Years ago I read an article advocating that employers mention that they might want W-2 forms to verify past performance when hiring sales representatives or account managers.  (For those of you not in the US, a W-2 is the form our Internal Revenue Service uses to have firms report compensation to an employee.) To me the logic made sense, after all you are trying to hire someone who makes their living by selling.  And if they can sell anything, it is themselves!  Obviously most folks will be ethical here, but I do remember a past coworker applied at a firm I was now working.  The recruiter reached out to ask my opinion.  I did mention that they rarely if ever made their quarterly number (sales goal) during our QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) plus a few other things on their working style.  To this the recruiter responded, “Oh really?  They say they have made their number consistently for the past several years.”  In this situation the practice would have proved their true performance out.

Just this week I had a recruiter reach out to me on a role as an Enterprise Sales Engineer.  As part of the process he sent over a list of 7 questions the founder liked answered via e-mail prior to the first interview.  It was the norm like why I was leaving my past role, what regions or key accounts I had worked as well as how I rated myself in 6 different technologies.  But question #4 was the most interesting and got me thinking about that old post and the practice.  It was:

Last 3 years earnings (not combined, but each of the last 3 years; W-2s from earnings)?

I had no trouble sharing this number. Fastly didn’t have a cap on their compensation plan and we had really blown out our number as a team during the two years I was there. And Mattermost was not able to generate a compensation plan before I was in the accident that ultimately put me on disability. Since I was only really there less than a month there was an explanation for my income during that time.

A question like this isn’t something I would have thought of integrating into the hiring process if I were an SE Director. Not to mention that in California AB168 makes it illegal to ask for a candidate’s past pay. I’m really curious how many candidates out there have seen this practice (especially to know what roles they were applying for), how many employers do it and does it turn people off?