What is your salary history?

These questions are just one of more than a hundred sample interview questions and answers available in "The Toughest Ever Job Interview Questions : Ever"

What is your salary history?
Do you expect that pattern to continue?

How to Answer this Question?

The interviewer is trying to establish the scale of your salary increases during your career and estimate your performance as indicated by your rate of progress. The interviewer is also attempting to gauge your current salary.

This is a very tricky question. If you give specific numbers, they will undoubtedly be used in any salary negotiations that follow. If your salary increases have been disappointing, you must explain the reasons to your interviewer in order to avoid her making incorrect judgments.

Example Answers

Answer 1 (Candidate with good salary increases):

In the four years of my employment at ABC & Co I was very happy with my salary growth. My most recent increase was a 15% rise after the successful completion of a year-long project. I feel that the increase reflected my performance and the extra responsibilities I assumed during the course of the project. I hope XYZ Corp is an organization that rewards excellent performances in a similar fashion. Is it?

Answer 2 (Candidate with disappointing salary increases):

My average salary increase during the course of my career has been 6%, although as I moved jobs and assumed extra responsibilities that increase has invariably been higher. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the salary increases at my last job, which averaged 2.5% . This was due to a firm-wide rigid salary structure that I felt did not reward excellent employees over those that made a significantly worse effort. This is one of the reasons that I have decided to look for a job with a more ambitious company where I will be rewarded according to my performance.