Salary History Methodology

In an effort to learn more about how commonly the question is asked of prospective employees, whether it is asked more or less for certain types of workers, how likely interviewees are to answer the question, and whether refusing to answer has any effect on an employer’s salary offer, PayScale surveyed our users.

Between April and June of 2017, we asked 15,413 respondents who were evaluating job offers through PayScale the following question:

At any point in the interview process, did you disclose your pay at previous jobs?

a) No, and they did not ask
b) No, but they asked
c) Yes, they asked about my salary history
d) Yes, I volunteered information about my salary history
e) I do not recall

We then report the breakdown of responses — excluding “I do not recall” — by industry, job groups, for several major Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), job levels, generations, income brackets, and specific job titles. We also calculated the percentage of respondents who were asked regarding their salary history, but refused to disclose it: the “refusal rate.”

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