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I don't do that, but what I do do is:

The recruiter:

"Hey, I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I felt you'd be perfect for a position I have for BLAH, a very established BLAHBITY BLAH, looking for someone like yourself who can do BLAH and BLAH. When are you available for a call?"

My response:

Hi, <Recruiter>. Thanks for reaching out! It sounds interesting but I'm going to need more info, can you kindly provide a salary range and location? Also, <additional question here>?

Thanks!

The Recruiter will answer one of two ways:

a) with the raw data

b) with an additional request for a phone conversation.

Folks, I can tell you one thing - b usually means the pay is below what I'm looking for, almost every time. So b I ignore and let them come begging (at least in this current climate where the market is strong).

I have always found recruiters incredibly reluctant to pass on any useful job info/specs without a gating phone call. I dont actively want a new job, so the conversations always stall on "when are you free for a call".

Salespeople has this stupid mentality.

They’d rather lose sale than talk over email to customer.

I was on the market for brand new luxury sedan and certain dealership was insisting of me coming in rather then disclosing their price.

I took my business elsewhere.

I'm working on the sales side of the company these days - basically, it comes down to a phone call giving you a much better way to develop rapport with someone than email does. You can ask some questions in a way which wouldn't work well via email.

With that said, you can tell pretty early on that some folks prefer talking over email to phone -- and that's OK too!

I feel uncomfortable with sync-style communications with sales people that demand 100% of attention to their persona.

To me the sale is a matter of clear equation: success=min(price). If I have extra questions - i'll call or schedule appointment and come to talk.

Otherwise I am not interested to listen to the other guy's sales pitch and his life stories. If dealer is unwilling or incapable of answering simple question over email - this leaves a perception of some sort shady character and I move on.

And likely so others too.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you to max(value). :-)

Basically, I agree with you. If you don’t want to talk with me, I don’t want to waste your time and mine. Generally, I’ll try to supply whatever I can to you via email and propose a phone call or f2f if there are some things which need clarification. If my product (semiconductor manufacturing equipment) isn’t a fit, it is usually apparent pretty quickly and everyone can move on with their lives.

Most people wanting a price in writing are doing so as a negotiating lever with another dealer.

Good to know.

Hence, the reason dealers are unwilling to give a price in writing is because they know they're asking too much and will likely be beaten by the other dealers.

Clear sign to move on to other local dealers.

The only answer I've ever got for "why" is "I don't email specs out without a preliminary chat, because fake profiles can lead to specs being stolen and used to take clients".

I can accept it's a thing that could happen and be true. vOv

I don't think that is a good assumption. I can think of plenty of other reasons.

1. The answer depends on how well your interview goes. The salary range would have to include everything from a borderline beginner to a highly experienced person with all sorts of extra skills. You might focus on the end of that range which doesn't apply to you. The difference could be a factor of 5 or more.

2. They legitimately haven't been told.

3. They have been told, but they can't tell you. This is sensitive information that can be used by competitors.

In California at least, an employer is legally required to disclose the salary range of the role upon request.

To be honest, almost all the recruiters in NY tell me the range. Some try the 'what are you looking for' attempt at opening bid. But many just want to get on the phone to massage a mediocre pitch, in my experience. Mediocre can mean an annoying location, or below market salary.

Sure thing, $40,000 to $900,000. Useful?

Suppose it isn't yet decided if you will be a "Junior Tester" or a "Senior Fellow Distinguished Engineer". The decision will be made after the interview. What does California law say about such a situation, where there isn't just one neatly limited slot into which you must exactly fit?

I’ve used this strategy before, but I find recruiters do not respond politely and I end up getting increasing amounts of spam over time; I suspect from recruiters sharing email addresses and especially addresses that are linked with any kind of recent response.

When recruiters do respond to these types of messages, my usual experience is that it’s an even more aggressive hard-sell on positions based on some poorly copy / pasted sections of a job description, incoherent lists of buzzwords or technologies that make no sense as skills belonging to one single person (e.g. years of machine learning experience as well as expert in rails), and various all caps or bolded promises that they are paying a lot of money.

