What are you currently earning in your present role?
answer
- do not flinch, do not apologise
- history off the table, said once
- offer your target range instead
- anchor to the role, not past pay
- ask their band, keep momentum
basics
~20 sProbes whether your past pay can be used to anchor your future pay. Decline the history once, without lecturing or lying, and redirect to the range you are targeting for this role and why the role is worth it.
how to answer
5 beats- answer the need behind the question, not the literal wordsRecognise out loud that they need a calibration point, and signal you intend to give them one. This keeps the redirect from sounding like a refusal to cooperate.
- decline the history once, warmly and without apologyOne short sentence: a past role with different scope is a poor guide to this one. No lecture on pay legislation, no implication that the question was underhanded, and never an inflated figure.
- put your target range in the space you just clearedImmediately give the range you are targeting for this role, floor included. The redirect only works if something concrete lands where the history would have been.
- justify it with the scope of this role, not with your past payOne or two lines of evidence: what you own now, what you are on call for, one outcome with a number attached. This is what converts a decline into preparation.
- ask for their band and move the conversation onClose by asking what is budgeted for the level and by inviting an early no. Ending on a question stops the moment from hardening into a standoff.
your answer
4 story prompts- Write the one sentence you will use to decline, with no apology and no legal argument in it.
- Pick the target range you will offer instead, and check its floor is one you would accept.
- Name one ownership fact and one on-call fact you would cite to justify that range.
- Note any vest, bonus or notice period that genuinely belongs in a sign-on conversation.
draft and rehearse your own answer in a learn session
go deeper
The stated reason is calibration, but the effect is anchoring: past pay quietly becomes the ceiling on future pay. It also probes composure and boundary-setting — whether you can decline something small without becoming defensive, evasive or hostile, and still keep the conversation warm and moving forward.
I would rather not put my current number into this conversation, if that is all right — it is tied to a job with a different scope, so it is not a great guide to this one. But I do not want to leave you with nothing, so let me give you the number that is actually useful. For this kind of infrastructure role I am targeting one hundred and five to one hundred and eighteen thousand base in a major US market, plus whatever the standard equity and bonus look like on your side. If you need something recorded in a field somewhere, that is the figure I would want recorded. The reason I am comfortable in that band is what I look after now. I own the nightly restore drill for an open-source backup project, and after I batched the checksum reads it runs in twenty-six minutes instead of forty-seven, which is the difference between it finishing before the maintainers wake up and not. I am also the person who triages the failures when it does break. Does that band line up with what you have budgeted for the level? If it does not, I would honestly rather hear it in this call than in the fourth one.
The strength is the timing — the redirect and the replacement number arrive in the same breath, so nothing hardens. Note that no legislation is invoked and no figure is invented. Figures are illustrative of one US market at one level; substitute your own benchmark. Declining with nothing offered afterwards would downlevel it.
I keep my current package out of these conversations, mostly because it reflects a mandate I have outgrown rather than the one we are discussing. Happy to be useful in a different way though. The number I would work from is mid one hundred and fifties to high one hundred and sixties on base for this level in a major US market, with the rest of the package negotiable in shape. One thing worth flagging: I have a grant that vests in the first quarter of next year, so if timing matters to you, that is a real conversation about a sign-on rather than about base. On why that band: I am the maintainer for the restore tooling that seven downstream projects depend on, I carry the pager for it, and when we hardened the incremental path the worst-case restore for the largest consumer came down from just over two hours to thirty-eight minutes. That combination of ownership and on-call is what I am pricing, not my tenure. So — what is the band for the level you are hiring at? If the top of it is under where I have landed, I would rather we found that out today.
Two moves carry it: naming the vest as a sign-on conversation rather than hiding it, and pricing ownership plus on-call instead of years served. Figures reflect one US market at one level and should be replaced with your own benchmark. Any hint of resentment at being asked would undo the whole answer.
The whole test is that you can decline something once, pleasantly, and keep talking. You are not expected to fence with a recruiter; you are expected not to blurt a low number that follows you through the entire process.
