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Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

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Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#71

Post by abannin »

joncalhoun wrote: post #69
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…

The problem with positions that pay a commission of sale price or new job offer is that they are great at convincing you that everyone is on your side when they likely are not. For example lets assume a recruiter can only find job offers for 1 candidate at a time, and it takes on average: - 1 week of work to find a 10% better offer - 2 week of work to find a 40%+ better offer It would seem like that 40% better offer…

Really great points.

Maybe the better response is "I tell you mine if you tell me yours"? If you know how much the recruiter is taking home, you can get a sense of their incentives.

It's also important to weigh these costs at the margin. If they have a candidate who will sign faster and for less money, the recruiter isn't going to advocate for you.

While recruiters do often work with a small set of companies, the challenge of the job is supply, not demand. They are paid to find employees, not to find employers. Even if they're working with a single client, in a hot market this will have next to no impact on salary pricing.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#72

Post by abannin »

mhurron wrote: post #47
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…

> Recruiters are often paid x% of one year's base salary. In this case, your interests are aligned with the interest of the recruiter. Not entirely. It may be in your best interest to walk away from a position that is not offering as much as you want. On the other hand, the recruiter gets 0 if you walk away or are passed over because someone else asked for less. So it is in the recruiters best interests to get you pl…

> It may be in your best interest to walk away from a position that is not offering as much as you want.

YES YES YES YES YES. This is far more important than any salary disclosure. The recruiter is asking so they don't waste any one's time on a deal that will fail because of price.

> On the other hand, the recruiter gets 0 if you walk away or are passed over because someone else asked for less. So it is in the recruiters best interests to get you placed somewhere, even if somewhere is a little lower yearly salary because they undercut competition.

The problem is that you're willing to sign for a lower salary. Disclosure has no impact on you accepting or not accepting the offer, it just helps ensure the offer will be accepted when/if presented.

> No, it's so you don't look like your biting off more than you can chew, which looks bad on them.

Seriously, if your recruiter is telling the hiring company information that makes themselves look bad...they most likely are not going to close the deal. If your current would be seen as 'too low' to the client, then they won't disclose your current salary.

> If you move from somewhere with a low pay rate to somewhere higher and you try to get that big pay bump, they're going to tell you that you can't because you don't look like you're worth it based on your previous low pay.

If your recruiter tells you that, then drop them. Great recruiters know that the value of the candidate is driven by the current market, not the candidate's current pay.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#73

Post by brianwawok »

abannin wrote: post #66
brianwawok wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recruiters are often paid x% of one year's base salary. In this case, your interests are aligned with the interest of the recruiter. This is often true, but not exactly true. Freakanomics has a study on something similar, real estate agents. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jO_w6f8Ck The difference between you making 130k and 150k may only be 2k difference for the recruiter, which in the interest of getting th…

I think the better counter argument is that many recruiters work on retainer, which lowers the marginal incentive for a hire.

Or of course internal recruiters, which want to minimize the cost to the company.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#74

Post by halite »

X-Istence wrote: post #62
halite wrote: post #58

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 so…

The recruiter I went through this time around when I got hired didn't ask me about my previous salary at all. Instead he asked what I was looking for, and ended up giving me a higher number (hourly rate) than what I had asked for.

Would you be able to share his / her details?

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#75

Post by jrs235 »

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…

The recruiters's interests and your interests are not as aligned as you may think. Freakonomics covered this with Real Estate agents trying to sell your house.

Here's a quick and short video covering the gist of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jO_w6f8Ck

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#76

Post by russelluresti »

The frustrating thing about this is that the entire concept of salary negotiations is one of the prime causes of unequal pay between genders.

The entire culture of a company trying to offer you less than you're worth so that they can save a few pennies is disgusting.

There shouldn't be salary negotiations - people who do the same job should be paid the same salary. If you want to negotiate for extra vacation days or a signing bonus or whatever, fine, but not salary. Just pay people a fair salary and pay them the same.

The current salary negotiation setup is extremely detrimental to people and should be eliminated, not encouraged.

Re: Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

#77

Post by iopq »

abannin wrote: post #70
iopq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually not. 50-50 chances of getting 10% of $70,000 is 50% chance of getting $7,000 20-80 chances of $80,000 is 20% chance of getting $8,000 it's actually in the recruiter's interest to force you into accepting a low offer right away rather than possibly getting another offer by your current employer or another offer through an acquaintance

But of that lower number makes you walk, then the deal is off. Having a minimum salary is far more effective in negotiation than any disclosure of pay.

That's why they tell you things like "if they extend you an offer be prepared to accept it" and if you tell them your salary they'll pressure you into accepting an offer you would normally refuse.
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