Just a quick one here. I've got an interview for a job where the salary will be a lot higher than what I'm currently on (due to current role & industry). My question is...should I lie about what I currently earn so as not to put myself in a weakened position with regards to salary negotiation? Or should I be honest and say what I currently earn but risk putting myself in a position where they will offer me the lower end of the pay scale?

Lie. No doubt about it.The trick is to imagine that you do actually do what you've said you do on your CV and use that as a guide to what you should tell them. This will normally be your bosses wage.If they offer higher than that then you've won the game, if they offer on par then you can still accept but use your 'passion for moving to Company X' as the reason. If they offer below, and they won't because it would be pointless - ask them why.

In my view lying is not the right approach. Firstly it is not ethical. Secondly there is a chance of being caught.Why is your current salary relevant? Just say you are looking for X, currently get paid a bit less but details are confidential.

I would definitely not lie about your current salary if I were you - it's one of the few things that can be confirmed in references as a factual reference point. Besides, as jj says, you need to focus on what you're looking for, not what you're on. Nobody can force you sign the contract if you're not happy with the salary. If you could only accept the job if the salary was at the top end, then only accept it if the offer meets those expectations (or meets them after negotiation).Besides, first interview is the wrong time to be thinking about salary. That's a matter for pre-application and offer stage.

As an experienced Dubai based Head-Hunter focussed on strategy and management consulting, I managed a large number of these situations. Ultimately, you will almost always work longer hours in consulting than in industry and deserve to be paid more. You can gently advise them that as a good potential consultant you have carried out your due diligence/market analysis and are making yourself known to all of the leading companies in that sector to ensure that you make the right decision at such a crucial stage of your career [I hope that you are actually doing this - you should be]. If they under pay you and over work you, you will inevitably leave anyway. You could probably negotiate an uplift at your current company or may be due a promotion. The important comparison is their offer versus the other offers you may receive. Their offer versus your current salary is irrelevant.Feel free to contact me directly if you wish to discuss the experiences I have had in this sort of scenario.Johnjco@rpint.com

What happens if you do lie about your current salary? How likely are they to find out and what happens if they do? It always strikes me as a bit rude that they want to know your current salary... I can understand why they do this but quite frankly it's personal and none of their business! After all you don't go into Tesco and ask them how much they're paying their suppliers before making them an offer for a tin of beans do you?

I'm a recruiter, and I always ask this question -and it's completely valid. If I am going to make an offer, I need to come up with something that would be attractive to you. I can't do that unless I know your current package and what your expectations are.My advice is do NOT lie. We take references, you know. I've withdrawn offers from candidates for this kind of thing. Be honest. if you think you are currently underpaid, try and explain why. Also, be realistic in terms of what you are pitching for. If you are currently earning 40k, have two years experience and then tell me that you would like around 65k, I'm not going to be too impressed.

Dear Crabbit,You are talking out of your a$%e. If you follow your logic to its lamentable conclusion, all candidates should follow a nice steady, mundane path and be content with mediocre salary increases every time they take the risk and move jobs.Bullshit. I moved from 52k to 130k. Purely by telling a fib.

I moved from 37k to 190k. but thats cause i did myself a partner! oh.. sorry... is this not what were talking about?

In line with my previous message on this subject, I have some sympathy for Crabbit's viewpoint. Ultimately if you claim to be earning 200k and you are a business analyst at a well known firm where the salary structure is well known, you are going to make yourself look silly. This is, however, a commercial world and you should negotiate the best deal you can. If you are going to be credible in consulting, you should have the ability to assess your market worth, pitch for a salary and defend any challenging questioning from the hiring company with coherent evidence as to why you are worth the salary you ask for.

Thanks for all your input on this. To give you a bit more background on my situation: I'm not in consulting and not planning to either but am moving within the financial services industry from a "softer-skills" environment (which is paid less) back to a "harder-skills" (which is paid more). I just think this is a really useful forum and so posed the question. It does appear that honesty is key and that I should simply focus on why I should be on £X amount.

anon, you're spot on. Moving jobs is risky. Risk carries a premium. I don't want to have to justify why I think I'm underpaid to some HR person or small minded recruitment agent. I just don't want to get into the stupid petty arguments with these jobsworths who think that because I'm currently on 50K my next job should pay 55K. The salary discussion is effectively negotiation of a new contract. I know what I'm prepared to accept, and it's up to them to make me an offer that falls within my range. My current salary has nothing to do with it at all. Maybe I like the people I currently work with and have settled for less than I'm worth, but have now decided I need the extra money that I should be earning in addition to the risk premium for moving jobs? The only reason an agent or HR person would want this info is to make sure they don't offer you more than they need to, or alternatively because they haven't done their interviewing properly and are using it to decide how confident they can be about my ability to do the job.My only concern about lying about current salary is whether they might find out when you give your P60 or is it the P45 to the HR department. How likely is it that they would find out about your lying this way? I can easily instruct my employer not to divulge current salary info so the reference checking isn't a problem.

