

I get a surprising number of variations of this letter, all essentially saying, “I’m taking a new job or a promotion, but we haven’t yet nailed down the salary.” This makes me a little weepy.

Here’s the deal: If you accept a job without discussing salary, you have relinquished your negotiating power. You’re essentially saying, “I’ll do this job for anything you want to offer me.”  In your case, you might not have formally accepted but I’d bet you anything that they think you’ve accepted through your actions – if you start training for the job and acting as if you’re going to be doing the job, and salary hasn’t yet been discussed, your employer is going to assume that you’re taking the job, regardless.

You have to talk salary before you start acting as if you’re taking the job. (Or at least you do if you care about getting paid a certain amount.)

In this case, before you got too far into the training, you should have said, “I’m definitely interested in this promotion, but before we go too far, I’d like to discuss the salary.” When your boss told you that the owners were still “in talks” about final approval, you’d then say, “I understand. Please let me know once they’re ready to talk with me about salary. If you’d like me to train in the meantime, I certainly can, but I want to make sure that it’s clear that I can’t accept the position until we’ve discussed the salary.”

And then — and this is important — you need to stay clear in your own head that the position is not a done deal, because you haven’t discussed salary yet. If you start thinking of it as final — because you’re training, after all, and everyone is talking to you like this will be your new job — then you will start thinking of it as final, and that will make it much harder for you to stand up for yourself when salary finally does get discussed … because you need to be willing to walk away if the salary isn’t right.

And that’s the key thing here: You need to be willing to walk away if you can’t come to terms on salary. Your employer needs to know that you’re willing to walk away, and you need to know it too. Otherwise there really isn’t a salary negotiation at all; it’s just them telling you what you’ll be getting paid, and you accepting it. Even if it’s no salary increase at all.

So, as for what to do now … Contact the owners or whoever you currently report to now that your boss is gone and say, “I’m very interested in taking on Bob’s role, which he’s trained me for, but we haven’t yet had a chance to formally discuss it. I’d like to talk with you about the terms of the offer, including salary. When can we sit down and speak?”

If they put you off and push you to start doing the new job now, you need to hold firm: “I’m not comfortable taking on a new job without discussing the terms, such as salary. I want to make sure that we’re able to reach an agreement on salary before I start in that role. When can we have that discussion?”

If you let them push you into starting work now, you will have very little negotiating power at whatever point they do decide to talk to you — because you’ll have already shown that you’re willing to do the work at your current rate of pay.

Always, always, always talk about salary before agreeing to a new job or promotion.

{ 49 comments }

So you want to ask for a raise but have no idea what the hell to say when you do.

And you are quite nervous as a result.

You might have a general idea of why you deserve a salary increase, but if you’re like most people aren’t really sure how to translate that into the right language to use with your boss. Over at U.S. News & World Report today, I talk about exactly what to say. You can read it here.

{ 17 comments }

A reader writes:

I’ve got a weird negotiation issue. I was offered a job I’m very excited about and which, all told, was about an 8% raise from my current position. At this point in my career, I would ideally like to be making about a 15% jump for my next role, but for this organization and role, I am willing to take less. That said, when the offer was made, I asked for time to think about it and came back with a request to discuss the salary as “I was hoping to be closer to $XX” — which was $6,000 over what they offered. (I read through a lot of your archives for advice on approaching the conversation, particularly this.) The organization I’m dealing with is a nonprofit, but a big one, so I didn’t think that was an unreasonable number. In addition, I’d given a range during the interview process and this number was within this range, so I didn’t think they’d be surprised. I was hoping that for asking by $6k more they would scrape together another $2-$3 and meet me in the middle.

Instead, I got a call back saying they didn’t have room to move at all and that it didn’t seem like we were going to be able to come to an agreement because my number “was so far off.” The hiring manager also said she “understood” that they couldn’t expect me to take a job where I wasn’t adequately valued. I was floored, as I really didn’t expect that they would be so surprised at some effort at negotiation. It was like I invented the concept. At this point I asked if they were rescinding the offer and she said no, but they didn’t want someone to start on the “wrong foot” in a role that didn’t feel like they were being paid fairly.

My question is two-fold:

1. Their harsh reaction and seeming to take offense at my negotiating at all has left a bad taste in my mouth. After extensive interivews and a personal knowledge of the organization, I felt that the culture fit was a good one for me, but now I really am questioning if I’m wrong about that — given their inability to simply say: “We are’t able to offer more and hope you will still consider the offer” rather than making me feel like a money-grubbing ingrate for even asking. Is my gut reaction the right one? Should I run away screaming from such an environment?

