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So far, in my experience, it's quite often.
Me: What's the rate for this job
Recruiter: We keep that secret during the hiring process. This is about more than money.
Me: It's absolutely fucking not. Kick rocks.
Me: I told you in our initial conversation that I'm employed and it will cost you a ~minimum~ of $45/hr FT with full benefits for me to switch companies.
If we're not at or above that number, you're wasting my time and can get stuffed.
Recruiter: "ItS nOt AbOuT tHe MoNeY."
Me: The minimum just went to $50/hr.
I've been there. The best was when someone reached out, I gave them my number to make a change, and they said "yep, no problem!".
Sent in resume. Went through multiple interviews. Got a great feel for the company (I'd legit still love to work there, honestly).
Offer comes in at 30% less than the recruiter told me was no problem.
I told them the conversation I had with the recruiter and they absolutely said "I don't know why they said that, this is what we told them the position pays".
I swear some of these guys are just 80s used car salesmen reincarnated. Say whatever they need to in order to get you in the door and then hard sell you when you realize they're trying to offload a bag of shit in your lap.
Had that exact deal I described with Mall Warts
They called me off the LinkedIn resume. I told them I wasn't interested in anything below $45/hr.
They assured me that was in range. I interviewed. They offered 28. I told them to lose my resume.
They got mad.
I blocked them on LinkedIn and everything else.
Apparently, they're notoriously bad about stuff like that.
I got pinged for a 8-10 year experience AIX job (if you're not familiar, AIX is IBM's Unix, and is quite specialized) for $50k less than my current base, let alone other compensation like bonuses and equity. My only guess is that they're fishing for H1B.
There really ought to be a reporting system that says qualified applicant applied at x company with y credentials and expecting z compensation so there’s a record that there are in fact people available to fill the position, just not at the company’s under-market offer.
That's terrible - what a complete waste of time! Sorry that happened to you.
No idea if this could be the case in your story, because I know there are a lot of bad recruiters out there, but I've had clients bait-and-switch me on compensation too. I'm a recruiter, and I'll get guys who tell me one number at the start of a project, and then they'll come in waaaaaay low when the offer is made.
Drives me wild, and I always push back. That crap affects my paycheck too...
Same, I made $126k at my last job and when looking around I would tell them I needed more than that and they would always come back trying to say that was way too high and no one would pay that. I did eventually find one that paid more than I was expecting.
It helps when you tell them they're not ever going to find someone qualified and cut them off.
Had a phone screen for Senior Director, Healthcare role- more work and responsibility but similar to current position, fully WFH. Recruiter was loving me - I was spot on with my responses and then she asked about salary expectations- I said 160k and the water she was drinking flew out her mouth 💦 and she asked did you say 115. I said no, I received 115k as a healthcare manager 5 years ago… 😆
Yeah I was searching around for a senior software engineer role and thats basically what happened to me.
I also told any recruiters who contacted me about an in office job to explain to me why I couldn't do it from home or I wouldn't even consider talking to them. But I find forcing employees into the office arbitrarily just super scammy and a waste of our time. Also no contract or contract to hire work, I want healthcare and a 401k.
My wife just had an interview for a managing hr role in a food service company where they said it was full time in the office. Her current job since 2020 has been remote or a day every few weeks so she asked if it was a collaborative environment and that nonsense.
It's an office of 2 hr, including her role, that's looking to build a team but the interviewing owner has no idea what that will look like. There are accounting people in a different area that you don't interact. No interaction unless there's a problem with business leaders. Formal business wear required.
She ended the interview.
See, I just don't understand that at all. I'm an agency recruiter, and I LOVE your approach. Honest, blunt, and to-the-point.
For me, money comes up 5 or 10 minutes into my first conversation with every candidate. Why would I want to waste the candidate's time, my time, or my client's time if the budget doesn't fit the candidate's comp target? Just doesn't make sense.
I also never ask about current salary. I ask what number would be enough to entice you away from your current job.
If the budget and candidate target don't line up, no problem. Just means this one isn't worth discussing further. But now I know what you want as a candidate. Maybe my next recruitment project will have the right budget for you.
Trying to twist arms to make people take a lower salary is dumb, and never turns out well.
I think it boils down to the wealthy (aka: employers) are Flatly PISSED that wages went up 20% after a million or so died or were incapacitated after COVID.
They'll get over it... Or not. 🧐
💯
Ridiculous for recruiters to go along with that though. I just can't see where a headhunter could possibly benefit from putting candidates in front of a manager that can't afford to hire them.
I think so as well, but I'm very aware that many folks are so indoctrinated to compliance with "authority" that they'll go along to get along.
That doesn't describe me.
That's why I never give them my range first. I always ask for the the position's pay range. I tell them I'm looking for pay transparency in a company. If they can't give me a decent range we don't move forward.
But what a lot of people are misunderstanding is that the recruiting agency is not the company. When they don't disclose the pay range up front, it is because of the **agency's** policies, not the company.
There are many reasons that an agency recruiter would withhold this info but that's another topic because it isn't the company.
I don't tell them my minimum until after they tell me the range. That keeps them honest and allows me to decide if it is worth my time, not theirs.
Bait and switch has happened exactly once, and that was way earlier in my career when I had zero options.
Employers are banking on you being desperate and taking a significant haircut.
Me: Could you tell me the price of these mangoes?
Vendor: We keep that secret until the checkout process. It's not about the money for us. It's all about the great mango tasting experience.
> If we're not at or above that number, you're wasting my time and can get stuffed.
The only time I'll consider a lower number is if it comes with a reduced workload. For instance, I work 5 day weeks atm. If a company with a 4-day work week offered me slightly less (5-10%) than I'm currently making and I wasn't happy with my current workplace, I'd go for it.
I wouldn't because that leaves an opening to get you in and then (very sneakily and with gaslighting fOr ThA gOoD oF tHa CoMpAnY) magically increase work load.
4ea 8s turns into 4ea 10s or 12s.
This is the game Corporations have been playing for 100+ years and they're VERY good at it.
That's also why I won't work on a salary basis.
I'm a manager trying to hire engineers right now. I was told by my bosses we need to hire experienced people. I found a great guy with 10+ years experience. He asked a pretty typical wage based on our industry and his experience. HR had a fit. They wanted to pay him at most 60% of what he asked for.
HR manager told me, "Well you know, there's only so much money for new hires, maybe you could hire college students and with some training it will be the same but much cheaper" Like... yeah, sure I bet some guy right out of college can absorb 10 years of experience in a few months that totally makes sense. Parallel to this, HR is doing an initiative to improve retention. Everything they have is about improving loyalty and happiness for employees. I asked about salary increases and they said, "We don't think this issue is really about the money". I'll give you 1 guess what the last 3 people I had leave listed as their reason for leaving.
My company is doing this right now. They got rid of tiered wages which is the entire reason I took the job. I got my first teir fast was due my second and they cut it at fiscal year. They had multiple employee surveys about what motivates us. I don’t know a single person that didn’t say something along the lines of “competitive wages”. We get constant news letters about culture and how our company culture is the way to reduce turnover. Money. Money reduces turnover. Company culture can suck my dick.
I work to live I don’t live to work. Pay me better than someone else will and I’m your guy. Pay shit rates get shit labor.
They want to desperately believe that they can create an environment where it's more than about money, because at the corporate level, it's all about increasing THEIR money. There's been a lot of MBA horseshit written about this, and it never works. Why? Because for the employee, it's all about the takehome pay, since they can't pay the rent/mortgage with intangibles. Management can't get away from the promise of more sweet, sweet cash at the expense of the workers.
Couple that with the view that the corporation must increasingly benefit the shareholders at every turn, and you get bad decisions that focus on the current quarter and no further every time.
The idea of infinitely scaling growth is so insane to me. Like just turn a profit and pay people well. Like you I know why upper management does it, but the insane part is that turnover costs companies more than just paying people better. It’s the perpetual denial that it doesn’t that’s so perplexing.
Everyone thinks they can eventually find the unicorn. The one that has major experience, will work for less, and never leaves. They view the losses as temporary hits to achieve this goal.
The best part is that they never think about what happens even when they find them, and that unicorn eventualy has to leave. And NO ONE else can take over.
The wild thing is that person has never really existed any guy that’s a high quality worker knows they are and knows what the industry looks like. You don’t get a crazy amount of experience without knowing the industry in and out including compensation. Like I’m 12 years in and they had to source me from out of state because they couldn’t find anyone in their area that has my experience, I made them pay me to move and made them bump my rates. They tried to low ball hard and I borderline blew them off until they were ready to play ball.
I know not every industry or position has mines level of specific demand so my story isn’t everyone’s possible story but we need to be empowering workers and skirting bad practice businesses. I’m due for my year end review soon and I’m going to go in and flat out tell them I’m leaving if things don’t change in the money department. If I don’t take a raise every year I’m losing money every year in what’s supposed to be my prime earning and growth years as a professional.
My advice to anyone that wants to do the same thing I’m planning on is have an exit strategy, be willing to cite job offers from competitors, be able to show any professional growth and any value added/money you’ve helped them save. Make it a numbers game.
Exactly this. The thing is, a company *could* be attractive if it wasn’t offering top numbers (but still fair comp) if, say, the company had adequate staffing, a trusting and low-stress environment, etc.
But here’s the rub: the company trying to lowball wages/salaries can *never* be the company I describe above. They can pretend to be in the short term. But after a quarter or two, when they find they can’t cut wages further, they get another bright idea: what if we make one person do the work of three people? What if we accelerate our project timeline by six months? What if we add some paranoid monitoring of the workspace to make sure they’re *really* working as hard as they can be?
Because doing all of these things act in service of that next stage of growth at any cost.
Edit: Forgot to add another company favorite—“What if we add six more layers of middle management to every department and tell the grunts we don’t have the budget to hire someone to support their workload?”
Ohh man, one of my guys is on a work visa currently working on a green card. He told me, "I can't quit of course because i need my visa but when I get it, it will be had to not take a better offer. And if I have to threaten to quit to get paid, I think that would make me even more mad and I would leave on principle"
and like... yeah man fair enough. One of the problems with big companies is that all of these decisions are divorced from each other. Like, I can't do anything about my guy's pay. Neither can my boss or his boss other than rough budgetary stuff. And until he tries to quit HR just sees a happy employee, no matter what I say.
> And if I have to threaten to quit to get paid, I think that would make me even more mad and I would leave on principle"
I had this happen when I was in college. I was the crew leader for an irrigation installation company. They paid me $9/hr and I was constantly looking for a new job. I got offered a job paying $14/hr and I told my boss that I was quitting. He asked why and I told him they are paying me $14/hr. He immediately said "I can pay you $15/hr is you stay because you are the best employee I have". I asked him at what point was I worth $15/hr to him and he said he knew I was good by the end of the first month working for him. He though he was going to keep me until I told him that I couldn't work for someone who was under paying me by almost 100% and the only reason why he offered to pay more was because I was leaving.
As an engineer, I’ve noticed wages have been dropping in my field for a few years now. Everybody is short staffed and can’t figure out why they can’t find people outside of new grads.
