HR question: When offering a job, is it common to ask for a pay stub showing your current salary?

[Anonymous]

HR called and asked for a pay stub before they could make me a job offer. Is this standard practice?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I have had it done to me before. I don't like the practice but, it's not illegal. Woe to the person who refuses such a request, the hiring company will not like it. They just want to confirm that whatever you represented as your last salary, and thus what they are offering you, is accurate.

- HR, I don't ask for paystubs.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I didn't know that actually happenes.

[Anonymous]

Never heard of it. I guess, though, people inflat their salary. But still a company should offer what a person is worth. Take it or leave it.

[Anonymous]

I had to prove my salary last time I changed jobs.

[Anonymous]

that sounds nuts, because ultimately it doesn't matter what the person is making if you (HR) don't want to offer them what they WANT.

[Anonymous]

I've had to do it for every job I've ever gotten all at fortune 100 companies - they sometimes have called the hr people type phone number instead but always confirm salary and employment (transcripts too)

[Anonymous]

If you are talking about the federal government, and they want to offer you a "Special Qualifications" salary increase, they need the documentation. I'm not sure what exactly the regulations say, but something about the ability to pay you above the announced grade if you can prove you are leaving a job in which you made more AND they would otherwise have a difficult time filling the job.

Not sure if this is your situation, but it is one in which pay-stubs are mandatory.

[Anonymous]

Not sure that I would like HR to see the deductions on my pay stub and the resulting gossip...

[Anonymous]

I think if HR views the offer as some formulary increase over what the applicant earns now, they're in for some fairly high number of declined offers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of it. I guess, though, people inflat their salary. But still a company should offer what a person is worth. Take it or leave it.

HR person here. It doesn't really work like that in the real world. In some cases a person can state what they are willing to make a move for but other times a person might be at the top or bottom of a salary scale for the position. The company would want to know that they are paying the person enough or not too much. Not to mention that people lie - and wouldn't you want to know if your prospective employee is lying to try to get the job?

[Anonymous]

Not the same thing, but I recently had to fill out a "job application" to go to an interview. I've already interviewed with HR, this interview is with the hiring manger -- it's basically a restatement of my resume. But the job application asked for my social security number! Seems a bit much to me, and I am certainly not sharing that information.

[Anonymous]

I think I would decline to show them a pay stub until I had a written job offer in hand. Don't negotiate salary until you have a reason to have that conversation. Get the job offer first.

[Anonymous]

I havce had to do it twice in the last few years.

One time it was an issue as I was going from a position where I was part time and generally worked what I wanted to and was going to a full-time position. I stated my salary on my application as what my annual salary would be if I worked full time and my paystub did not match. It was a bit of a pain in the ass explaining to HR the set-up I had and why there were discrepencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HR called and asked for a pay stub before they could make me a job offer. Is this standard practice?

Thanks!

Don't work for them. Companies with BS HR policies usually suck.