2. I managed to get the conversation back to an ok place, and asked for the remainder of the day to consider it. As I mentioned before, I was assuming I would take the role even if they couldn’t move on the offer. But now I’m not only concerned about #1, but I can’t quite figure out how to get back to a happy place for both parties, since I’m a little appalled and they’re offended. Can I get this job offer back to a place where we’ll like and work with each other well and leave this uncomfortable conversation/situation behind? This conversation is happening with the person who would be my supervisor.

Tough day for job offers. I was so excited for the last 24 hours and now I’m just mortified and anxious. As Liz Lemon would say: Blergh. Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.

Hmmm. On one hand, penalizing a candidate for trying to negotiate — particularly when the number requested was in the range the candidate mentioned earlier in the process and not something shocking and out of left field — is ridiculous. On the other hand, it’s also true that — on the employer side of things — you don’t want to hire a candidate who’s going to be unhappy with their salary.

It’s possible that the hiring manager really didn’t mean this the way you took it. I could see a situation where a hiring manager might say and genuinely mean something like this: “We really can’t budge from our original offer. I realize we might not be able to work this out, and I understand if you can’t accept our offer. To be honest, our numbers are far enough apart that I worry if you’d be happy even if you did accept the salary we can offer.”

That wouldn’t be a harsh reaction; it would be a reasonable one in some contexts. Employers are allowed to worry that a candidate won’t be satisfied with the job or the salary, and it’s okay for them to share that worry with the candidate — in fact, by doing that, they’re making it possible for the candidate to say something that will address that worry.

However, $6,000 isn’t so much of a difference that I’d normally think that worry would be warranted. If you were $20,000 apart, yes. But not $6,000.

Moreover, so much of this depends on tone. Did she sound concerned and disappointed, or did she sound annoyed or frustrated? The first would be reasonable; the second wouldn’t be.

So I think that as you evaluate this situation, you need to factor in her tone and general demeanor during these conversations, as well as what you’d already gathered about her and the organization during the interview process. Does she seem honestly concerned about your satisfaction with the salary, or does she sound affronted that you want more money? Does she sound like she’s still hoping to resolve this, or does she sound like she sees an out from the offer and is trying to take it?

That’s the stuff that’s going to lead you to the right conclusion here, I think.

{ 59 comments }

A reader writes:

I was contacted out of the blue about a job via LinkedIn message with a job excerpt, a link to the full description, and list of benefits. I responded with:

Hi (name),
I would like to know more. Is this a senior role? What is the salary range for this position?

Thanks,
(me)

She in turn replied with:

Hi (me),

Thank you so much for getting back to me. I would love to speak with you further about this role. This role is a Lead role where ideally within the next 6-12 months you would be managing one direct report.

The range will vary based on experience and there is some flexibility. What is the range that you are looking for?

Thanks!
(name)

I feel like saying, “I’ve lost interest, because you didn’t answer my salary question.” She has seen my LinkedIn profile, which is a mirror copy of my resume, so she knows my experience or enough of it to give me an answer about salary range. Honestly, I don’t think I will even reply to her at all now. I am a passive candidate, and not really looking. So for me to get this run-around off the bat makes me even less interested. They’ve essentially turned me off from any further communication.

Am I overreacting or should I feel annoyed? If hiring managers want to tap into the passive candidate market, why do they insist on treating us the same as candidates who applied directly, with vague responses?

No, it’s legitimately annoying to have a direct question ignored, and it shows a lack of awareness about how to recruit employed candidates. And you’re right that it’s especially annoying because you didn’t seek them out; they came to you.

To be fair, candidates sometimes play games like this too: An employer asks what salary they’re looking for, and they turn the question around and ask what the planned range is. But that’s different — the candidate has proactively responded to an ad for a position. In this case, you weren’t seeking out the job; they approached you. It’s reasonable to ask about salary and expect to have the question answered before you invest any further time in a position that you haven’t even said you’re interested in yet.

In any case, I’d respond with, “Since I’m not actively looking for a new position, I haven’t given sufficient thought yet to the range for my next job. But if you can tell me the range for this position, I can tell you if it makes sense for us to talk.”

{ 131 comments }

A reader writes:

I was originally working in Country A when I was hired by an ex-colleague at different company in Country B. After 18 months, I had to return to Country A for unforeseen family reasons. The job I had lined up for my return ended up falling through at the last minute, and I’ve now been job searching (and unemployed) for 6 months.

A friend of mine recently forwarded my resume to a company. After my first interview with HR and the hiring manager, HR called me back to say that the budget for this role was $X (HR already had my previous salary details), and that if I did not agree with that, they would not even consider moving forward with my application. We agreed that I would get back to them after a few days of reflection.

