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Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

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Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#51

Post by thenewwazoo »

Quiark wrote: post #24

Eh, obviously. Now imagine my surprise when I came to Hong Kong and started to see candidates' current salary on their CVs without even being asked for it. Not to mention that many companies do 'require' it. Next time I should claim it's confidential. Just to see how they react to a novel situation.

I've done this. It makes recruiters very, very uncomfortable. It lets you retain all your bargaining power. It's also very, very hard to stick to, since there's often an employment offer on the line.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#52

Post by toomuchtodo »

_ea1k wrote: post #34
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internally, sharing your salary with co-workers is federally protected speech. You could argue to a recruiter that your salary exposed publicly is sharing trade secrets.

Keepin mind that the actual protections here are relatively weak.

Are you saying you have no recourse if you're fired for sharing your salary information?

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#53

Post by abofh »

exstudent2 wrote: post #32
abofh wrote: post #8

When you know you're above market, it's not unreasonable to disclose, knowing they'll go to your old employer and verify you are the "real" deal. There's little that's a more powerful statement of your value to your prior employer as the salary you'd previously negotiated.

If you do that, you're only going to get an offer slightly above what you currently make. Even if you're way above market, it's worth having them make the first offer. You can potentially negotiate it well above your current compensation from there.

If cash is your only metric, I agree. When I'm negotiating for equity at a startup, what the "big boys" paid is a good metric for my expectations on equity+cash comp -- I understand you can't give me "big boy" cash, but "funny money" is very near free - so let's talk percentages...

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#54

Post by toomuchtodo »

Teodolfo wrote: post #40
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internally, sharing your salary with co-workers is federally protected speech. You could argue to a recruiter that your salary exposed publicly is sharing trade secrets.

Not in Calfornia: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection... Even federally arguing that current salary is a trade secret is a legal gray area.

Thank you for that citation! I'm in Illinois at the moment, but California is more relevant for an HN discussion.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#56

Post by fach »

abannin wrote: post #4

Recruiters are often paid x% of one year's base salary. In this case, your interests are aligned with the interest of the recruiter. In my experience, recruiters are 'box checkers'. They have little to no knowledge of your skill set or the skills required for the job outside of buzz words that can be printed on a resume. The reason recruiters ask for your salary is not to engage in price fixing but to ensure that the…

This is the distinction between third-party recruiters and first-party recruiters. When I was hired via a third-party recruiting company, all negotiations happened via the recruiting company on behalf of myself. This was successfully because, as you mentioned, our interests were aligned, and as a result, I went from a 60k a year role to a 120k a year role. On the other hand, when I moved on from the 120k a year role, I dealt with first-party recruiters, where their interests were aligned with the hiring company, which means attempt to bring me on as cheap as possible. In the later case, it is clearly not in your best interest to disclose salary.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#57

Post by davidgrenier »

minimaxir wrote: post #42
davidgrenier wrote: post #16

Too bad this article makes the flawed assumption that getting a higher salary is just better. I recommend reading Kahneman... here: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489.full.pdf

That's a rather poor interpretation of the study. The study profiles salary among different income groups, not the difference between $110k/year and $120k/year.

I read the paper but grant my ability to understand it is limited. My interpretation is built on what's discussed at the end of Kahneman's Ted presentation: https://youtu.be/XgRlrBl-7Yg?t=1015

Is that why the downvote? I linked the paper people can make their own interpretation... that's at least as praise worthy as "common sense".

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#58

Post by halite »

This is useful advice. I'm in Canada and thinking (and trying!) about moving to states in very near future. honestly it's been challenging dealing with this.

Here are few conversations (from what I remember):

Amazon Recruiter: So how much are you making right now?

Me: I'm in Canada and I'm interviewing for a position in NYC, how's that relevant. In my Province, we've a central database with salary stats. If you've something similar, I can use that to come up with a number backed by data.

Amazon Recruiter: I'll get back with that info (he never did!)

Generic Recruiter: How much in CAD dollars you make right now?

(Me thinking: Do you've any idea about conversion rate? If so, you'd not be asking this)

Me: Sorry I can't provide that information.

Recruiter: Just so you know when you work with US recruiters, this is a standard requirement that you must provide your current salary for us to be able to proceed.

Me: Thanks, I think I'll have to find someone else (and we ended there).

Based on news articles it seems it is difficult for tech companies to find good people but it is equally difficult for individuals to weed out these recruiters trickery from my experience.

Glad to see that asking for salary is not 'standard' requirement!

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#60

Post by exstudent2 »

abofh wrote: post #53
exstudent2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do that, you're only going to get an offer slightly above what you currently make. Even if you're way above market, it's worth having them make the first offer. You can potentially negotiate it well above your current compensation from there.

If cash is your only metric, I agree. When I'm negotiating for equity at a startup, what the "big boys" paid is a good metric for my expectations on equity+cash comp -- I understand you can't give me "big boy" cash, but "funny money" is very near free - so let's talk percentages...

I would still insist on them making the first offer. If they offer $X /year and Y% of equity in options, you can still say:

Y is going to have to come up quite a bit since X is too low.

When they make the first offer you have all the options. When you make the first offer you may inadvertently undercut yourself.

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