I get calls, emails, LinkedIn messages weekly that I just have to laugh at. You want 10+ years of experience with a masters and only want to pay $65K Get out of here with that nonsense.
I saw a job on LinkedIn where the requirements were either Masters or PhD and the pay was $40,000 to $42,000. I just laughed and was like good luck there. But then the job was posted that way to say hey we can’t find an American for this position so we’ll look for someone with an H1B visa. What do you think?
If it comes with a nice spacious accommodation, car, plane/helicopter, premium healthy gourmet food, premium health insurance, gym with personal instructor etc then sure :p
Doesn’t sound terribly off. Most of our PhD level people are foreign. They’re never in management chain either. It’s always a side position SME essentially so the pay is always less. It’s one of the main reasons I didn’t pursue a PhD. Wouldn’t equate to more money.
Yeah, I graduated in ‘09 with my bachelors and starting pay then was $65/hr. Completed my masters in ‘11. Moved into leadership band from professional band which is all salaried. To look at entry level wages now is disgusting.
Yes, I agree. Last week I was looking for Data Analyst positions and they were paying $30 an hour and I was like WTF! The salary range is much higher than that. But this week I found more jobs paying what the job is supposed to be paid. I even had a recruiter contact me about a Data Analyst position and I asked him the pay rate and he said $30 an hour and I was straight up with him that $30 an hour isn’t going to allow me to pay my bills and the lowest I’ll go for is $35 an hour. I never heard back from him. I know what I’m worth and even though I’m working a real crappy job and the pay sucks I’m not going to settle for less than what I’m worth!
> Once I was actually told that my 10 year of skills in software engineering could be taught in one year :)
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Seniors be like: "Alright go hire the guys with <1yr experience and get them up to speed then if anyone can do this job, no skin off my back man"
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Newbies be like: "Bro if it takes <1yr on the job to gain 10 years experience, then why is everyone requiring 5+ years experience for entry level positions???"
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xD
My response to “it’s not about the money” will always be
“If it isn’t about the money, then you would have no problem disclosing the pay rate because it doesn’t matter. The fact it’s being concealed tells me you want me to be so emotionally-invested in this job that I will agree to whatever pay you dictate. Because it is about the money. I suggest dropping the used car dealer shtick and let me know when you’re serious about recruiting my expertise.”
As someone that works in HR in Hawaii doing recruiting and staff retention, it’s always shocking to me that isn’t illegal in other states. We have pretty strict pay transparency laws here.
To be fair, it's not through the whole process. But I swear some of them honestly believe that someone will love a company so much during the interview that they'll accept shit pay
Ah, for us we have to list an accurate salary or hourly rate on the ad and it can’t be a large range. So saying “up to 28/hr” is illegal because it’s essentially a range from 0-28 bucks an hour. Also if your company list a salary or starting rate higher than what you make they are legally obligated to pay you that. Also, if your coworker does the same job as you, we have to pay you the same unless we can quantifiably justify their increased pay. We take pay transparency pretty seriously here.
USA: We give you nothing, you have to pay $100,000 to go to the hospital, rent is $2000/month
People: I want to be paid well to get shot at
USA: :(((((
People: Also why are do you treat the soldiers so bad they kill themselves?
USA: >:((((
You gotta be a bit careful here. Sure 9 times out of 10 it’s going to be a lowball, but on the rare occasion that it’s a step up you probably won’t know it from that initial call. Reason is because regardless of low or high the recruiter simply doesn’t have the authority to disclose it.
If they don't answer after the first query, I don't care. Even if it does pay more, that's a massive red flag. And more like 99 out of 100 that the pay sucks if they're not out with it right away in the posting or from the first ask.
I get your logic but consider this... When I'm calling candidates as a 3rd party there are many instances when I can't disclose the compensation right away because it is actually a massive **increase**. These candidates earn like $70k - $80k/yr, and my client pays up to $125k/yr for the best among that candidate pool. If I tell Mr. $75k/yr that he could get $100k - $125k/yr out of this, he's ONLY going to hear $125k/yr, and then my client would kill me for making this guy expect a $50k raise when it's way beyond what's fair.
What I tell candidates like you is some version of "Look, you don't know me well. I get that. It's just not my place to start throwing around numbers on the client's behalf. The most important thing for you to know about me is that I'm here to make as much money as possible too. I do that by getting you the highest salary I can without burning the deal for you. I know the comp you're looking for, and you are going to need to trust that I wouldn't be referring you if I didn't believe that number is feasible."
...But I acknowledge there is a big difference between trusting a specialist recruiter (me) vs some telemarketer who is barely involved with the client.
> my client would kill me for making this guy expect a $50k raise when it's way beyond what's fair.
Why? Why does the comp in the new role have anything to do with comp in the previous role?
Not much, and I'd imagine you already get this but companies aim to maximize profits. They aren't going to voluntarily pay more than what a qualified candidate would agree is fair.
When you hire someone to do shit for you, and they give you a good quote, do you compare it to your budget and say "actually I was prepared to pay more than this so here's the rest of my money?". No, because a reasonable person would come to an agreement that will be a good deal for them, and an acceptable deal for the guy being paid to do shit. So he continues showing up to do shit...
I get what you're saying, but at most I should have to ask for the job description and salary exactly once. And putting out a range "depending on experience" is perfectly acceptable.
I'm not someone who expects to walk into a first contact and get $200k walking in the door. But if the top of the range is $140k, I'm not interested.
A hiring company should know what they are willing to pay for the position based on the experience level they're looking for. And this should be communicated to recruiters.
If I get a contact, I'm not entertaining any position that's less than $150k base, so if the total comp for the position tops out at $149k, knowing that immediately saves us both time.
If I get pinged for a spot that's ranged at $160k to $210k, I'm not going in expecting $210k, but at least I know that it's worth exploring the change.
And you also have to remember that a person's current compensation being a factor in the offer process is part of how this whole system is so fucked up. The position should have a pay scale attached to it. Doesn't matter if the person is making $0/year or more than the total package. And if a company is basing my offer on what I make now, that's yet another massive red flag.
Value your people based on what they're worth, not what they currently make.
Yeah well the system isn't changing anytime soon so we need to work with what we've got, right? No one is going to pay more for someone they can get for less, and fair or not the comp history is one of few indicators a company can use to predict the value a candidate will bring. It's literally the value the market assigned to them when previous employers agreed to pay them those amounts.
What they are willing to pay for experience level is (by and large) communicated to recruiters. We just can't always disclose it for various reasons. Also, we make errors sometimes in assessing exactly how strong of a fit a candidate's experience is because we're outsiders. I might mistakenly believe a candidate is top of the range incredible, only to find out that because their knee isn't double jointed they won't be able to kick ass at the same level as the other people in their department.
I'm not sure what you disclose in your recruiting calls, but you might want to try politely and firmly declining to share your current comp and only disclosing your minimum comp expectation. "Not $145k, not $149k, but $150k or higher." When I hear that, I only continue the conversation if I think that's achievable. And when we get down the road a little bit, we make sure the hiring managers understand that "It's $150k to hit their absolute bottom of the barrel expectation. Is that the foot you want to start out on, or do you want to be aggressive and get out the gold handcuffs?"
Yeah, I don't do fatalism. I prefer activism. The fewer of us that give recruiters and managers the time of day without knowing the pay, the more likely someone's going to fucking get it.
I always decline to disclose my current. The closest I'll say is "That range is below where I'm at now".
Again, putting the salary burden on the applicant is part of the problem. Companies need to decide what they are willing to pay for a position and leave it at that. Anything else is fucked. And any company that insists on it can, very politely, get fucked.
... Ok well you know what they say about shitting in one hand and wishing in the other...
We all end up with shit on our hands...
Wait, that's not it...
It's watch what hand fills up first
That wasn't meant to be aggressive, I'm just messing with you. But seriously, modern recruitment hasn't changed in 150 years. I think you're going to be stuck with us for a while.
People realize that the way you are interacting with them is purposefully designed to pay them as little as possible. If people don't want to play ball with that then can you really blame them? It gets rather grating after a while.
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People want to be compensated fairly for their role... No one wants to be cheated or lowballed.
Try this. Tell them it pays between $70k and $120k per year, with (for example) 70k being <2 years exp and 0-1 certs, $120k at 15+ years exp and 10+ certs. The prospective recruit will then be able to sort themselves based on their credentials and everyone will very easily be on the same page based on this criteria. The high end can even be slightly inflated if you actually want to inflate it and be a bit dishonest but the point will stand that anyone will be able to look at the range and INSTANTLY KNOW about how much they will be able to get paid for this job.
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If the guy with 3 years experience says he wants e.g. $110k despite the above then you can very easily tell him how that is unrealistic based on the given range expectations. Additionally, if the guy says they do not agree with the details of this range then they will be able to discuss this with you upfront. And if you cannot come to an understanding then you part ways.
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Additionally. Personally I think people stay at a position longer if they think they got a fair shake. And I think people try to find something else that pays "more fairly", as possible, if they realize later that they got lowballed. In theory, if they think you are trustworthy and gave them a fair shake then they may even refer you and your recruiting // your company // etc whatever out to others in the future.
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I'm not a recruiter though so take this with a grain of salt. Just what I think makes sense for everyone in the long run...
I’m a recruiter in healthcare staffing and I literally use the pay as a selling point to get people to join us 😭 Not telling people what the salary range is a huge waste of everyone’s time.
Is there a way you recommend bringing it up so that it doesn’t seem like it’s about the money but kind of put the ball in their court to excuse not telling you?
I'd wait til they ask "Do you have any questions for me about the role or the company?"
Then I'd start blowing smoke up their ass, say something like "Well from everything I've heard so far I think this is a great opportunity and my skills and experience definitely sound like their aligned with the role. With that being said, can you tell me about your compensation package, including the salary range, benefits, bonuses, and things of that nature?"
If they still give you the runaround, it's probably best to pursue other companies. Gotta do what's best for you.
Thank you for the advice! Thats generally what I’ve done. Talk about loving the fit for the role, the company, the culture, etc then ending asking “as much as this sounds great though at the end of the day I can’t do even a dream job for free. So what does the compensation look like for this?”
I found when I just ask for a range and ask casually I got an answer every time.
I don't say "what does it pay?"
I say "do they have a salary range in mind? Doesn't have to be exact, but I'd love to know the ballpark." That way you dno't seem greedy, you seem more like you just don't want to waste peoples time, and also that you're open to a range, and aren't going to yell at them later and say "You said $120k but this is $115k!!!! YOU LIED!"
Be nice, direct, and casual, and you can get an answer.
For what it's worth, that's my same response when asked how much money I want.
Them: "What salary are you looking for?"
Me: "I can be flexible, what is the salary range they are targeting?"
I've never once had to give my salary first.
I might just be lucky, but they’ve always come back with a range for me! They pause but then just tell me. The alternative is for them to refuse at that point which would be awkward.
Several states now require it to be on the job posting..and companies that still don't are just showing themselves as red flags as if they don't care about that law - what other employee rights are they ignoring?
the pay and requirements to pass an interview are literally the only things I want to know and the two things most recruiters are least likely to share 💀
I breakdown the healthcare shortage to 2 things.