This comes from every type of recruiter too, from giant big box headhunting looking for contractors to the latest and greatest stuff like cybercoders to boutiques like phaidon / huxley / other finance crap, on down to lone individual recruiters who have been doing it for 20 years and only got my email because a friend highly recommended them as a legit recruiter.

Truly, in over a decade of working with all types of recruiters, I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time. It’s pure loss to engage with recruiters.

> Truly, in over a decade of working with all types of recruiters, I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time. It’s pure loss to engage with recruiters.

Strong disagree.

Good recruiters work for employers by maintaining a strong network of candidates across a number of fields, and also by finding candidates for roles that are cheaper/better than others because they come from recruitment pools outside those traditionally used for the role. Example: a company might be looking for a Sales Engineering role - typically pretty difficult positions to recruit because there's a small pool of candidates. But, if you can find someone in consulting or traditional development/engineering that has the right skills, they can be brought on relatively cheaply. Good recruiters know this, and they know how to find and evaluate those candidates so the company doesn't have to.

By the same token, recruiters that I maintain a relationship with have made my last three job searches significantly quicker and easier - I know them, they know me and they know who is looking for what. They've added significant value for me, and for the employers that I work with.

Your comment reads like buzzwordy double-speak. Private recruiters _absolutely_ do not know sophisticated nuances of the skill set for different organizational sales engineering needs. Hardly any of the managers or executives in that company would even know the skills or experience they need for sales engineering, let alone how to recognize them in someone not already working in that position.

It’s frankly crazy to hear this, just knowing how incompetent even the most prestige-dripping boutique recruitment firms are, how many totally inappropriate candidates they foist onto firms (I used to run all recruitment for my team at an asset management company and know very well how unhelpful recruiting pipelines are).

The other thing is that these types of recruiting pipelines are exactly the well-worn, used-by-everyone pipelines. You mention various times that this approach somehow draws up unusual or untapped recruits, but it’s exactly the opposite. You’re just playing musical chairs with the same pipe of recruits that everyone else is looking at.

As a final note, I appreciate how you blow right past the idea that recruiters are supposed to be negotiating in good faith on behalf of the candidate, even going as far as to suggest the recruiter would disingenuously represent a job to someone who shades outside that skill area just for the sake of “getting them cheaply” and not getting them a salary that would more fairly reflect the actual labor value they would be adding.

You’ve pretty much made a great case for exactly why nobody should be working with these recruiters.

The employer’s going to end up with a wrong-skills / wrong-experience candidate who is sold on one job but walks into the real job and quickly sees they didn’t want it, while earning below market compensation, and everyone’s unhappy in a year.

I got my most recent gig through a recruiter/staffing agency, and while they no doubt take a big cut I'm currently making about $60k over any salary I've been offered anywhere else. Also, every person they have sent for newly opened positions on the team have been great, and trying to find the same caliber of developer through job postings would have taken weeks or months. But yeah, most recruiters are terrible and provide far less value than they take in commissions.

I've not encountered any recruiters responding aggressively. My standard email does have a couple additional sentences in it explaining what I like about where I am and what I would stand to walk away from (RSU/equity wise), so perhaps that gives enough context about why I want what I want.

> I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time

I don't agree with that at all. I've worked with a handful of really great recruiters over the years who have really treated me like a human being with a career path. One placed me at my last gig by asking the company to create a special role for me. I recognize that's a bit rare but I don't see recruiters as being a waste of time. It's fair to treat them the way they treat you but I don't put them all in the same bucket.

I really like this idea and I think I'm going to start using a similar approach. Thanks!

If every recruiter has responded "thanks for responding and thanks for being up front.", it just means a wasted opportunity. Some of them could probably give you the $Y, but might think that the only thing you consider is money - and you know how HR is.

I know the game sucks either way, but I'd rephrase your answer a little and use it as a second e-mail, not first.

It depends on how formulaic the recruiter inquiry was. Like the article I have a few things indicated on my profile and writings of things that I do and do not want to do. If it's clear they've done little work I will in turn do very little work. If they seem like they've taken a bit of an interest in me and are seemingly pleasant I'll be a bit more personalized and maybe not break out the salary requirements until the second email.