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Comment by cecilpl2 | Hacker News Reader

This has not been my experience at all. My three most recent job switches (over 5 years) have gone like this:

1. Ex-coworker or recruiter reaches out with an opportunity that sounds interesting.

2. I ask for comp range and make sure it's acceptable (50%+ increase).

3. I go through the interview loop and get an offer

In there have been maybe 3-4 short recruiter calls that went nowhere for fit or comp reasons. In my life, once I got to the tech screen stage I have gotten an offer 6 out of 9 times.

Is this other people's experience as well? Maybe I have just been extraordinarily lucky?

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Three times 50%? So 337.5%+ of your salary pre-first hop? I assure you, the far majority will not just get offers for that, if they can even find a job willing to make such a jump in comp. They'll be looking for those offers themselves. If only for the fact most devs are still in the first 5 years of their career.

Yes, closer to 4x (120k-480k). Admittedly I was originally underpaid even for my market area and the rise of remote work has allowed me to find jobs in higher-paying markets.

Anyway, my main point was that I have found inbound job requests from recruiters or referrals to have a very high success rate.

This is closer to my experience than your parent, fwiw. Though I have done job searches myself rather than going with inbound outreach from my network.

My recent job search was more like 8 -> 5 -> 3 rather than the 100 -> 10 -> 1 in the parent comment.

This is my experience also. The only time I had a 100 -> 10 -> 1 type experience was looking for my first job leaving the military. That mostly due to me over applying for jobs.

Same

Step 2 is the key.

Don't take a call just because the recruiter asks for one. They're just trying to extract as much attention from you as possible because they think extracting lots of attention from you is a positive signal and increases their chance of closing the deal.

Ask for comp upfront. Only go forward with those who disclose comp in your desired range. This will eliminate 99% of the wasted time in your job search, if you're not doing it today.

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