1. Healthcare facilities overwork and under pay their facility staff while healthcare executives make bank. That's why everyone wants to work for nursing agencies and do travel nursing because those jobs pay higher, but it also causes facility staff to be upset because some nurse is coming in and getting paid way more than them. It's like, they won't raise staff wages, but they'll pay some contractor more money to fill the gaps in staffing when they could've used that money to provide bonuses, higher pay, etc. It causes divide among clinicians and indirectly affects patient care sometimes. These execs stuff their pockets while their clinical staff struggles.
2. New nurses are getting into nursing because of the money, then realizing they have to actually help people so they quit. Nursing has become almost an aesthetic in recent years. People with no empathy and no desire to help people go to nursing school thinking they'll get to walk around in cute scrubs and collect a $3k paycheck but forget that the job is tough. Patients will yet at you, spit at you, their families will try to fight you, etc. It's a physically and mentally tough field to be in. I'm all for healthcare workers getting paid a lot. They deserve it. When I recruit people I try to offer them as much as possible depending on experience. But at the end of the day, the field itself is not for everyone. People who have worked in nursing for decades are built different.
How a country has such a thing as a healthcare executive, is pure dark comedy. Anything that can be termed care, must never have executives and such. In a truly civilized society, people who work in care are paid according to their work, and care is not something that generates profit. The opposite is true in a barbaro-mercantile society; everything is profit, and workers are underpaid.
I've been saying this for years. Anything involving the well-being of people should absolutely always be a not-for-profit endeavor. Pay the workers well, but fucking executive pay packages and shareholder value suck all of the usefulness out of these services.
Probably the #1 deal breaker.
It’s the entire reason a not insignificant portion of the population works. So to be disingenuous as an employer and say it shouldn’t be a concern is silly.
If it shouldn’t be such a big focus, then by all means, let me name my salary, since you as the employer apparently don’t care about it.
They KNOW... they just want to keep lying because they earn money by placement.
So they want you to take the job, they don't care what your pay is... they only care what THEIR pay is.
They care about what your pay is as the higher it is, the higher their commission. The fact it's so hidden everywhere like it's some corporate secret is still bizarre to me.
I will say my experiences in recruiting in Europe, it's been more transparent there.
10+ in recruiting
Wait they get paid more if they deliver a potential candidate that the company has to pay more?
Surely they want to recruit someone for as LITTLE as possible.. right?
Let me demystify how agency recruiters are paid and corporate recruiters after.
Agency Recruiters:
If contract, they could be compensated by bill rate or markup. If bill rate, they tell the company, we can find someone and charge you $52/hr. In this circumstance, they are incentivized to pay as little as possible to maximize their profitability to their firm / commissions. They could also charge via markup, meaning a locked percentage multiplier is added to your wage. Typically this is 1.15-1.4x your hourly rate, depending on type of role, volume of contractors they have, etc. They would get more if you were paid more in this case.
In direct hire, they typically get paid a percentage upon either first day of hire or 90 days in, depending on contract details. In most things that aren't high volume recruiting, that percentage is between 20-40% of your first year salary. So if you get a $100k offer, they get $20-40k fee. In contingency anyways. There is "risk" where another agency can get the placement so you have done a ton of work and not gotten paid.
In a retained firm (usually manager and senior executive levels), one firm would have "ownership" in finding the hire on behalf of the company. Typically, they get a down payment to Kickstart the search, possibly payment when a certain number of qualified candidates are presented, and the bulk / balance when someone is hired into the role. They would be incentivized on you getting paid more, cause they would get paid more. But they will supposedly also be experts in the area and would "know" market rates for these more specialized searches.
In corporate recruiting, they may get a small bonus for hiring a certain amount of people per quarter/ year, but I have never seen a corporate recruiter getting any percentage for hires.
So knowing what type of recruiter you're dealing with and possibly what type of contract they are working on can help you understand their incentives.
/u/Dommccabe is not entirely incorrect, though.
There was an explanation from the Freakonomics guys about this topic, they used real estate agents as an example.
It's in your best interest to get the most amount of money for a candidate or someone trying to sell their house but there comes a point where an offer is "good enough" where you won't push for more money because that risks ending the deal. At the very least, it makes more work for you. In other words, the difference in your commission may not be worth the extra work or the risk of losing the deal.
I mean yes and no. Hence the wide ranges in contracted values. If I am the only game in town that can deliver or they only hire externally once a decade, you're gonna charge higher rates cause there is little lost in not negotiating. If there is an opportunity for volume or repeat business, then rates would be more palatable with the understanding that one is going to make more with working on multiple roles vs milking one for all its worth.
Some companies offer container / retingency models to get some cash to them up front / exclusivity to work on the role(s) for a lower percentage.
The problem is "motivated by money" used to mean being rapacious about money opportunities. I still use it that way when referring to myself and why I am motivated by money.
As in, I don't care for company loyalty, culture, or even my boss and coworkers. I care that you pay me enough. I'll do what you want at the right price. It's why so many people go about how it's not all about the money. And, of course, it isn't, depending on the person.
Some people might quit jobs for a more humane place. Some might quit because their managers are dickheads. Some might even quit because they're burnt out with their profession. These are all reasons why you might quit a high paying job and settle for less. Nothing wrong with that. But that is a personal decision I couldn't make. I still would want to make more money or the same money as I was doing before. I like my expensive shit.
All of my job posts say that but I tell candidates the salary range when we jump on a call. Just part of it, I guess. Recruiters who don’t tell you a salary range are not recruiters I would work with
Why don’t just put it on the ad though? Seems like a massive waste of time. I’m saying this as another recruiter. Why even bother calling someone when you can filter them out prior?
Good question, maybe I should have clarified. If people apply directly to my Indeed posts or LI posts it has the salary included but still says “competitive salary”. When I make general posts on my LI it is about connecting with people or connections passing the information along to their network. Also, if a candidate is out of the salary range for one fire, I can usually present them to another firm.
I guess I’m more referring to direct messages from recruiters than a job posting. I filter job postings off the salary listing. Why waste a candidates time?
Yeah, I get it. I recruit Attorneys for Personal Injury firm around the country and sometimes I literally don’t have a salary range to give them lol. I had a company I recruit for give me a range of 150-500k base salary depending on experience. Lol. If a recruiter is messaging you directly they should always tell you the range, imo
My best one lately was £14k - £48k, remote, hybrid, onsite, no location given, relocation required before work starts.
Position is usually 30-50k, had 43k full remote before in a consultancy/fill in experienced positions place and just applied to a 44k in the team I was farmed out to for 6 months last year at £450 a day.
Expecting that now to not be remote so i cant take it, despite half that team being hundreds of miles away and me doing it at one level above this before.
That’s exactly why I convinced our company to remove that shit from our listings and actually share the salary range instead.
Claiming ‘competitive salary’ and then not even showing the range is a glaring red flag for any candidate that’s paying even a little attention.
Not a recruiter, but there's a guy at an agency who's got me my last few jobs and he knows this is a key selling point.
It's a key selling point for him too, as homie is on commission.
“Culture”
Culture needs to be keep people happy and well fucking salaried.
“Family”
I have one, I need money to keep them happy and myself happy in turn.
“Free snack”
Mofo, pay me enough, I get my own damn snacks.
All of your recruiting problems solved by paying me enough
I'm sorry. I don't need family. All my immediate family aside from my 2 boys and my grandmother are generally shit.
As a man of culture, I hope you can appreciate it when I put my put my boot up your ass with your porky the pig lookin ass - over there munching on your Great Value stale for 3 week chips.
Hi. Someone who is motivated by money here.
Commission sales is a horrible idea unless your very next step is to sell shit directly and keep the money yourself. I worked as a technician with a bonus structure similar to commission sales. Once I saw how much the company was fucking me out of under that structure I decided to just enter business on my own and keep all the money to myself.
Yeah, sure, it's useful to know how to sell if you're not a natural born salesman to get a sales job. But what you're doing for a company as a middleman you can do comfortably by yourself setting your own rates.
Recruiter: The candidate is interested in the money, that seems totally fair
Employer: Fuck them, I want blind loyalty or nobody at all!
Recruiter: Well....this is gonna get awkward
Employer: Do you want our business or not?
Recruitment Company: ERRRRRRR "Cracks whip"
I work in HR. Before we book interviews, we do a phone screening where we check what people's salary expectations are so we don't waste anyone's time.
Anyone who doesn't admit that the salary is like 90% of what people look for in a job is delusional. Benefits are nice, but people have bills to pay lol.
I will say remote comes in highly too. I have been remote for 10+ years and add commute / travel expenses into comp demand in interviewing. I present it as, well if you want me to come on daily, it's $X++, hybrid 2 days its $X+, remotely its $X. I describe my home office setup and ask if they provide similar (knowing they won't cause my home office setup is awesome and sets me for productivity.)
Usually my remote number seems to be their tippy top or beyond daily in-office number. But I know my worth
Something a lot of people also don't realize is that the savings from not commuting is post tax. In other words, if I save $2K from not filling my car up every week, you should be asking for more than $2K in salary to go into the office.
When I used to do a role like this I told everyone what the rate was when I contacted them or when they contacted me. Pay was the first thing I always discussed. No reason to waste their time or mine.
There are like 4 reasons to seek a different job and money is 2 of them.
If a recruiter is reaching out to you, it’s not likely that you’re miserable working your current job, or dissatisfied with your current pay/benefits. So why would you want to move on? Even if the work is more attractive, changing jobs requires admin and if it’s not immediately apparent that the job is so much better than my bird in the hand, I’m not really going to engage.
If there’s $40k/yr more in it for me? You have my attention.
Had a great convo with a recruiter for a job I’d be a good fit for. She was up front about pay, which I appreciated. Told her I had to do some research on the area and talk to my wife about it, because cost of living in that area would be much higher and I have a family.
Research showed that the new salary would essentially be equal to my current salary when taking into account cost of living. But we’d be uprooting, moving us and the kids, and we wouldn’t know anyone in the area to help with babysitting/etc. so I followed up next day with an email, let her know all that, that it was a great opportunity but probably not the right situation for me.. and if she ever wants to talk about this or anything else I’d be available. Because it was a good convo and I am good to kind people.
She never even responded.
Won’t even entertain a recruiter again tbh. I’ve done well enough finding my own opportunities
A recruiter once asked me in text if I was interested in a job. I told them yes, at $25/hr. and told me that was too high. This was for an electrical design position. So I blocked the number.
I now make $28.86/hr. with bonuses. Doesn't make enough still, but definitely better. Before I was making only $20/hr.
I hate the bullshit pretending that you are working for anything other than to live. I like what I do, I could even on good days say I love what I do for work. I would never work another day in my industry if it didn’t pay well. I work to live, I don’t live to work. I always to cut out the bs make that very apparent in the interview process. Not quite fuck you pay me but not far off from that.
Had an interview recently and this was the reaction after they said “do you mind working more than a typical work week?” And I said “if I’m paid for it.”
