Putting salary on application forms?

[kgal]

Hi, this is my first post here although been lurking for a while! I am in the process of applying for a position with my local council and on their standard application form it asks for all my job history (understandably) along with my past salaries.

I am a bit reluctant to put this info down as I feel it's none of their business and also that they could look at my past salary and think that they could offer me the lowest part of the job range as it is more than I am getting now!

Do you think I may get penalised for leaving tthis salary info out?

[rubyslippers]

they will only ask you or your previous employers for it

i always do it - important to be upfront about your current salary

if you are a good candidate, and they offer you the post you can negotiate the salary

[potplant]

If you don't fill those bits in they might discard your application as not completed correctly.

[flowerybeanbag]

If they've asked for it, then put it down, at least for most recent and relevant jobs - as ruby says they will only ask previous employers in references anyway and your omission of required boxes in an application form is probably more likely to be a problem.

Many public sector employers have an automatic policy of starting new employees on the bottom of the appropriate range anyway, and asking for previous salaries may ujust be so that they can check whether this will be a problem.

[notevenamousie]

My salary is on public record - I just put "as per national pay scale".

[kgal]

Thanks for your replies - you are right I hadn't thought of them getting the info via my references anyway! I'll put it down and hope for the best.

Don't quite understand why they would automatically offer the bottom of the salary range. Why put a range in at all if this is the case? The range in this job spans about £6K so I think I am just hopeful (probably naively) of getting somewhere in the middle!

[flowerybeanbag]

Often a 'range' is something you move up as you spend longer in the job. With lots of public sector employers you automatically start off on the bottom of the range, then move up a point in the range/scale at regular intervals, often yearly, as your length of service increases.

With private sector employers who have ranges, they are often just that, a range within which people on those jobs will be paid, but the actual amounts may be more fluid and dependent to a greater extent on experience elsewhere, skills, performance and even individual negotiation rather than how long the person has sat in that job and been able to move up the fixed scale.

Those are generalisations of course, but you should be prepared that there might be a policy of starting at the bottom and you may find it difficult negotiating anything else unless there are exceptional circumstances such as you offering over and above the required skills and experience, bringing extra to the job, and/or being on much more than that already.

[kgal]

Thanks for the info - I should know what to expect now if, by some miracle, I get offered the job!