You may still find other teams in the world that you can dupe, but in the end, I expect lies to hurt your overall prospects (in life as well as work.)
What you're saying contradicts the common advice to oversell yourself (AKA "fake it til you make it").
Do you seriously think your team is made of 100% people who only ever tell the truth?
Let's get realistic, we all tell lies here and there. What matters is what you lie about and why you do it.
I couldn't care less if a developer joins my team and lied to get a higher compensation. All I care about is whether they are a good hire and if they'll do good work.
But there's an easy check, should they care to do it: call their current manager.
If I thought the employee was worth the extra money they were asking for, I'd give it to them. If not, I'd let them walk. Whether their current job is considering matching their offer doesn't really matter to me.
If a candidate asks for a specific salary, I don't care why they want it. I only care whether I think they are worth it, and whether I can afford it.
If so, you're not talking to your recruiters. You should find out more about what your side of this negotiation looks like to a candidate.
Quick searches reveal this is a popular question, spot checks of the answers agree that it's not illegal and quite common.
Most large companies won't give out your past salary information, so if they don't force you to provide proof, it's not very likely they will be able to verify it.
>via background checks
Background checks are normally done via a 3rd party background check company, and they don't have access to this kind of data.
I'm going to be more careful next time. :D
In the US, this is a legal minefield and when a potential employer calls a past employer for references, that past employer will very often not reveal anything more than "We can confirm that this person was employed by us from date1 to date2" and that's it.
They will not disclose your salary, what you did, your organization, who you reported to and who reported to you, your performance reviews and anything else of that nature because all of this extra information is grounds for you to sue them later if you don't get the job you're currently applying to.
Yes they do. There's a company owned by Equifax called The Work Number that collects such information.
We are back to my original point that the only way a hiring company can verify salary data is by asking your employer (or having 3rd party ask for them) or forcing you to verify it.
So employees can ask lots of questions about company financial health, as part of trying to reduce the far larger risk they are taking.
Meanwhile, a company doesn't need to know your salary history to make an informed opinion of whether they want to hire you and for what amount of pay.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/sageworks/2013/05/26/4-things-yo...
The reason I ask is I've certainly worked at companies that shared salary info if asked about your tenure there. In fact, it was one of the very few things they would share (in addition to start date and end date). Maybe it varies by state?
And if they do and somehow, your previous employer disclosed this to them (a big no no), you can always say "I was underpaid then and what I was making there is not relevant to the position I'm applying to with your right now. I also think I've learned a lot in my past position, which justifies this jump in compensation".