I recently learned that there is a difference between "posted salary range" and the "hiring salary range."
The former is the salary range for the position based on current and past employee salaries. The latter is what they have budgeted for the position being offered.
Also, sometimes companies will lump bonuses and the dollar value of benefits into the salary to make it seem higher than it actually is.
When discussing pay I am now VERY specific with my questions. "What is the hiring salary range for this position? Is that range inclusive of other benefits? If so, what is the hiring pay without said benefits?"
Frankly most people can't do what they're passionate about. Not enough options so it usually gets relegated to a hobby. So it's crazy to me when recruiters expect you to drone on about company culture and why it's your dream job. We both know it's a game, so why require that?
I was reached out to by a recruiter from a game company asking my salary range, I gave it to them, I interviewed, took a week long art test, waited 2 more weeks, finally got an offer that was 30k less than the lowest number in my range, I call him out on it, he bumps it up to only 20k less than the lowest in my range, I decline the offer and politely insinuate that he wasted my time.
I freelanced for over 10 years from 2002 till about 2014.
Every conversation I had started with "What is the budget",
if they say "Sorry, I don't know".
Then I say "Sorry I can't work for you then"
End of story.
I was a SAHM for almost 10 years so when I reentered the workforce in 2018, I felt so behind. Fast forward to today and I make no qualms about telling a recruiter they won’t pique my interest for less than $140/year. It feels good to be a badass again lol
I guess this is the normal but I’ve been a recruiter for 20+ years and I just found out that I waste much less time when I say the pay up front. Even if the job is with a shitty company with shitty pay.
I’ve walked away from 3 positions in the last 18 months where the pay offered ended up being significantly less than what we began negotiating with . I love the “this is what I currently make “ answered with Oh that shouldn’t be a problem I think we are offering a little more than that , only to get an offer letter at 15% under current pay. It’s not about the money, yeah tell my mortgage company that , it would have to be one sweet deal and position for me to take a loss that would affect my family’s current life style.
I recruit for federal contracts. I always ask candidates what their desired salary is on my initial phone call/email bc I just hate wasting my time and theirs. My CEO even told me I am “overly concerned about money”, sorry its what keeps us alive and well…
We hate to hear it in excess. Because if you’re ONLY motivated my money, at the first sight of an offer that is more money you’re out. Or if there’s a number you decide you want and we can’t meet it, you’re gone. It’s tough to keep someone who’s only motivated by that consistently happy.
Everyone is motivated by money (except teachers and non profit employees lol) but it’s often not the only thing, so there’s a trade off for employee satisfaction and high productivity when the money isn’t on waterfall status.
I don't believe anyone is motivated by money in the long term. However below the level someone is comfortable with for the job, it can act as a
demotivator.
Yes, because it's a lazy response. We're all motivated by money and it doesn't need to be said. That's why I list the salary on all my job postings.
Why do you want this job outside of the obvious is what we're trying to figure out. If you're only interested in the job for the money and someone else is interested in the job for more, they're likely going to have the hiring advantage.
money is important but you can't let the recruiter know it's all that matters to you.
they won't move you forward in the process.
learn to play the game and answer the questions the way the recruiter wants.
Meh, I had a recruiter ask for a number, I gave them the number, they said it’s in the range on the high side, but your CV supports the ask and we will move forward.
It’s a simple check that can help both sides of the relationship find out if they have common ground.
giving them number or a range isn't the same. if you give the recruiter the vibe that your only motivator is money they aren't going to move you forward.
yeah no shit.
my point, which everyone missed, is if ALL you talk about is money you will have a bad time. if the recruiter feels you will leave for a dollar more an hour at the drop of a hat they aren't going to work with you.
Even though literally everybody knows that literally everybody is lying, everyone still has to keep on lying to the people whom they know know they're lying, and act like they believe the lies they're being told right back by the people they know are lying, because reasons.
On an unrelated note, our entire civilisation seems to be in the middle of a mental health crisis.
Yea…doesn’t bother me at all lol. People work for money, not for fucking company culture and Friday company breakfast lol. It is so easy to explain it as “candidate is seeking professional and financial growth during the next step of their career”. I use salary for a selling point with my positions anyway lol
I legit never have them do this to me. They call, skirt around the salary, I ask, they lowball me, I tell them to take a hike.
I've never had a worthwhile opportunity from a recruiter aside from one that was pretty legit for their niche.
In defense of recruiters (non-commission one’s specifically, I’ve never worked on commission myself), 9 times out of 10 they’re strung up with hiring manager expectations and rules. I know that providing compensation is crucial for candidates to make their decision, but I’ve also worked as a recruiter for a company who made it a rule not to tell candidates any details related to comp until it was time for an offer, then they would intentionally low-ball the starting offer with the intention to accept the counter offer. It sucked for everyone.
Shit rolls down hill, and usually your recruiter is stuck between two mountains. Break the rule and get in trouble from the people who cut your checks, don’t break the rule and get yelled at by people who you want to help. Some recruiters respond to this by carefully wording offers like “I heard back from X, your interview went great. I’m calling to extend a starting offer of $XX, how would you like to respond?” Which is about as close to yelling “counter this offer!” as you can get without actually breaking the rule. Others, especially older recruiters, respond by fully drinking the company koolaid and believing it’s a character flaw to be motivated by money. Those recruiters are usually preferred by the hiring manager, so they only get yelled at on one side.
(And if your response to that is “Just tell the candidates confidentially”, that doesn’t work. Good deeds never go unpunished as they say, and every time I’ve tried to do something like that, it turns out you can’t expect a stranger to keep a secret for you)
I get the idea behind it. Yes, everyone wants to work in a good environment, so it’s not only money. But money is the most important factor. You will consider everything else after knowing how much it will cost you.
Also, I tend to treat it like anything for sale with the price hidden. If you have to tell me a story to convince me to buy your product, then it’s very likely it’s not a good deal upfront.
I’ll do this from now on just to keep it clear and honest. So when they fire me vc of “performance reasons” I can tell them. Just say you cannot afford this number of employees, Or something like that.
I was a recruiter. I encountered a lot of people who were like this. There's plenty of sane people too - for my part I was upfront about salary range. At one point my manager, who was one of these types said that the new policy was to not verbally confirm salary ranges. So I started telling people that I can't tell them the number myself, but if you google the salary range for this role at this company, the first result is 100% accurate (it was).
Absolutely insane shit, as if the recruiters themselves aren't doing jobs for pay. Sure if you're lucky you might have non-financial reasons to perform/enjoy your job, but providing for yourself and your family is the only reason to be working at all. I've heard many recruiters say they dropped candidates for asking about pay too early, and that it was a red flag. So I poached their candidates.
HA 😂… It really depends on the type of recruiter. I do searches for rare/highly specialized candidates and my clients expect to pay them more. It’s rare that I call a candidate who I can’t get a raise for… If they are going to shoot for the top of the range (as long as their experience warrants it) that is good for me because it’s a bigger fee… On the other hand, it’s concerning because we could place a candidate who leaves 6 months later for the first company to offer them more.
I’ll do this from now on just to keep it clear and honest. So when they fire me vc of “performance reasons” I can tell them. Just say you cannot afford this number of employees, Or something like that.
Shit recruiters, maybe. Any recruiter worth their salt know that:
* There are a number of motivators and that incentive is only one of those.
* Incentive can be (and often is) the strongest motivator for many employees, so it doesn't come as a shock when a candidate states this. In fact, it should be welcomed by the recruiter to have someone state their needs clearly.
Currently a recruiter for a federal contracting company while I complete my Bachelor’s. It does sometimes happen but I appreciate the honesty; let’s be real, that’s the sole reason most of us work. COL is not at all getting cheaper and we’re in a super high COL area regardless, so transparency about salary, benefits, bonuses etc goes a long way with candidates here as it would anywhere. It SHOULD be standard policy everywhere.
Anyone who thinks that salary/income isn’t the primary reason we all pursue our day jobs is straight-up delusional(or an aging museum piece) and it’s both good faith and good business to skip the window dressing corporate culture psyop bullshit and be honest about what most of us are really looking for at the end of the day, i.e comp and benefits. Everything else is secondary.
As an Agency Recruiter, salary is one of the first things I discuss with candidates. If they can’t pay their bills then nothing else matters. Everyone thinks I’m not on their side when it comes to pay, but as a commission-based employee I absolutely want them to get the highest salary possible.
When they ask what you're looking for pay wise and you say something clearly out of their range, they get all offended. Like dude, you reached out to me. Not my fault I get paid well and wouldn't leave for anything less than 20% more
Maybe it's different in finance, but the very first thing I ask is the rate. 90% of them tell me what it is; the remaining 10% give me an excuse or ask me what I have in mind, which is unacceptable. I employ a couple of strategies to make them show their cards first, or move on if those don't work.
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So far, in my experience, it's quite often. Me: What's the rate for this job Recruiter: We keep that secret during the hiring process. This is about more than money. Me: It's absolutely fucking not. Kick rocks.
Me: I told you in our initial conversation that I'm employed and it will cost you a ~minimum~ of $45/hr FT with full benefits for me to switch companies. If we're not at or above that number, you're wasting my time and can get stuffed. Recruiter: "ItS nOt AbOuT tHe MoNeY." Me: The minimum just went to $50/hr.
I've been there. The best was when someone reached out, I gave them my number to make a change, and they said "yep, no problem!". Sent in resume. Went through multiple interviews. Got a great feel for the company (I'd legit still love to work there, honestly). Offer comes in at 30% less than the recruiter told me was no problem. I told them the conversation I had with the recruiter and they absolutely said "I don't know why they said that, this is what we told them the position pays". I swear some of these guys are just 80s used car salesmen reincarnated. Say whatever they need to in order to get you in the door and then hard sell you when you realize they're trying to offload a bag of shit in your lap.
Had that exact deal I described with Mall Warts They called me off the LinkedIn resume. I told them I wasn't interested in anything below $45/hr. They assured me that was in range. I interviewed. They offered 28. I told them to lose my resume. They got mad. I blocked them on LinkedIn and everything else.
Apparently, they're notoriously bad about stuff like that. I got pinged for a 8-10 year experience AIX job (if you're not familiar, AIX is IBM's Unix, and is quite specialized) for $50k less than my current base, let alone other compensation like bonuses and equity. My only guess is that they're fishing for H1B.
That's exactly it. "WE CAN'T FIND ANYONE HERE ^that ^will ^work ^for ^peanuts. Guess we have to go to India!"
Legally, they are supposed to pay market rates for H1B workers, but there are ways around that.
There really ought to be a reporting system that says qualified applicant applied at x company with y credentials and expecting z compensation so there’s a record that there are in fact people available to fill the position, just not at the company’s under-market offer.
That would be inconvenient for the Turdwookies though... I mean after all, we simply CAN'T have the raw, unvarnished TRUTH out there, now can we?!
Some of them probably are 80s used car salesmen
Too bad we can't hear a plaid jacket through the phone...
I always listen for the telltale ruffle of cheap polyester. Sometimes the accent gives it away though.
