A while ago, I was in the middle of the job interview process for a company. Having read some rudimentary background on salary negotiation, I was somewhat prepared for how to deflect the "how much are you making?" question.

The next interview was a technical interview, so I wasn't too focused on this aspect of the interview process since I hadn't received a verbal offer. The technical interview went well, but suddenly the interviewer asked "what are you making right now?". Completely clueless, I started talking about the projects I was working on and various technical aspects. The interviewer nodded, and then replied "No, what I meant was what is your current salary?"

I was completely unprepared, fumbled and after some resistance gave up my salary after being told, "this process cannot continue until you tell us your salary". (They also subsequently asked for W2s as proof) I handled this extremely poorly and basically backed myself into that corner. Basically, they negotiated much better than I did, even if it meant resorting to heavy-handed tactics like that. Later on, HR explained this line of questioning to me by saying, "we ask for this information... not to draw a box around you, or anything like that, but so that we can give you an offer that matches everyone's needs".

Long story short, the offer came in at almost exactly $PREVIOUS_SALARY * 1.05. I politely declined.

While this process was painful, I learned a lot from it - always be ready to handle the salary question, even if the interview is supposedly a technical one. If you willingly give up your previous salary, in most cases, you're looking at an offer 5-10% higher at most. (Unless you're an outlier making several standard deviations above the mean) Don't let people box you in.

Yuck. I'm always amazed at how willing they are to waste your time by playing "gotcha" over things they should have worked out before you ever came in. Very unprofessional to spring all that on you.

If they refuse to comment on that I assume it's low and head on elsewhere.

I almost managed to write that with a straight face.

Is this common? I've worked for small companies so haven't run into anything like this elsewhere. Except for one asshole that wanted to do a reference check two weeks after I started work (!!!) (he offered me a job at the end of the interview with a 24 hour time limit and had me start 3 days later; I had already left the previous employer so it suited me well enough at the time), and was unhappy when I told him what he could do with himself.

Why are you reluctant about a company being able to verify that you worked where and when you said you did?

2 - they all insist on contacting the current employer, which I refuse to allow until I have a non-contingent job offer in hand from the new place. If X can't make me a firm offer, I'm not allowing X to contact (ie notify) the company currently paying me.

They were satisfied. (That's just a datapoint, N=1)

I agree with this statement, but that's a tough thing to get large companies to agree with

I think it's in the interest of the industry-at-large to not ask this question, because it incentivizes hopping jobs every 1-2 years.

But, that's all fine and good and everybody might agree with what I said, but individual companies still profit by 'defecting' (asking how much you made before and offering you that * 1.05).

Imagine how painful it is to be an entrepreneur with a very weak signal about how much you can pay people to remain happy to work with you without going broke and still retaining good enough talent.

Large and medium size businesses have much more information available to them than their applicants do.