My dilemma is:

a) The salary of $X represents over a 20% pay cut for me, equivalent to the salary I had 5 years ago.

b) Given the tight job market, I feel I would be stupid to ignore an otherwise decent (potential) offer in a very reputable company, but I’m afraid that I would keep feeling short-changed and thinking that I just threw 5 years of work away (I could try to job search again in 2-3 years once the market improves, but I’m not sure I could recover the differential and it does matter to my finances).

c) I don’t have any other offers on the table, although I have been in contact with my old company (before I left for Country B) regarding an upcoming role that needs specific knowledge of the company’s processes (i.e., can only be filled by internal candidates or ex-employees like me). In other words, I have a very good chance of getting the job as long as there are no other suitable internal candidates. Still, you never know what can happen, and I really want to get back to work and all things equal, I would prefer this role with my old company.

How would you suggest I proceed? I was thinking of agreeing to the salary, and if I do end up getting an offer, to call my old company to see if the recruiting process could be expedited.

Is there any chance that you’d take the job for that salary? If so, then say so and proceed in their process.

Because here’s the thing: You’re not accepting the job right now. You’re just telling them that it makes sense to continue talking, that it’s not a waste of their time (or yours). That doesn’t obligate you to accept an offer from them later, if one is made. You’re never obligated to accept an offer. You can always turn it down.

So if you think it’s possible you might ultimately accept at that salary, say yes and keep talking to them, knowing that you can back out at any time.

And yes, if it looks like you’re getting close to an offer, definitely call your old company and let them know that they’re your first choice and ask if they can expedite things.

Now, is it fair for them to do this? I don’t see why not. They’re telling you that this is their bottom line, that they’re not going to budge on salary, and that they don’t want to spend time putting you through their process if that’s going to be a sticking point. They’re not obligated to invest time in candidates outside of their salary range, and they’re being clear about where they stand. I think that’s perfectly fair — not necessarily smart (because really, they won’t even budge a few thousand if they end up adoring you?), but it’s certainly fair.

{ 25 comments }

A reader writes:

I am applying for a position with a nonprofit that has requested me to include my salary history along with my resume and cover letter (emailed to a “jobs@company.org” mailbox). While I am not a fan of providing that information, I am willing to do so but am unsure how to in my cover letter. It feels awkward to add “at my last position(s) I was making $XXX” and then add my closing contact me line.

Any suggestions on how to include this and how far back I need to go?

Grrrr.

This is so irritating. Your salary history is no one’s business but yours. It’s certainly legitimate for them to ask for your salary expectations — what you’re seeking to be paid if you come to work for them — but it’s both irrelevant and None of Their Business what you’ve earned in previous jobs. What matters is what you’d bring to them and what a fair salary for that would be.

Employers who do this generally claim that they need to know what you’ve earned in the past because it helps them figure out how much you should be earning with them, or so that they can screen out candidates who are earning way more than the position pays and presumably won’t want to take a pay cut. But neither of these reasons holds water. First, companies should be able to determine a candidate’s value for themselves; they don’t need to look to their competitors to tell them a candidate’s worth (and if they really do need to, their hiring process is pretty messed up). And second, if they’re concerned that you’ll be unhappy with the salary they’re offering, they can solve that by posting their range up-front or ask you about your salary expectations rather than salary history. So it’s BS, and it’s BS that’s designed to give them the upper hand in salary negotiations.

But that rant aside, the fact remains that they’re asking, and you need to decide how to respond to it. You have two options: give in and tell them, or decline to tell them. If you decline, you risk being rejected from the job for refusing to comply. So you need to decide whether that’s a risk you’re willing to take. If you’re in a situation where you have options, you might decide that you don’t care to lay bare your finances to strangers. (Hear that, employers who ask this question? Requiring this type of information is a good way to lose your best candidates, the ones who have options that allow them to say “no thanks.”) But if you don’t feel you have many options, then you might decide that — annoying as this is — you’re going to play along.

Whatever you do, though, I wouldn’t apply without addressing the request in some way, or you’ll look like you don’t notice or follow instructions.

Here are some options for what you could write in your cover letter to answer this request:

“My salary history falls under confidentiality agreements with past employers, but I’m seeking a salary in the range of $X.”

“I’m currently earning $75,000 and would be glad to discuss what I’m seeking in my next position after learning more about your opening.”

“I’m seeking a salary in the range of $X.”

You’ll notice that none of these answers are a list of various salaries that you’ve earned over the course of your career. At most, these options have you giving your most recent salary and nothing else. And that’s because (a) it’s ridiculous to expect people to provide a full salary history (at all, but especially in a cover letter), and (b) it’s highly, highly unlikely that you’re going to be screened out for not providing more than your most recent history, which frankly is what they care most about anyway.

Personally, I’d choose the last option: Say what you’re seeking, not what you’ve been making, since that’s the question that they should be asking if they’re going to ask about salary at all at this stage. It’s fairly unlikely that they’re going to discard your application simply for handling it that way (although you could always get some randomly crazy resume screener, so nothing is guaranteed).

And employers, it’s time to cut this crap out.

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