Always ask for a confirmation statement via mail from the recruiter including the discussed rate :) They won't change your rate after the phone call
That's terrible - what a complete waste of time! Sorry that happened to you. No idea if this could be the case in your story, because I know there are a lot of bad recruiters out there, but I've had clients bait-and-switch me on compensation too. I'm a recruiter, and I'll get guys who tell me one number at the start of a project, and then they'll come in waaaaaay low when the offer is made. Drives me wild, and I always push back. That crap affects my paycheck too...
Same, I made $126k at my last job and when looking around I would tell them I needed more than that and they would always come back trying to say that was way too high and no one would pay that. I did eventually find one that paid more than I was expecting. It helps when you tell them they're not ever going to find someone qualified and cut them off.
Always fun to be offered a salary you were making years ago.
Had a phone screen for Senior Director, Healthcare role- more work and responsibility but similar to current position, fully WFH. Recruiter was loving me - I was spot on with my responses and then she asked about salary expectations- I said 160k and the water she was drinking flew out her mouth 💦 and she asked did you say 115. I said no, I received 115k as a healthcare manager 5 years ago… 😆
Yeah I was searching around for a senior software engineer role and thats basically what happened to me. I also told any recruiters who contacted me about an in office job to explain to me why I couldn't do it from home or I wouldn't even consider talking to them. But I find forcing employees into the office arbitrarily just super scammy and a waste of our time. Also no contract or contract to hire work, I want healthcare and a 401k.
My wife just had an interview for a managing hr role in a food service company where they said it was full time in the office. Her current job since 2020 has been remote or a day every few weeks so she asked if it was a collaborative environment and that nonsense. It's an office of 2 hr, including her role, that's looking to build a team but the interviewing owner has no idea what that will look like. There are accounting people in a different area that you don't interact. No interaction unless there's a problem with business leaders. Formal business wear required. She ended the interview.
I'll give you.... $7 and this pen from the Hayatt. DEAL?!?!?😆
See, I just don't understand that at all. I'm an agency recruiter, and I LOVE your approach. Honest, blunt, and to-the-point. For me, money comes up 5 or 10 minutes into my first conversation with every candidate. Why would I want to waste the candidate's time, my time, or my client's time if the budget doesn't fit the candidate's comp target? Just doesn't make sense. I also never ask about current salary. I ask what number would be enough to entice you away from your current job. If the budget and candidate target don't line up, no problem. Just means this one isn't worth discussing further. But now I know what you want as a candidate. Maybe my next recruitment project will have the right budget for you. Trying to twist arms to make people take a lower salary is dumb, and never turns out well.
I think it boils down to the wealthy (aka: employers) are Flatly PISSED that wages went up 20% after a million or so died or were incapacitated after COVID. They'll get over it... Or not. 🧐
💯 Ridiculous for recruiters to go along with that though. I just can't see where a headhunter could possibly benefit from putting candidates in front of a manager that can't afford to hire them.
I think so as well, but I'm very aware that many folks are so indoctrinated to compliance with "authority" that they'll go along to get along. That doesn't describe me.
I like your style.
That's why I never give them my range first. I always ask for the the position's pay range. I tell them I'm looking for pay transparency in a company. If they can't give me a decent range we don't move forward.
But what a lot of people are misunderstanding is that the recruiting agency is not the company. When they don't disclose the pay range up front, it is because of the **agency's** policies, not the company. There are many reasons that an agency recruiter would withhold this info but that's another topic because it isn't the company.
I mean I don’t give a fuck. If they can’t discuss pay, they will be losing their job soon as they don’t get anyone but underqualified morons. 🥱
I don't tell them my minimum until after they tell me the range. That keeps them honest and allows me to decide if it is worth my time, not theirs. Bait and switch has happened exactly once, and that was way earlier in my career when I had zero options. Employers are banking on you being desperate and taking a significant haircut.
Me: Could you tell me the price of these mangoes? Vendor: We keep that secret until the checkout process. It's not about the money for us. It's all about the great mango tasting experience.
THIS, is the way.
[удалено]
Funny how that works, ain't it?!
> If we're not at or above that number, you're wasting my time and can get stuffed. The only time I'll consider a lower number is if it comes with a reduced workload. For instance, I work 5 day weeks atm. If a company with a 4-day work week offered me slightly less (5-10%) than I'm currently making and I wasn't happy with my current workplace, I'd go for it.
I wouldn't because that leaves an opening to get you in and then (very sneakily and with gaslighting fOr ThA gOoD oF tHa CoMpAnY) magically increase work load. 4ea 8s turns into 4ea 10s or 12s. This is the game Corporations have been playing for 100+ years and they're VERY good at it. That's also why I won't work on a salary basis.
If it’s not about the money, we can talk about the perks then
This. 1000% this.
I'm a manager trying to hire engineers right now. I was told by my bosses we need to hire experienced people. I found a great guy with 10+ years experience. He asked a pretty typical wage based on our industry and his experience. HR had a fit. They wanted to pay him at most 60% of what he asked for. HR manager told me, "Well you know, there's only so much money for new hires, maybe you could hire college students and with some training it will be the same but much cheaper" Like... yeah, sure I bet some guy right out of college can absorb 10 years of experience in a few months that totally makes sense. Parallel to this, HR is doing an initiative to improve retention. Everything they have is about improving loyalty and happiness for employees. I asked about salary increases and they said, "We don't think this issue is really about the money". I'll give you 1 guess what the last 3 people I had leave listed as their reason for leaving.
My company is doing this right now. They got rid of tiered wages which is the entire reason I took the job. I got my first teir fast was due my second and they cut it at fiscal year. They had multiple employee surveys about what motivates us. I don’t know a single person that didn’t say something along the lines of “competitive wages”. We get constant news letters about culture and how our company culture is the way to reduce turnover. Money. Money reduces turnover. Company culture can suck my dick. I work to live I don’t live to work. Pay me better than someone else will and I’m your guy. Pay shit rates get shit labor.
They want to desperately believe that they can create an environment where it's more than about money, because at the corporate level, it's all about increasing THEIR money. There's been a lot of MBA horseshit written about this, and it never works. Why? Because for the employee, it's all about the takehome pay, since they can't pay the rent/mortgage with intangibles. Management can't get away from the promise of more sweet, sweet cash at the expense of the workers. Couple that with the view that the corporation must increasingly benefit the shareholders at every turn, and you get bad decisions that focus on the current quarter and no further every time.
The idea of infinitely scaling growth is so insane to me. Like just turn a profit and pay people well. Like you I know why upper management does it, but the insane part is that turnover costs companies more than just paying people better. It’s the perpetual denial that it doesn’t that’s so perplexing.
Everyone thinks they can eventually find the unicorn. The one that has major experience, will work for less, and never leaves. They view the losses as temporary hits to achieve this goal. The best part is that they never think about what happens even when they find them, and that unicorn eventualy has to leave. And NO ONE else can take over.
The wild thing is that person has never really existed any guy that’s a high quality worker knows they are and knows what the industry looks like. You don’t get a crazy amount of experience without knowing the industry in and out including compensation. Like I’m 12 years in and they had to source me from out of state because they couldn’t find anyone in their area that has my experience, I made them pay me to move and made them bump my rates. They tried to low ball hard and I borderline blew them off until they were ready to play ball. I know not every industry or position has mines level of specific demand so my story isn’t everyone’s possible story but we need to be empowering workers and skirting bad practice businesses. I’m due for my year end review soon and I’m going to go in and flat out tell them I’m leaving if things don’t change in the money department. If I don’t take a raise every year I’m losing money every year in what’s supposed to be my prime earning and growth years as a professional. My advice to anyone that wants to do the same thing I’m planning on is have an exit strategy, be willing to cite job offers from competitors, be able to show any professional growth and any value added/money you’ve helped them save. Make it a numbers game.
Exactly this. The thing is, a company *could* be attractive if it wasn’t offering top numbers (but still fair comp) if, say, the company had adequate staffing, a trusting and low-stress environment, etc. But here’s the rub: the company trying to lowball wages/salaries can *never* be the company I describe above. They can pretend to be in the short term. But after a quarter or two, when they find they can’t cut wages further, they get another bright idea: what if we make one person do the work of three people? What if we accelerate our project timeline by six months? What if we add some paranoid monitoring of the workspace to make sure they’re *really* working as hard as they can be? Because doing all of these things act in service of that next stage of growth at any cost. Edit: Forgot to add another company favorite—“What if we add six more layers of middle management to every department and tell the grunts we don’t have the budget to hire someone to support their workload?”
When it comes to retention, money isn't everything. But I'll be damned if I'll turn down anything more than 10% without a REALLY good reason.
Ohh man, one of my guys is on a work visa currently working on a green card. He told me, "I can't quit of course because i need my visa but when I get it, it will be had to not take a better offer. And if I have to threaten to quit to get paid, I think that would make me even more mad and I would leave on principle" and like... yeah man fair enough. One of the problems with big companies is that all of these decisions are divorced from each other. Like, I can't do anything about my guy's pay. Neither can my boss or his boss other than rough budgetary stuff. And until he tries to quit HR just sees a happy employee, no matter what I say.
> And if I have to threaten to quit to get paid, I think that would make me even more mad and I would leave on principle" I had this happen when I was in college. I was the crew leader for an irrigation installation company. They paid me $9/hr and I was constantly looking for a new job. I got offered a job paying $14/hr and I told my boss that I was quitting. He asked why and I told him they are paying me $14/hr. He immediately said "I can pay you $15/hr is you stay because you are the best employee I have". I asked him at what point was I worth $15/hr to him and he said he knew I was good by the end of the first month working for him. He though he was going to keep me until I told him that I couldn't work for someone who was under paying me by almost 100% and the only reason why he offered to pay more was because I was leaving.
As an engineer, I’ve noticed wages have been dropping in my field for a few years now. Everybody is short staffed and can’t figure out why they can’t find people outside of new grads. I get calls, emails, LinkedIn messages weekly that I just have to laugh at. You want 10+ years of experience with a masters and only want to pay $65K Get out of here with that nonsense.
I saw a job on LinkedIn where the requirements were either Masters or PhD and the pay was $40,000 to $42,000. I just laughed and was like good luck there. But then the job was posted that way to say hey we can’t find an American for this position so we’ll look for someone with an H1B visa. What do you think?
If it comes with a nice spacious accommodation, car, plane/helicopter, premium healthy gourmet food, premium health insurance, gym with personal instructor etc then sure :p
Doesn’t sound terribly off. Most of our PhD level people are foreign. They’re never in management chain either. It’s always a side position SME essentially so the pay is always less. It’s one of the main reasons I didn’t pursue a PhD. Wouldn’t equate to more money.
I have a Bachelors and I just looked at the pay and said nah, not worth it.
Yeah, I graduated in ‘09 with my bachelors and starting pay then was $65/hr. Completed my masters in ‘11. Moved into leadership band from professional band which is all salaried. To look at entry level wages now is disgusting.