Redirect with substance: give the target range for this role and one line on the scope behind it, so declining reads as preparation rather than evasion. If your current package has unusual pieces, describe the shape without the totals.
Reframe the question into the one worth answering — what this role is worth at this level — and be comfortable naming the reframe out loud. If a system demands a field, offer your target as the figure to record and say why that is the more useful data point.
You are usually talking to someone who can change the band, so spend the moment on scope rather than on defence. Make it explicit that past compensation reflects a past mandate, and that the number worth discussing follows from the mandate on the table.
saying these in an interview costs you the question
- Disclosing a below-market current salary and getting anchored to it all the way to offer
- Lecturing the recruiter about pay legislation instead of simply redirecting
- Inflating the current number, which is sometimes verifiable and never recoverable
- Going silent, cold or hostile when the question is repeated
- Giving the figure and adding nothing about what you expect now
- Treating a routine screening question as a deliberate insult
- Our system has a required current-salary field. What should I put in it?Do not argue with the form, and do not invent a history — an inflated figure that surfaces at verification costs you the offer, not just the negotiation. Ask first whether the recruiter can record the number as an expectation rather than a history; many can. If the field truly will not take that, put your target in it and say out loud, in the same breath, that it is a target and not your current pay.
- Why won't you tell me?Give a short, non-defensive reason and move on: past pay reflects a different role and a different scope, so it is a poor guide to this one. One sentence, no legal lecture, no hint that you think the question was underhanded. Then immediately offer what you will share, so the exchange keeps flowing.
- Would you accept the same as you're making now?This is the anchoring attempt in its clearest form, so answer about the role, not about your history. Say what the target range is and what the scope of this job justifies, and if the answer to the literal question is no, say no calmly and give the range that would be a yes.
## What the question is doing Whether or not it is meant that way, the current-salary question **converts your past into your future**. Any figure you give becomes the reference point for every later number, and a candidate who was underpaid before stays underpaid after, no matter how well the loop goes. This is why the question is worth a rehearsed answer even though it feels routine, and why the answer is **a redirect rather than a refusal**. ## A note on jurisdiction, kept short In many US states and cities, asking a candidate for salary history is restricted or prohibited, and a number of jurisdictions also require employers to share a posted range on request. Practice varies widely by location and by employer, this is not legal advice, and you should check what applies where you are being hired. In the room, none of that should turn into a lecture: knowing the norm gives you the confidence to decline gracefully, and confidence is the only part of it the recruiter can see. ## Decline once, and only once The move is a single sentence with no apology in it: you would rather talk about the range you are targeting for this role than about a past role with a different scope. Then keep going immediately — the silence after a decline is what makes it feel confrontational. If it is asked a second time, do not escalate and do not cave; repeat the redirect in different words and offer your target as the number to record. ## Never inflate Some processes verify, some ask for documentation at offer stage, and an inflated figure that surfaces late does not cost you a negotiation, it costs you the offer and the reference. Declining is unremarkable and survivable. Being caught inventing is neither. If you feel the pull to inflate, that is a signal your current number is below market — which is exactly the reason to decline rather than disclose. ## What to redirect to The redirect only works if something lands in the space you cleared. Give the target range for the role, and one line of evidence for it drawn from scope: - what you own, - what you are on call for, - who depends on your work, - a result with a number on it. Ask what band they have for the level. A recruiter who wanted a data point walks away with a better one, and the exchange never becomes a standoff. ## Special cases worth planning for - If your current package is **unusually shaped** — a large equity component, an imminent vest, a bonus you would forfeit — describe the shape without the totals, because that is the part that legitimately affects a sign-on conversation. - If you are **underpaid and know it**, the redirect is doing the most work it will ever do for you, so rehearse it until it is boring. - If you are **between roles**, say so plainly and go straight to the target range; there is nothing awkward to manage. ## How it is graded - **Early on**, the whole test is whether you can say no pleasantly and keep talking. - **Further along**, an unadorned decline starts to look thin: the expectation is that you replace it with the number that actually matters and the reason the role is worth it. - At the **top end**, the conversation should not be about your history at all — it should be about the scope of the mandate, from which the compensation follows.