There are a variety of reasons for folks to want to know your salary history, sadly none of the reasons are in your best interest. However, you are kind of between a rock and a hard place. You have to give them some sort of answer unless you really have a lock on the job. I suggest being vague high 30's that sort of thing, play up how important fringes were. But back to why 1. Sometimes a board really has very little idea of what a job should pay and are looking for info. 2. A board may be looking forward to neg. and wants to have the upper hand. If you have been working for say 50K it is hard to argue for more than a 25% raise, even if your predecessor was making 80K. Exactly what happened at one mid sized museum. The new director had to sign the last couple of checks for old one-boy was he unhappy 3. It is a way of screening out people who have unrealistic ideas of what the institution can pay. 4. To some extent it helps define what someone's role really was. A collection manager, for example, can range from little more than a clerk to a highly trained experienced professional. Pay gives a hint. 3.