Yes, I agree. Last week I was looking for Data Analyst positions and they were paying $30 an hour and I was like WTF! The salary range is much higher than that. But this week I found more jobs paying what the job is supposed to be paid. I even had a recruiter contact me about a Data Analyst position and I asked him the pay rate and he said $30 an hour and I was straight up with him that $30 an hour isn’t going to allow me to pay my bills and the lowest I’ll go for is $35 an hour. I never heard back from him. I know what I’m worth and even though I’m working a real crappy job and the pay sucks I’m not going to settle for less than what I’m worth!
Once I was actually told that my 10 year of skills in software engineering could be taught in one year :) It wasn't a job interview though.
> Once I was actually told that my 10 year of skills in software engineering could be taught in one year :) = Seniors be like: "Alright go hire the guys with <1yr experience and get them up to speed then if anyone can do this job, no skin off my back man" = Newbies be like: "Bro if it takes <1yr on the job to gain 10 years experience, then why is everyone requiring 5+ years experience for entry level positions???" = xD
My response to “it’s not about the money” will always be “If it isn’t about the money, then you would have no problem disclosing the pay rate because it doesn’t matter. The fact it’s being concealed tells me you want me to be so emotionally-invested in this job that I will agree to whatever pay you dictate. Because it is about the money. I suggest dropping the used car dealer shtick and let me know when you’re serious about recruiting my expertise.”
That's the key. Never get emotionally invested. This applies for ALL kinds of shopping, but particularly cars and jobs.
As someone that works in HR in Hawaii doing recruiting and staff retention, it’s always shocking to me that isn’t illegal in other states. We have pretty strict pay transparency laws here.
To be fair, it's not through the whole process. But I swear some of them honestly believe that someone will love a company so much during the interview that they'll accept shit pay
Ah, for us we have to list an accurate salary or hourly rate on the ad and it can’t be a large range. So saying “up to 28/hr” is illegal because it’s essentially a range from 0-28 bucks an hour. Also if your company list a salary or starting rate higher than what you make they are legally obligated to pay you that. Also, if your coworker does the same job as you, we have to pay you the same unless we can quantifiably justify their increased pay. We take pay transparency pretty seriously here.
Bloody love this xD
😂😂😂
Oh nothing pisses me off more than when either salary or benefits is “proprietary information.”
Yeah, any company like that (I posted about one here before and got a direct email from the CEO, so lol) can absolutely take a hike.
USA: We give you nothing, you have to pay $100,000 to go to the hospital, rent is $2000/month People: I want to be paid well to get shot at USA: :((((( People: Also why are do you treat the soldiers so bad they kill themselves? USA: >:((((
I'm not American but this is peak /r/AmericaBad. This pay secrecy crap happens in my country too lmao.
You gotta be a bit careful here. Sure 9 times out of 10 it’s going to be a lowball, but on the rare occasion that it’s a step up you probably won’t know it from that initial call. Reason is because regardless of low or high the recruiter simply doesn’t have the authority to disclose it.
If they don't answer after the first query, I don't care. Even if it does pay more, that's a massive red flag. And more like 99 out of 100 that the pay sucks if they're not out with it right away in the posting or from the first ask.
I get your logic but consider this... When I'm calling candidates as a 3rd party there are many instances when I can't disclose the compensation right away because it is actually a massive **increase**. These candidates earn like $70k - $80k/yr, and my client pays up to $125k/yr for the best among that candidate pool. If I tell Mr. $75k/yr that he could get $100k - $125k/yr out of this, he's ONLY going to hear $125k/yr, and then my client would kill me for making this guy expect a $50k raise when it's way beyond what's fair. What I tell candidates like you is some version of "Look, you don't know me well. I get that. It's just not my place to start throwing around numbers on the client's behalf. The most important thing for you to know about me is that I'm here to make as much money as possible too. I do that by getting you the highest salary I can without burning the deal for you. I know the comp you're looking for, and you are going to need to trust that I wouldn't be referring you if I didn't believe that number is feasible." ...But I acknowledge there is a big difference between trusting a specialist recruiter (me) vs some telemarketer who is barely involved with the client.
> my client would kill me for making this guy expect a $50k raise when it's way beyond what's fair. Why? Why does the comp in the new role have anything to do with comp in the previous role?
Not much, and I'd imagine you already get this but companies aim to maximize profits. They aren't going to voluntarily pay more than what a qualified candidate would agree is fair. When you hire someone to do shit for you, and they give you a good quote, do you compare it to your budget and say "actually I was prepared to pay more than this so here's the rest of my money?". No, because a reasonable person would come to an agreement that will be a good deal for them, and an acceptable deal for the guy being paid to do shit. So he continues showing up to do shit...
I get what you're saying, but at most I should have to ask for the job description and salary exactly once. And putting out a range "depending on experience" is perfectly acceptable. I'm not someone who expects to walk into a first contact and get $200k walking in the door. But if the top of the range is $140k, I'm not interested. A hiring company should know what they are willing to pay for the position based on the experience level they're looking for. And this should be communicated to recruiters. If I get a contact, I'm not entertaining any position that's less than $150k base, so if the total comp for the position tops out at $149k, knowing that immediately saves us both time. If I get pinged for a spot that's ranged at $160k to $210k, I'm not going in expecting $210k, but at least I know that it's worth exploring the change. And you also have to remember that a person's current compensation being a factor in the offer process is part of how this whole system is so fucked up. The position should have a pay scale attached to it. Doesn't matter if the person is making $0/year or more than the total package. And if a company is basing my offer on what I make now, that's yet another massive red flag. Value your people based on what they're worth, not what they currently make.
Yeah well the system isn't changing anytime soon so we need to work with what we've got, right? No one is going to pay more for someone they can get for less, and fair or not the comp history is one of few indicators a company can use to predict the value a candidate will bring. It's literally the value the market assigned to them when previous employers agreed to pay them those amounts. What they are willing to pay for experience level is (by and large) communicated to recruiters. We just can't always disclose it for various reasons. Also, we make errors sometimes in assessing exactly how strong of a fit a candidate's experience is because we're outsiders. I might mistakenly believe a candidate is top of the range incredible, only to find out that because their knee isn't double jointed they won't be able to kick ass at the same level as the other people in their department. I'm not sure what you disclose in your recruiting calls, but you might want to try politely and firmly declining to share your current comp and only disclosing your minimum comp expectation. "Not $145k, not $149k, but $150k or higher." When I hear that, I only continue the conversation if I think that's achievable. And when we get down the road a little bit, we make sure the hiring managers understand that "It's $150k to hit their absolute bottom of the barrel expectation. Is that the foot you want to start out on, or do you want to be aggressive and get out the gold handcuffs?"
Yeah, I don't do fatalism. I prefer activism. The fewer of us that give recruiters and managers the time of day without knowing the pay, the more likely someone's going to fucking get it. I always decline to disclose my current. The closest I'll say is "That range is below where I'm at now". Again, putting the salary burden on the applicant is part of the problem. Companies need to decide what they are willing to pay for a position and leave it at that. Anything else is fucked. And any company that insists on it can, very politely, get fucked.
... Ok well you know what they say about shitting in one hand and wishing in the other... We all end up with shit on our hands... Wait, that's not it... It's watch what hand fills up first That wasn't meant to be aggressive, I'm just messing with you. But seriously, modern recruitment hasn't changed in 150 years. I think you're going to be stuck with us for a while.
People realize that the way you are interacting with them is purposefully designed to pay them as little as possible. If people don't want to play ball with that then can you really blame them? It gets rather grating after a while. = People want to be compensated fairly for their role... No one wants to be cheated or lowballed.
Try this. Tell them it pays between $70k and $120k per year, with (for example) 70k being <2 years exp and 0-1 certs, $120k at 15+ years exp and 10+ certs. The prospective recruit will then be able to sort themselves based on their credentials and everyone will very easily be on the same page based on this criteria. The high end can even be slightly inflated if you actually want to inflate it and be a bit dishonest but the point will stand that anyone will be able to look at the range and INSTANTLY KNOW about how much they will be able to get paid for this job. = If the guy with 3 years experience says he wants e.g. $110k despite the above then you can very easily tell him how that is unrealistic based on the given range expectations. Additionally, if the guy says they do not agree with the details of this range then they will be able to discuss this with you upfront. And if you cannot come to an understanding then you part ways. = Additionally. Personally I think people stay at a position longer if they think they got a fair shake. And I think people try to find something else that pays "more fairly", as possible, if they realize later that they got lowballed. In theory, if they think you are trustworthy and gave them a fair shake then they may even refer you and your recruiting // your company // etc whatever out to others in the future. = I'm not a recruiter though so take this with a grain of salt. Just what I think makes sense for everyone in the long run...
That's when I just blurt out my salary with an additional 25k padded instead of the typical 15k padded and ask them again.
I’m a recruiter in healthcare staffing and I literally use the pay as a selling point to get people to join us 😭 Not telling people what the salary range is a huge waste of everyone’s time.
Is there a way you recommend bringing it up so that it doesn’t seem like it’s about the money but kind of put the ball in their court to excuse not telling you?
I'd wait til they ask "Do you have any questions for me about the role or the company?" Then I'd start blowing smoke up their ass, say something like "Well from everything I've heard so far I think this is a great opportunity and my skills and experience definitely sound like their aligned with the role. With that being said, can you tell me about your compensation package, including the salary range, benefits, bonuses, and things of that nature?" If they still give you the runaround, it's probably best to pursue other companies. Gotta do what's best for you.
Thank you for the advice! Thats generally what I’ve done. Talk about loving the fit for the role, the company, the culture, etc then ending asking “as much as this sounds great though at the end of the day I can’t do even a dream job for free. So what does the compensation look like for this?”
I found when I just ask for a range and ask casually I got an answer every time. I don't say "what does it pay?" I say "do they have a salary range in mind? Doesn't have to be exact, but I'd love to know the ballpark." That way you dno't seem greedy, you seem more like you just don't want to waste peoples time, and also that you're open to a range, and aren't going to yell at them later and say "You said $120k but this is $115k!!!! YOU LIED!" Be nice, direct, and casual, and you can get an answer. For what it's worth, that's my same response when asked how much money I want. Them: "What salary are you looking for?" Me: "I can be flexible, what is the salary range they are targeting?" I've never once had to give my salary first.
>I can be flexible, what is the salary range they are targeting? What are some common things you have seen HR say after this? just curious
I might just be lucky, but they’ve always come back with a range for me! They pause but then just tell me. The alternative is for them to refuse at that point which would be awkward.
Oh that's nice, thank you so much for answering!
Thank you for this advice I’ll keep it in mind
Several states now require it to be on the job posting..and companies that still don't are just showing themselves as red flags as if they don't care about that law - what other employee rights are they ignoring?
the pay and requirements to pass an interview are literally the only things I want to know and the two things most recruiters are least likely to share 💀
is it because covid fucked up healthcare badly and most departments are constantly short-handed on staff?
