4 Ways to Handle the Ban on Being Asked Your Current Compensation

Now that California (and other markets) are prohibiting prospective employers from asking how much you make, here are 4 ways to handle the ban:

1. Although interviewers cannot ask you what you currently make, they can (and very likely will) ask you what you want to make.
2. How do you answer what you want to make without volunteering your current compensation? Prepare before the interview — know the value of your skill set in the market.
3. How do you find out how much you should make? You can ask friends, colleagues, your network, your friendly recruiter, etc. what others in similar roles are paid. At a minimum, use the Internet. LinkedIn has a great feature which gives you data points based on title and location: https://www.linkedin.com/salary/.
4. If you are still asked how much you make, you can nicely decline to answer, and then express interest in the job and point to a target range you are interested in, using market stats for support.