Outdated interview questions: The time has come to stop asking candidates their current salary

Outdated interview questions: The time has come to stop asking candidates their current salary. By Stephanie White, Senior Associate, May 2026.

There is a particular moment in many interviews where the tone subtly changes.  The conversation has moved beyond capability and experience. The candidate has explained how they manage competing deadlines, navigate difficult stakeholders, or support a busy practice group. Rapport has started to build.

Then comes the question: “What are you currently earning?”  In many parts of the legal job market, it is still asked as though it is standard due diligence. But increasingly, it lands differently – especially among experienced lawyers and legal support professionals who understand the commercial value they bring to a firm. The issue is not simply that the question feels intrusive. It is that it often reveals something unintended about the employer asking it.

The problem isn’t curiosity. It’s positioning.

Law firm hiring has become more nuanced over the past few years. Across both private practice and in-house legal teams, candidates are assessing employers just as critically as employers assess them. That means interview questions are no longer neutral administrative exercises. They signal culture, commercial maturity, and how a firm thinks about people. Asking someone their current salary can unintentionally suggest that remuneration is being anchored to a candidate’s past circumstances rather than the value of the role itself. For lawyers, this may raise concerns about long-term progression and how performance is recognised internally. For legal support staff – particularly career assistants, executive assistants, practice managers and paralegals – it can reinforce a long-standing perception that remuneration decisions are reactive rather than strategic.  In a competitive legal recruitment Australia market, those signals matter more than many firms realise.

Salary history rarely tells the full story

One of the more interesting shifts in the legal job market is that career trajectories are becoming less linear. A senior associate may have accepted a lower-paying role for flexibility during a particular stage of life. A legal assistant may have remained loyal to one firm for years without having their salary recalibrated to market conditions. An in-house counsel may have traded remuneration for autonomy or broader commercial exposure.  Salary history often reflects timing, internal budgets, leadership changes, or retention gaps more than actual market value. Yet interview processes sometimes treat previous remuneration as an objective benchmark. That creates an obvious disconnect. If firms genuinely want to attract high-performing people, the conversation should centre on the scope of the opportunity, the expectations of the role, and the value the individual can bring – not the number attached to their last payslip.

The legal industry is not immune from inherited hiring habits

Many outdated interview questions survive simply because they have always existed. Traditions around hierarchy, tenure, and professional pathways still influence many hiring processes, particularly within established law firm culture environments. But candidates increasingly notice when interviews feel transactional or overly rigid. This applies just as much to support hiring as it does to lawyer recruitment. Legal support professionals are often highly attuned to workplace dynamics because they sit so close to operational pressure points inside firms. Questions that feel unnecessarily invasive or outdated can create hesitation well before an offer stage.  In some cases, firms unintentionally undermine their own partner recruitment or associate retention efforts by relying on interview styles that no longer reflect modern workplace expectations. The irony is that most employers asking these questions are not trying to create discomfort. Often, they are attempting to establish efficiency, internal parity, or budget alignment. But intent and perception are not always the same thing.

Better interview questions reveal better commercial thinking

The strongest interview processes in today’s legal careers market tend to share one thing in common: they focus forward, not backwards. Instead of asking candidates to justify historical remuneration, stronger interviewers explore questions like:

• What type of environment allows you to perform at your best?
• What would make a move professionally worthwhile for you?
• Which aspects of leadership or firm culture matter most in your next role?
• What kind of work has felt most meaningful or engaging recently?

These conversations generate far more commercially useful information. They help employers understand motivation, retention drivers, management fit, and long-term alignment – all areas that are becoming increasingly important across law firm hiring. They also create a more balanced dynamic. Candidates are more likely to speak candidly when they feel they are being evaluated on capability and future contribution rather than historical leverage.

Candidates remember how firms make them feel

Most interview advice focuses heavily on candidates making a good impression. Less attention is paid to the reverse. But in a relatively connected legal job market, people remember interview experiences. They discuss them privately with peers, recruiters, and former colleagues. Patterns emerge around which firms conduct thoughtful processes and which still rely on outdated assumptions. This does not mean every interview needs to become overly polished or performative. Candidates are not expecting perfection. In fact, many experienced legal professionals value directness.  What they are increasingly looking for is intentionality.  Why is a question being asked? What insight is the firm genuinely trying to gather? Does the process reflect the professionalism and commercial awareness the organisation claims to value internally?  Those considerations matter across every level of hiring – from graduate lawyers through to senior operational staff and lateral partner recruitment discussions.

The question behind the question

Perhaps the more useful reflection for employers is not whether asking about salary history is technically acceptable.  It is whether the question still achieves what firms think it does. In a legal market where attraction, engagement, and retention have become more complex, interview processes are no longer just assessment tools. They are reflections of organisational thinking.  And increasingly, candidates can tell the difference between firms trying to understand their value and firms trying to calculate their price. Maybe the better question for law firms now is this: What do your interview questions quietly communicate about the way your business values people?