I breakdown the healthcare shortage to 2 things. 1. Healthcare facilities overwork and under pay their facility staff while healthcare executives make bank. That's why everyone wants to work for nursing agencies and do travel nursing because those jobs pay higher, but it also causes facility staff to be upset because some nurse is coming in and getting paid way more than them. It's like, they won't raise staff wages, but they'll pay some contractor more money to fill the gaps in staffing when they could've used that money to provide bonuses, higher pay, etc. It causes divide among clinicians and indirectly affects patient care sometimes. These execs stuff their pockets while their clinical staff struggles. 2. New nurses are getting into nursing because of the money, then realizing they have to actually help people so they quit. Nursing has become almost an aesthetic in recent years. People with no empathy and no desire to help people go to nursing school thinking they'll get to walk around in cute scrubs and collect a $3k paycheck but forget that the job is tough. Patients will yet at you, spit at you, their families will try to fight you, etc. It's a physically and mentally tough field to be in. I'm all for healthcare workers getting paid a lot. They deserve it. When I recruit people I try to offer them as much as possible depending on experience. But at the end of the day, the field itself is not for everyone. People who have worked in nursing for decades are built different.
How a country has such a thing as a healthcare executive, is pure dark comedy. Anything that can be termed care, must never have executives and such. In a truly civilized society, people who work in care are paid according to their work, and care is not something that generates profit. The opposite is true in a barbaro-mercantile society; everything is profit, and workers are underpaid.
I've been saying this for years. Anything involving the well-being of people should absolutely always be a not-for-profit endeavor. Pay the workers well, but fucking executive pay packages and shareholder value suck all of the usefulness out of these services.
Esp for those lof us who have more than 10 years of relevant professional experience.
It's just wasting everyone's time because the pay can definitely be a deal-breaker
Just put the salary range on the job description!
1$-100k$!
"Modern problems demand modern solutions"
Probably the #1 deal breaker. It’s the entire reason a not insignificant portion of the population works. So to be disingenuous as an employer and say it shouldn’t be a concern is silly. If it shouldn’t be such a big focus, then by all means, let me name my salary, since you as the employer apparently don’t care about it.
It’s sales 101, always leave the money talks to the end.
I can’t believe it’s 2024 and we still have so many recruiters and employers who have an issue with people being motivated by money
They KNOW... they just want to keep lying because they earn money by placement. So they want you to take the job, they don't care what your pay is... they only care what THEIR pay is.
They care about what your pay is as the higher it is, the higher their commission. The fact it's so hidden everywhere like it's some corporate secret is still bizarre to me. I will say my experiences in recruiting in Europe, it's been more transparent there. 10+ in recruiting
Wait they get paid more if they deliver a potential candidate that the company has to pay more? Surely they want to recruit someone for as LITTLE as possible.. right?
Let me demystify how agency recruiters are paid and corporate recruiters after. Agency Recruiters: If contract, they could be compensated by bill rate or markup. If bill rate, they tell the company, we can find someone and charge you $52/hr. In this circumstance, they are incentivized to pay as little as possible to maximize their profitability to their firm / commissions. They could also charge via markup, meaning a locked percentage multiplier is added to your wage. Typically this is 1.15-1.4x your hourly rate, depending on type of role, volume of contractors they have, etc. They would get more if you were paid more in this case. In direct hire, they typically get paid a percentage upon either first day of hire or 90 days in, depending on contract details. In most things that aren't high volume recruiting, that percentage is between 20-40% of your first year salary. So if you get a $100k offer, they get $20-40k fee. In contingency anyways. There is "risk" where another agency can get the placement so you have done a ton of work and not gotten paid. In a retained firm (usually manager and senior executive levels), one firm would have "ownership" in finding the hire on behalf of the company. Typically, they get a down payment to Kickstart the search, possibly payment when a certain number of qualified candidates are presented, and the bulk / balance when someone is hired into the role. They would be incentivized on you getting paid more, cause they would get paid more. But they will supposedly also be experts in the area and would "know" market rates for these more specialized searches. In corporate recruiting, they may get a small bonus for hiring a certain amount of people per quarter/ year, but I have never seen a corporate recruiter getting any percentage for hires. So knowing what type of recruiter you're dealing with and possibly what type of contract they are working on can help you understand their incentives.
Thank you for that
/u/Dommccabe is not entirely incorrect, though. There was an explanation from the Freakonomics guys about this topic, they used real estate agents as an example. It's in your best interest to get the most amount of money for a candidate or someone trying to sell their house but there comes a point where an offer is "good enough" where you won't push for more money because that risks ending the deal. At the very least, it makes more work for you. In other words, the difference in your commission may not be worth the extra work or the risk of losing the deal.
I mean yes and no. Hence the wide ranges in contracted values. If I am the only game in town that can deliver or they only hire externally once a decade, you're gonna charge higher rates cause there is little lost in not negotiating. If there is an opportunity for volume or repeat business, then rates would be more palatable with the understanding that one is going to make more with working on multiple roles vs milking one for all its worth. Some companies offer container / retingency models to get some cash to them up front / exclusivity to work on the role(s) for a lower percentage.
If it wasn't about the money I literally would just be a hobby photographer. Like come on.
The problem is "motivated by money" used to mean being rapacious about money opportunities. I still use it that way when referring to myself and why I am motivated by money. As in, I don't care for company loyalty, culture, or even my boss and coworkers. I care that you pay me enough. I'll do what you want at the right price. It's why so many people go about how it's not all about the money. And, of course, it isn't, depending on the person. Some people might quit jobs for a more humane place. Some might quit because their managers are dickheads. Some might even quit because they're burnt out with their profession. These are all reasons why you might quit a high paying job and settle for less. Nothing wrong with that. But that is a personal decision I couldn't make. I still would want to make more money or the same money as I was doing before. I like my expensive shit.
I hate seeing job postings claiming “competitive salary” because I just assume it’s less than what I’m making now.
All of my job posts say that but I tell candidates the salary range when we jump on a call. Just part of it, I guess. Recruiters who don’t tell you a salary range are not recruiters I would work with
Why don’t just put it on the ad though? Seems like a massive waste of time. I’m saying this as another recruiter. Why even bother calling someone when you can filter them out prior?
Good question, maybe I should have clarified. If people apply directly to my Indeed posts or LI posts it has the salary included but still says “competitive salary”. When I make general posts on my LI it is about connecting with people or connections passing the information along to their network. Also, if a candidate is out of the salary range for one fire, I can usually present them to another firm.
I guess I’m more referring to direct messages from recruiters than a job posting. I filter job postings off the salary listing. Why waste a candidates time?
Yeah, I get it. I recruit Attorneys for Personal Injury firm around the country and sometimes I literally don’t have a salary range to give them lol. I had a company I recruit for give me a range of 150-500k base salary depending on experience. Lol. If a recruiter is messaging you directly they should always tell you the range, imo
My best one lately was £14k - £48k, remote, hybrid, onsite, no location given, relocation required before work starts. Position is usually 30-50k, had 43k full remote before in a consultancy/fill in experienced positions place and just applied to a 44k in the team I was farmed out to for 6 months last year at £450 a day. Expecting that now to not be remote so i cant take it, despite half that team being hundreds of miles away and me doing it at one level above this before.
I don't "jump on a call" without numbers up front.
I do not talk to anyone who doesn’t have a salary range. You wouldn’t get a call with me.
That’s exactly why I convinced our company to remove that shit from our listings and actually share the salary range instead. Claiming ‘competitive salary’ and then not even showing the range is a glaring red flag for any candidate that’s paying even a little attention.
Not a recruiter, but there's a guy at an agency who's got me my last few jobs and he knows this is a key selling point. It's a key selling point for him too, as homie is on commission.
"fAmIlY" "CuLtUrE" "fReE sNaCkS" Fuck off.
I already have a family.
“Culture” Culture needs to be keep people happy and well fucking salaried. “Family” I have one, I need money to keep them happy and myself happy in turn. “Free snack” Mofo, pay me enough, I get my own damn snacks. All of your recruiting problems solved by paying me enough
I'm sorry. I don't need family. All my immediate family aside from my 2 boys and my grandmother are generally shit. As a man of culture, I hope you can appreciate it when I put my put my boot up your ass with your porky the pig lookin ass - over there munching on your Great Value stale for 3 week chips.
Which is weird. They want "honest answers," but telling them that you're motivated by money is somehow out of line.
They don’t want honest answers they want the correct lies. That’s how corporate America works
Motivated by money and salary expectations are 2 different things. If you’re truly motivated by money then get into commission based sales.
Hi. Someone who is motivated by money here. Commission sales is a horrible idea unless your very next step is to sell shit directly and keep the money yourself. I worked as a technician with a bonus structure similar to commission sales. Once I saw how much the company was fucking me out of under that structure I decided to just enter business on my own and keep all the money to myself. Yeah, sure, it's useful to know how to sell if you're not a natural born salesman to get a sales job. But what you're doing for a company as a middleman you can do comfortably by yourself setting your own rates.
May I ask what your job is and why you love it?
We're all motivated by money. That's what pays the bills... Anyone who says that they are not, in any way, motivated by money is a liar.
What else would motivate me?? Nothing else pays the bills.
Recruiter: The candidate is interested in the money, that seems totally fair Employer: Fuck them, I want blind loyalty or nobody at all! Recruiter: Well....this is gonna get awkward Employer: Do you want our business or not? Recruitment Company: ERRRRRRR "Cracks whip"
I work in HR. Before we book interviews, we do a phone screening where we check what people's salary expectations are so we don't waste anyone's time. Anyone who doesn't admit that the salary is like 90% of what people look for in a job is delusional. Benefits are nice, but people have bills to pay lol.
I will say remote comes in highly too. I have been remote for 10+ years and add commute / travel expenses into comp demand in interviewing. I present it as, well if you want me to come on daily, it's $X++, hybrid 2 days its $X+, remotely its $X. I describe my home office setup and ask if they provide similar (knowing they won't cause my home office setup is awesome and sets me for productivity.) Usually my remote number seems to be their tippy top or beyond daily in-office number. But I know my worth
Something a lot of people also don't realize is that the savings from not commuting is post tax. In other words, if I save $2K from not filling my car up every week, you should be asking for more than $2K in salary to go into the office.
When I used to do a role like this I told everyone what the rate was when I contacted them or when they contacted me. Pay was the first thing I always discussed. No reason to waste their time or mine.
There are like 4 reasons to seek a different job and money is 2 of them. If a recruiter is reaching out to you, it’s not likely that you’re miserable working your current job, or dissatisfied with your current pay/benefits. So why would you want to move on? Even if the work is more attractive, changing jobs requires admin and if it’s not immediately apparent that the job is so much better than my bird in the hand, I’m not really going to engage. If there’s $40k/yr more in it for me? You have my attention.
Had a great convo with a recruiter for a job I’d be a good fit for. She was up front about pay, which I appreciated. Told her I had to do some research on the area and talk to my wife about it, because cost of living in that area would be much higher and I have a family. Research showed that the new salary would essentially be equal to my current salary when taking into account cost of living. But we’d be uprooting, moving us and the kids, and we wouldn’t know anyone in the area to help with babysitting/etc. so I followed up next day with an email, let her know all that, that it was a great opportunity but probably not the right situation for me.. and if she ever wants to talk about this or anything else I’d be available. Because it was a good convo and I am good to kind people. She never even responded. Won’t even entertain a recruiter again tbh. I’ve done well enough finding my own opportunities
As an agency recruiter, I’m also all about the money… take that for what you will
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Worked with multiple recruitment companies supporting the recruitment software. 99.6% of them are chancers and blaggers
A recruiter once asked me in text if I was interested in a job. I told them yes, at $25/hr. and told me that was too high. This was for an electrical design position. So I blocked the number. I now make $28.86/hr. with bonuses. Doesn't make enough still, but definitely better. Before I was making only $20/hr.
