Q: &quot;Sorry, we can&#x27;t proceed without this information.&quot; If you&#x27;re a highly-competitive candidate with multiple offers, that&#x27;s fine, you can ignore this company or convince them to give you an offer anyway—but if you&#x27;re the sort of person who would be strongly hurt by revealing your old salary, that doesn&#x27;t help you because you&#x27;re also probably less competitive, at least on paper. So this very response exacerbates the gap.<p>Alternatively, Q (aside): &quot;She&#x27;s pretty abrasive, should we really hire her?&quot; There are studies that this sort of self-confidence is often perceived as a positive attribute in men and a negative attribute in women.