"What is your current salary?" - thinking about this questio

[beppi]

My colleague gets paid $5600 a month and the per day billing rate applied across the working days of a month came out to be about $10,000

It is standard to charge your customers around double of what you pay out to your employees. And justified too: CPF, office rent and expenses, vacation/sick pay and all other incidentals of having an employee add 30-50% cost above his salary. Add overhead like Marketing and general business costs and the remaining profit margin is 10-20%, which is usual for a company.

[Wd40]

As a business, your goal is to maximize profits but on a sustainable basis.
Now suppose your budget to pay a candidate is 6k, you call up a candidate and then ask him his salary and 3 situations are possible
a) candidate is currently earning 3.5k. Now market trend for hikes is say 10-15% so you would be crazy to offer the candidate 6k. Rather you would try to pay 5k and keep the 1k as additional profit and this could then be given to another stubborn candidate who is hell bent on joining at only 7k. So net net your profits are still same.

b) candidate is currently earning 5.2k. In this case you will have to expend your full budget of 6k

c) candidate is currently earning 6.5k. There is no point even talking to this person anymore.

Well... we all know this logic. The question is - why would I help this guy to calculate his expenses? I have my own concerns: I need more money, by not disclosing my salary I have an opportunity to go up way beyond market trend. I do not give damn who is crazy over there.
Once my own concerns are resolved, I am ready to help other people, struggle for the sake of the whole humanity, galaxy and universe. But not before that!

Am I saying nonsense???

You can stick with your strategy of not telling your salary upfront, if you really think your skills are niche and they are willing to play by your terms. It's demand and supply and whether your strategy will work or not depends on exactly that.

Do come back and let us know how it goes

In my case I know I am way overpaid than what I am worth so I always make it point to announce my salary whenever I get a chance

In fact I am so much overpaid that I hardly get calls so I actually hide the employers portion of CPf contribution when recruiters call me and then only after gauging how much they are willing to pay and after actually attending an interview I tell them my full package so that I can bargain further

[Brah]

Why do people here still start sentences with "Do"?

Always makes me think of a 1940s British movie line.

By eliminating the "Do" the essence of the statement or question remains, 2013-style.

[Wd40]

I guess there is a difference. When you say "do come back" you really want him to come back just like saying "don't come back" same stress to the first word but opposite meaning.

[beppi]

Do I make sense? <--> I make sense?

Very 2013-style indeed - nowadays the international language of commerce is broken English!
You understand?

[Wd40]

True, most Indians talk that way, it's actually a statement but they ask it like a question, so they think its a question.

At least while talking its easy to make out whether its a question or a statement. The confusion arises when they follow the same tactics in chat or SMS, but forget to include the question mark

But Beppi in the above case Brah and I are actually talking about including "do" in a statement and whether it makes sense.

[the lynx]

Do = please?

As in "Please come back and tell us know how it goes"?

[Brah]

Well, only that "please" is normal for the rest of the world and peer-to-peer, whereas "do" smacks of talking down, and holding a teacup with pinky extended.

[Sergei82]

And justified too: CPF, office rent and expenses, vacation/sick pay and all other incidentals of having an employee add 30-50% cost above his salary. Add overhead like Marketing and general business costs and the remaining profit margin is 10-20%, which is usual for a company.

Justified to the recruiter, yah?!! Should the candidate even bother about that? It's not his/her problem.

[the lynx]

Well, only that "please" is normal for the rest of the world and peer-to-peer, whereas "do" smacks of talking down, and holding a teacup with pinky extended.

LOL at the pinky bit.

But in Singapore, you will see that a lot in emails...

[zzm9980]

But in Singapore, you will see that a lot in emails...

You know what else I hate in Singaporean office emails?

"GENTLE REMINDER"

First, if it's "gentle", don't use all caps. Second, wtf is a "gentle" reminder? Do you assume I'm a moron or something? We have calendaring systems with reminders for just this type of thing.

[rajagainstthemachine]

True, most Indians talk that way, it's actually a statement but they ask it like a question, so they think its a question.

At least while talking its easy to make out whether its a question or a statement. The confusion arises when they follow the same tactics in chat or SMS, but forget to include the question mark

But Beppi in the above case Brah and I are actually talking about including "do" in a statement and whether it makes sense.

haha another example a lot of Indians use in email is "do the needful"

while on one hand I find this sentence a bit laughable, on the other hand if you stop and think about it for a second, it conveys the most amount of information in three words.

eg: Mr.Kumar please do the needful and help us close this deal ASAP

needful = whatever the eff it takes to do whatever.

[nutnut]

If someone asks my salary, I lie, I tell them more and then they can base their offer on that

Simple.

[Sergei82]

If someone asks my salary, I lie, I tell them more and then they can base their offer on that

Simple.

And when they demand your payslips, you say your dog ate them?

[zzm9980]

If someone asks my salary, I lie, I tell them more and then they can base their offer on that

Simple.

And when they demand your payslips, you say your dog ate them?

Tell them no? Or don't let it get that far, using one of the arguments above.

I have been asked on previous jobs in the US, and I have obliged with fake numbers. In all of those cases, no proof was ever asked. I only know of two circumstances where anything of the like was asked for:

1) Many US companies do background checks, and current payslips were considered an acceptable (amongst other options) form of paperwork to provide. Background check was run by a third party company, and there was assurance in their paperwork it would not be handed over to the hiring company.

2) As part of a compensation/sign on agreement, hiring company offered the cash equivalent of a buyout of all unvested shares in previous company. As this sum was well into the six-digits (USD), they asked for a brokerage statement. (This wasn't me)