More vampirism in the newspaper industry

I've seen it outside the forty-fourth estate, but it is apparently starting to catch on inside, too.

"It" is a newspaper trying to get as detailed a past salary history as it can from you as early in the process — as in as part of the application — as it can.

Via Journalism Jobs, I believe it was, a while back, I saw a Virginia newspaper saying that W-2s from previous work were part of the hiring process. I found that paper's Twitter account and told it what place it could find to file those W-2s.

Then, the growing Community Impact group. Its web-based application asks for salary at each previous spot. I had had two jobs with it pop up off of one of my job search engines. I had started applying for the higher-level one when I saw this. So, I put in $1 per week/month/year on each job.

And didn't apply for the other position.

These folks are relying on a mix of a still weak job market (don't listen to Janet Yellen at the Fed), an ongoingly weak newspaper market, slick branding of "we're new and different" (with Community Impact), and masochists in the biz who don't want to leave.

I DO!

But, that's another story.