New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary
This is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask).  But, IANAL. (Correction:  It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.)<p>I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary.  When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they&#x27;ve never made an issue out of it.<p>Some recruiters tend to be a lot more pushy about it, but I just stick to my guns, and refuse to budge on the issue, telling them that I cosider that information confidential.  A couple recruiters have refused to work with me because of this, but most are much more understanding.  There&#x27;s certainly no shortage of recruiters out there, so I really don&#x27;t feel deprived of many opportunities just because a couple have walked away.<p>I&#x27;ve had one recruiter insist on it because they said they were paid by employers to get that number.  They&#x27;re basically insisting that I participate in a free salary survey for them, for which they&#x27;ll get paid.  Maybe if they shared their cut of what they were getting for that information, I&#x27;d consider giving it to them, but otherwise naming a number first will put me in a weaker bargaining position, so I don&#x27;t.<p>There&#x27;s a flip side to this, however -- whether to share salary information together with other employees.  In the US it&#x27;s frowned upon, but I hear it&#x27;s quite common in Europe.  I&#x27;ve also heard it argued that employees knowing each other&#x27;s salaries makes it harder for employees to get taken advantage of by their employers -- which is probably why some employers have tried to forbid their employees from talking about their salaries with other employees, and why I&#x27;ve considered doing so myself, though I haven&#x27;t yet.  It&#x27;s just such a taboo subject at work.  Nobody talks about what they make.