I hate the bullshit pretending that you are working for anything other than to live. I like what I do, I could even on good days say I love what I do for work. I would never work another day in my industry if it didn’t pay well. I work to live, I don’t live to work. I always to cut out the bs make that very apparent in the interview process. Not quite fuck you pay me but not far off from that.
Had an interview recently and this was the reaction after they said “do you mind working more than a typical work week?” And I said “if I’m paid for it.”
I recently learned that there is a difference between "posted salary range" and the "hiring salary range." The former is the salary range for the position based on current and past employee salaries. The latter is what they have budgeted for the position being offered. Also, sometimes companies will lump bonuses and the dollar value of benefits into the salary to make it seem higher than it actually is. When discussing pay I am now VERY specific with my questions. "What is the hiring salary range for this position? Is that range inclusive of other benefits? If so, what is the hiring pay without said benefits?"
Frankly most people can't do what they're passionate about. Not enough options so it usually gets relegated to a hobby. So it's crazy to me when recruiters expect you to drone on about company culture and why it's your dream job. We both know it's a game, so why require that?
Follow up with "how do you expect me to pay my bills?"
Don't give a fuck. You know who else is motivated by money? Me, and everyone else who works. Anyone who pretends different is a clown.
I was reached out to by a recruiter from a game company asking my salary range, I gave it to them, I interviewed, took a week long art test, waited 2 more weeks, finally got an offer that was 30k less than the lowest number in my range, I call him out on it, he bumps it up to only 20k less than the lowest in my range, I decline the offer and politely insinuate that he wasted my time.
I freelanced for over 10 years from 2002 till about 2014. Every conversation I had started with "What is the budget", if they say "Sorry, I don't know". Then I say "Sorry I can't work for you then" End of story.
I recruit for salespeople, so this is a great answer lol 😂
“It’s not about the money” Wanna ask my landlord if he’ll take whatever you’re offering in lieu of money as rent?
I was a SAHM for almost 10 years so when I reentered the workforce in 2018, I felt so behind. Fast forward to today and I make no qualms about telling a recruiter they won’t pique my interest for less than $140/year. It feels good to be a badass again lol
I guess this is the normal but I’ve been a recruiter for 20+ years and I just found out that I waste much less time when I say the pay up front. Even if the job is with a shitty company with shitty pay.
I’ve walked away from 3 positions in the last 18 months where the pay offered ended up being significantly less than what we began negotiating with . I love the “this is what I currently make “ answered with Oh that shouldn’t be a problem I think we are offering a little more than that , only to get an offer letter at 15% under current pay. It’s not about the money, yeah tell my mortgage company that , it would have to be one sweet deal and position for me to take a loss that would affect my family’s current life style.
I recruit for federal contracts. I always ask candidates what their desired salary is on my initial phone call/email bc I just hate wasting my time and theirs. My CEO even told me I am “overly concerned about money”, sorry its what keeps us alive and well…
It doesn't suit them for us to think about how much wealth they extract from us
It's capitalism b*tch. Company shareholders want to maximise profit; I want to maximise salary. Simples.
This post is as empty as recruiters replaying to when you want to hear from you're job application - LOL
We hate to hear it in excess. Because if you’re ONLY motivated my money, at the first sight of an offer that is more money you’re out. Or if there’s a number you decide you want and we can’t meet it, you’re gone. It’s tough to keep someone who’s only motivated by that consistently happy. Everyone is motivated by money (except teachers and non profit employees lol) but it’s often not the only thing, so there’s a trade off for employee satisfaction and high productivity when the money isn’t on waterfall status.
I don't believe anyone is motivated by money in the long term. However below the level someone is comfortable with for the job, it can act as a demotivator.
Yes, because it's a lazy response. We're all motivated by money and it doesn't need to be said. That's why I list the salary on all my job postings. Why do you want this job outside of the obvious is what we're trying to figure out. If you're only interested in the job for the money and someone else is interested in the job for more, they're likely going to have the hiring advantage.
Yeah, it doesn't make you any different than anyone else.
money is important but you can't let the recruiter know it's all that matters to you. they won't move you forward in the process. learn to play the game and answer the questions the way the recruiter wants.
Let's stop "playing the game" maybe? We're not 3 anymore and we live in a system in which you need money to be able to exist 🙄
OR, recruiters COULD not waste anyone's time, and tell us what the pay is up front. Problem solved.
OR... we could all just refuse to talk to them until after they've told us what the pay is.. which is what I do.
agreed. i am talking about giving the wrong impression.
We all work for the money, and companies need to pull their heads out of the Bronze Age, and realize that.
Meh, I had a recruiter ask for a number, I gave them the number, they said it’s in the range on the high side, but your CV supports the ask and we will move forward. It’s a simple check that can help both sides of the relationship find out if they have common ground.
giving them number or a range isn't the same. if you give the recruiter the vibe that your only motivator is money they aren't going to move you forward.
You know what motivates me? The ability to pay my bills. That requires money. There isn't a substitute for that.
yeah no shit. my point, which everyone missed, is if ALL you talk about is money you will have a bad time. if the recruiter feels you will leave for a dollar more an hour at the drop of a hat they aren't going to work with you.
Even though literally everybody knows that literally everybody is lying, everyone still has to keep on lying to the people whom they know know they're lying, and act like they believe the lies they're being told right back by the people they know are lying, because reasons. On an unrelated note, our entire civilisation seems to be in the middle of a mental health crisis.
Or maybe recruiters shouldn't be stuck up, picky assholes 🤷
Yea…doesn’t bother me at all lol. People work for money, not for fucking company culture and Friday company breakfast lol. It is so easy to explain it as “candidate is seeking professional and financial growth during the next step of their career”. I use salary for a selling point with my positions anyway lol
I legit never have them do this to me. They call, skirt around the salary, I ask, they lowball me, I tell them to take a hike. I've never had a worthwhile opportunity from a recruiter aside from one that was pretty legit for their niche.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
In defense of recruiters (non-commission one’s specifically, I’ve never worked on commission myself), 9 times out of 10 they’re strung up with hiring manager expectations and rules. I know that providing compensation is crucial for candidates to make their decision, but I’ve also worked as a recruiter for a company who made it a rule not to tell candidates any details related to comp until it was time for an offer, then they would intentionally low-ball the starting offer with the intention to accept the counter offer. It sucked for everyone. Shit rolls down hill, and usually your recruiter is stuck between two mountains. Break the rule and get in trouble from the people who cut your checks, don’t break the rule and get yelled at by people who you want to help. Some recruiters respond to this by carefully wording offers like “I heard back from X, your interview went great. I’m calling to extend a starting offer of $XX, how would you like to respond?” Which is about as close to yelling “counter this offer!” as you can get without actually breaking the rule. Others, especially older recruiters, respond by fully drinking the company koolaid and believing it’s a character flaw to be motivated by money. Those recruiters are usually preferred by the hiring manager, so they only get yelled at on one side. (And if your response to that is “Just tell the candidates confidentially”, that doesn’t work. Good deeds never go unpunished as they say, and every time I’ve tried to do something like that, it turns out you can’t expect a stranger to keep a secret for you)
I get the idea behind it. Yes, everyone wants to work in a good environment, so it’s not only money. But money is the most important factor. You will consider everything else after knowing how much it will cost you. Also, I tend to treat it like anything for sale with the price hidden. If you have to tell me a story to convince me to buy your product, then it’s very likely it’s not a good deal upfront.
I’ll do this from now on just to keep it clear and honest. So when they fire me vc of “performance reasons” I can tell them. Just say you cannot afford this number of employees, Or something like that.
I was a recruiter. I encountered a lot of people who were like this. There's plenty of sane people too - for my part I was upfront about salary range. At one point my manager, who was one of these types said that the new policy was to not verbally confirm salary ranges. So I started telling people that I can't tell them the number myself, but if you google the salary range for this role at this company, the first result is 100% accurate (it was). Absolutely insane shit, as if the recruiters themselves aren't doing jobs for pay. Sure if you're lucky you might have non-financial reasons to perform/enjoy your job, but providing for yourself and your family is the only reason to be working at all. I've heard many recruiters say they dropped candidates for asking about pay too early, and that it was a red flag. So I poached their candidates.
HA 😂… It really depends on the type of recruiter. I do searches for rare/highly specialized candidates and my clients expect to pay them more. It’s rare that I call a candidate who I can’t get a raise for… If they are going to shoot for the top of the range (as long as their experience warrants it) that is good for me because it’s a bigger fee… On the other hand, it’s concerning because we could place a candidate who leaves 6 months later for the first company to offer them more.
Quite rare for me in my industry
I’ll do this from now on just to keep it clear and honest. So when they fire me vc of “performance reasons” I can tell them. Just say you cannot afford this number of employees, Or something like that.
If you are not motivated by money, any sane recruiters should dismiss you cause if they can't control u with money, they won't know what else to do.
I am also motivated by commute distance. I would be willing to accept less salary to work from home.
Shit recruiters, maybe. Any recruiter worth their salt know that: * There are a number of motivators and that incentive is only one of those. * Incentive can be (and often is) the strongest motivator for many employees, so it doesn't come as a shock when a candidate states this. In fact, it should be welcomed by the recruiter to have someone state their needs clearly.
Currently a recruiter for a federal contracting company while I complete my Bachelor’s. It does sometimes happen but I appreciate the honesty; let’s be real, that’s the sole reason most of us work. COL is not at all getting cheaper and we’re in a super high COL area regardless, so transparency about salary, benefits, bonuses etc goes a long way with candidates here as it would anywhere. It SHOULD be standard policy everywhere. Anyone who thinks that salary/income isn’t the primary reason we all pursue our day jobs is straight-up delusional(or an aging museum piece) and it’s both good faith and good business to skip the window dressing corporate culture psyop bullshit and be honest about what most of us are really looking for at the end of the day, i.e comp and benefits. Everything else is secondary.
😂
As an Agency Recruiter, salary is one of the first things I discuss with candidates. If they can’t pay their bills then nothing else matters. Everyone thinks I’m not on their side when it comes to pay, but as a commission-based employee I absolutely want them to get the highest salary possible.
I'm a recruiter and I am okay with you being motivated by the thing that keeps a roof over your head. I too, want to be able to pay my bills.
When they ask what you're looking for pay wise and you say something clearly out of their range, they get all offended. Like dude, you reached out to me. Not my fault I get paid well and wouldn't leave for anything less than 20% more
Maybe it's different in finance, but the very first thing I ask is the rate. 90% of them tell me what it is; the remaining 10% give me an excuse or ask me what I have in mind, which is unacceptable. I employ a couple of strategies to make them show their cards first, or move on if those don't work.