Comment by ericb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericb | Hacker News Reader

It is always easiest to get a big jump by moving to a new job. Your company, and future companies anchor on the salary you are paid now. When recruiters or hiring managers ask, don't give out that number at negotiation time.

Instead, here is my hack: when a recruiter first calls, be blunt with them. Ask "do you know the salary range for the position?" and if it isn't great, say "Sorry, I'm only looking at senior roles that can pay in the 115-125 range because I have n years and a strong background in x." Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range you give is what the offer will come in at if you eventually get hired--the recruiter is taking notes. If the recruiter is not sure about the upper end of the employer's range, he or she may even call the company and confirm for you by feeling out what they would pay their "best candidate."

If your number is beyond the range for the position, move on. If not, you've set a price for yourself, in advance, set an expectation that you are worth that price, and sent the message through the recruiter without ever having to negotiate a thing.

If you're thinking "do I really want whoever is hiring me to have to pay a recruiter?" the answer should actually be yes. Why? People who pay recruiters 1-want someone badly enough to pay extra for them, 2-are spending their time on more important things, 3-have the money to pay a recruiter, and so are showing at least some budgetary strength and flexibility and 4-recruiters will sell you to the company, and act as a non-threatening channel to pass information like "I have another offer at 110 with work from home 2 days a week I'm considering."

edit: minor edits to clarify whose "range" I meant.

Also, if it was unclear, to get recruiters contacting you, put your resume on monster.com and make it public. Then sign in/update it every now and then as I think that bumps you to the top and shows you as recently active.

I wish more people took your attitude. That last paragraph nailed it for me. As a tech recruiter I get treated with such disregard by experienced candidates as it's assumed we are a purely and simply a middle-man.

Keep in mind that something around the lower number of the range is what the offer will come in at

Not strictly true. Every employer wants to pay as little as possible obviously to keep costs down but if the salary range is, for example: £100k to £120k and it's clearly communicated to the employer that your minimum expectation for the role is going to be £120k then there is no reason why you would ever end up being offered much less. The key, as you mentioned is to be clear with the recruiter from the beginning. Recruiters have no reason to lie about the salary. Bottom line is, the more you get paid, the more we get paid. It's in my best interests to get you the highest possible salary on offer and I won't waste your time, my clients time or my own time putting you forward if you tell me your minimum is £120k and the client told me their absolute top end is around £110k.

Ah, this was just a miscommunication. What I meant is that if I, as a candidate, say "110-120" when communicating my expectations the offer will probably be closer to 110 min I listed than 120. I didn't mean to imply employers always come in at the bottom of their listed range in a job listing.

Fair point. There is a lot of truth to that I'll admit.

Thanks for posting that. Here's a great overview of negotiations and the "anchoring" strategy you describe: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/03/16/bargaining-with-your-ri...

As a tech recruiter I get treated with such disregard by experienced candidates as it's assumed we are a purely and simply a middle-man.

It's discussed on HN now and then, but the reason for that is that most recruiters are terrible at their job and are really acting as middle-men. Meaning that they do the minimum (often less than that actually) to present a resume and get their commission, with no consideration for the job or the candidate.

Granted maybe it's just me and my resume might not be sexy enough… I don't know. But in any case, the recruiters I have talked to always sounded like your typical sales guy.

Yes, I've had recruiters who submitted me for jobs based solely on a keyword match on my resume -- for something that was clearly not my main skillset. They would have seen that if they even bothered to look at my resume, at all. Now I use that keyword to see if they really are paying attention.

Every employer wants to pay as little as possible obviously to keep costs down

Well, partially. They also want to raise a barrier to entry to competitors and one way to do that is to make it hard to match salaries.

    It's in my best interests to get you the highest possible salary on offer

It's in your best interest to maximize your aggregate commissions across all of your contracts, not to maximize the value of any one filled position. If you can close a deal at $X today or you can work an extra 40 hours in hopes of getting $1.1X, the safe bet is to close the deal and start working on the next contract.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jO_w6f8Ck

"If you're thinking "do I really want whoever is hiring me to have to pay a recruiter?" the answer should actually be yes. Why? People who pay recruiters 1-want someone badly enough to pay extra for them..."

This is a point against applying for jobs through recruiters.

The use of a recruiter does indicate a desperation on the part of the employer, and an inability to fill the job through more informal means.

To me that usually indicates that the company and/or job just isn't very good. Or otherwise they'd have no problem filling the position some other way.

Help wanted ads basically indicate the same thing, except that some companies are required to post such ads by law (even when they've already decided to hire someone else). But if they are seriously considering you based on your response to a job ad, then it's another indicator that the job/company is just not good enough to find applicants through more informal channels.

So in both cases, I'd really much rather look somewhere else.

Of course, there are some exceptions, for really huge and famous companies like Google or Microsoft, which would really have no problem getting plenty of candidates through informal means, but might still advertise or use recruiters for other reasons.

So I wouldn't avoid job ads and recruiters in every single case. But I think it's a good rule of thumb, all other things being equal.

Of course if I was so desperate that I couldn't find a job through more informal channels, then it might be worth considering job ads and recruiters. But then I'd probably have to reconcile myself to being employed at screwed up company or job.

Disagree. Perhaps the company is hiring for a skillset that is not widely represented in this particular local market and yet they are not committed to paying a salary that is competitive on a nationwide level.

Paying an extra 20% on top of the first year's salary for help in unearthing a local gem may be preferable to trying to lure a Googler from Mountain View to Topeka at a rate that would be twice what the rest of the Kansan developers are asking.

Disagree. The outfit I work for uses recruiters as part of a multi-pronged approach to hiring that includes referrals, job fairs, online boards (I've recommended jobs.joelonsoftware.com), etc. We hire far too many people to just rely on friends of friends. I know of exactly two people in my dept that have been referred by current employees. The reality is that most of us just don't know any engineers out of work, or looking.

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