I've never gotten a lot of grief about disclosing past salary. I generally try to set the anchor and conversation around what I want to be making to join their company. I have (very fortunately) never been in the position where I _had_ to leave or accept an offer on anything but my own terms, I feel that when you're negotiating from that position, the complete lack of pressure to accept a lower number becomes pretty apparent to the people on the other side of the conversation from you. Or I'm dense enough to not realize they were trying to wheedle me down and just flat didn't entertain the notion.
I've got a business partner (came from high on up in the land of the big four) that during a salary negotiation of our own he floated the idea of asking for our candidate's current salary, AND PROOF. Apparently over 'there', especially as you get higher up, it's completely commonplace. Having spent his whole career over there, it didn't occur to him that maybe people would rather just walk away from your company simply for asking than to answer the question.
Luckily, he's a great guy and after my half hour soap box tirade he came around to realizing that in an environment where people are _actually_ practicing a craft and have what would resemble real skills[0], they don't put up with it.
- [0] Not to say people working for the big megacorp accounting firms don't have real skills, but no, yeah, that's actually what I meant. I kid, I kid.
To me asking for the previous salary - especially asking for proof - shows a lack of respect for the candidate. It's on the employer to quantify the value a skilled employee brings to the organization. I've walked away from offers because I didn't like the way they negotiated.
I've got a business partner (came from high on up in the land of the big four) that during a salary negotiation of our own he floated the idea of asking for our candidate's current salary, AND PROOF. Apparently over 'there', especially as you get higher up, it's completely commonplace. Having spent his whole career over there, it didn't occur to him that maybe people would rather just walk away from your company simply for asking than to answer the question.
Luckily, he's a great guy and after my half hour soap box tirade he came around to realizing that in an environment where people are _actually_ practicing a craft and have what would resemble real skills[0], they don't put up with it.
- [0] Not to say people working for the big megacorp accounting firms don't have real skills, but no, yeah, that's actually what I meant. I kid, I kid.