Discovery at Carlson·20 Compensation History and Hiring: What’s the Connection?
Compensation History and Hiring: What’s the Connection?
What’s your current salary?
Chances are good you’ve encountered a variation on that question on a job application. The chances are equally good that a prospective employer has learned about your past salary before extending a job offer. But, that’s changing. Over the last several years, a growing number of states and municipalities have banned companies from making any inquiries into a job candidate’s salary history.
Those moves have served as a catalyst for new research from Carlson School Assistant Professor Moshe Barach that explores how salary history affects the hiring process. For starters, he notes that employers tend to see past wages as a valuable signal. “For example, if a previous company was willing to pay a person top dollar, the prospective employer might figure the candidate must be worth it,” Barach says. “Or, say a candidate currently makes $120,000 a year. If the prospective employer can only pay $75,000, the company probably won’t interview the candidate because they’re not likely to take the job.”
However, the information can also have downsides for job-seekers. “Let’s say a young woman graduates from college and accepts the first offer she gets, which is 15 percent less than her male compatriots,” Barach explains. “When she applies for another job and gets asked about her past salary, the hiring company can say, ‘OK, we’ll give you a 15 percent increase on that.’ The result can be rigidity in wage growth.”
To understand how wage history affects the hiring process, Barach set up an experiment with two groups of companies that used online marketplaces to find employees. One was barred from asking about, or retrieving, past salary information. A control group had no restrictions. The results were eye-opening. Companies that couldn’t acquire salary information made significant changes to their hiring process. Among other findings, they greatly expanded their pool of applicants. They took extra steps to evaluate each candidate, asking more substantive questions than usual. Ultimately, they hired candidates who had 13 percent lower past average wages than what the new positions paid. Barach adds that the results were particularly pronounced for candidates with a history of relatively low wages. “These workers benefited from being more likely to be evaluated by employers,” he notes. “They were also able to strike better wage bargains.”
Perhaps the most telling result emerged with the new hires’ on-the-job performance. “We found no evidence that employers were unable to locate quality workers,” Barach says. “There also was no evidence that that the new hires were bad matches for the jobs.”
The movement to ban salary history has been met with disapproval from many companies. In a sense, it’s not hard to understand why—that history can certainly help streamline the hiring process. But, as Barach’s findings point out, forbidding that access doesn’t make it impossible to find -and hire- quality candidates. “Companies have an additional option,” he acknowledges, “which is to put in the extra effort to conduct in-depth interviews -whether they’re via Zoom or Skype- through written questions, or by using the old-fashioned practice of sitting in an office and talking to each candidate.”
“你目前的薪资是多少？”
你在求职时也遇到过这个问题吧？另外，雇主很可能在发出录用函之前，已经了解过你的薪资水平。但这个情况正在发生改变。过去几年，越来越多的州和城市禁止企业询问求职者的过往薪资水平。
受到这些因素的启发，卡尔森学院助理教授Moshe Barach展开研究，调查过往薪资对招聘的影响。首先，雇主将过往薪资视为一个重要的信号。“如果你的上家雇主愿意支付高薪，那么未来雇主会觉得，你一定值这个价。比如说，你目前的薪资是每年12万美元，而招聘方只能支付7.5万美元，那么公司不会安排面试。因为你不太可能接受这份工作。”
但是，这种做法也对求职者造成了负面影响。“例如，一名女性在大学毕业后的第一份工作，收入比同等资质的男性低15%。当她重新求职时，新公司询问她的薪资后可能会表示：‘好，那我们在这个基础上加15%。’这就造成了薪酬增长僵化。”
为了更好地了解过往薪资水平对招聘的影响，Barach邀请两组进行线上招聘的企业参加实验。实验组不允许询问或查询求职者的过往薪资，对控制组不做要求，结果令人惊讶。实验组中的企业对招聘流程做了巨大调整。首先，他们大大增加了简历人数。其次，他们增加了评估求职者的措施，并在面试中提出了更多实质性的问题。最后，受聘人员的过往薪资比当前职位的薪资平均低13%。Barach表示，过往薪资较低的求职者受到的影响更为显著。“雇主会更细致地展开调查，这对他们而言是有利的，他们可以争取到更高的薪酬。”
最令人信服的是新员工的在职表现。“没有任何证据表明，在不能询问过往薪资的情况下，雇主无法找到高质量的员工。也没有证据表明新员工不胜任岗位。”
禁止询问过往薪资水平的政策遭到了许多企业的反对。这不难理解，因为了解过往薪资水平有助于简化招聘流程。但是，Barach的研究表明，此举并不会影响企业的招聘，企业依然能发现并雇佣高质量的员工。“企业可以提高对深度面试的重视，通过Zoom、Skype或书面问卷进行面试，或者使用传统的面试方法，让求职者来办公室面谈。”