Tell them the P45 didn't arrive and you can fill in a nice fresh form to start afresh. Also, you could have been awarded a pay rise in the last month or so and this would not show on your P45 or P60 which cover a longer period.The note about them only wanting to know so they don't have to offer you too much is spot on. Crabbit's bullsh** about needing to know so that he/she can offer you something suitable is poor - offer what you think they're worth, true supply and demand!

How on earth would your new company find out? Surely the data protection act makes it illegal for your present employer to disclose anything about this. The only person who'll ever know at your new company is the person who deals with yout tax code somewhere in the admin system.

it's that person dealing with my tax code that i'm worried about... how likely is it that their knowledge of my earnings to date (and hence my previous salary) will make it to my new line manager, the HR department or somebody important?If there's no chance at all and you can reassure me of this, I'll happily exaggerage my current salary by as much as I need to. It's up to them if they want to rely on unverified and irrelevant info when making hiring decisions.

As far as I'm aware legislation is entirely with the person and not the company that they don't have to disclose their earnings.Crabbit, if you've withdrawn offers for that then you could easily find yourself sued and out there looking for a job yourself.

I'm not sure it's illegal to ask about someone's current salary in the same way it's illegal to ask about their sexual orientation etc but it sure is a pain in the a$$ to have to keep fending off these irritating and irrelevant questions

Sorry folks - it's the same as lying on your CV, which is a sackable offence at worst, and a less than inspiring indication of your ethics at best.

If my interviewer asked me what colour underpants I was wearing and I had bright yellow daffy duck ones one, would you expect me to tell him the truth? Some things are personal, and your current salary is one of them. Yeah salary is more closely linked to work than a pair of underpants, but the point is the same - it's irrelevant information as far as a job interview is concerned. So, ask an irrelevant question, get any old answer.Let me put it another way. WHY does an interviewer need this information? What does it help them do that they would not otherwise be able to do, assuming they've done their interviewing properly and have satisfied themselves that you're capable of doing the job?It's like going to a car garage and answering the dodgy salesman truthfully when he asks you how much money you have available to spend. You just don't do it (unless you're a bad negotiator).

Recently Iappliedto a well known consultancy firm, and a HR rep emailed me to ask what is my current numeration, this so that they can prepare the shortlist of candidates. I didnt lie too much, and now I have an interview with them. I feel a bit stupid now. Next time how should i respond to these sort of questions?

My current salary is confidential to my employer and I cannot reveal this.However I can confirm that I am looking for a package that would equate to a basic salary of £x with a 10-20% bonus.

What a great way to start out with a new organisation - setting the relationship up as "me vs. them" even during the interview process. I bet you're a delight to work with, what with all the trust you put in your colleagues. Don't be so egotistical as to believe that everyone is out to screw you over all of the time.Disclosing your current salary details is a necessary part of a transparent and fair market for talent. If you artificially inflate your "price", all that will happen is that the job will go to someone whose performance matches their salary requirements.It's a classic situation. Decent but not stellar candidate gets dumped from the interview process because their salary expectations are unrealistic and inflexible - nobody wants to employ someone who comes across as having a disproportionate sense of entitlement.

Well if it is transparent and fair then I would like to ask the employer "what are the salaries of all your other employees at this grade?". Irrelevant you say? Well it is just as relevant as having to reveal my salary for a completely different job in a different company.

.......though I agree with your point on unrealistic expectations. When I suggest asking for £x I mean that the x should be a realistic figure. By realistic I mean based on research of market rates. You should expect market rates regardless of whether your current salary is higher or lower.

Not to sound facetious, but why don't you ask the employer just that?When you're on the subject of performance expectations and reward package, you're perfectly entitled to ask what the salary is, what the best (and average) performers in the role earn, what the opportunities for salary growth are, etc. Asking the employer for specific examples of what people have earned in the job is perfectly normal. Very few jobs have a set salary point these days so you need to be scoping the range, not just targeting a single salary point.To continue the negotiation analogy, going into any deal with random assumptions about what cards your negotiating partner has when you have the option to just ask them is a schizophrenic way to operate. Leverage the public information before getting into negotiation tactics.

Well, that's very unrealistic approach. I always find such a question pretty rude. I have two answers, first one - knowing what I do and for whom, how much would you pay me? second one - it's confidential, it's in my contract and my current employer was always fair with me, so I want to be fair to him as well.