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From the hirer side, maybe this is unreasonable given "No matter what, don't give them a number," but my past experiences on the other side of the table lead me to try and press a different dynamic. I try to get us and applicants talking salary during the first interview, before we even know if we fit each other at all.

The rationale is:

A) If how much money you want from us isn't even an option, we don't waste your time. We can be very up-front about that before a lengthy interview process proceeds.

B) We can judge your follow-up interview (generally a full-day paid tryout) against how much you expect to be paid. Which on the negative side lets us weed out expensive mediocrity, or on the positive side, give opportunities to people who aren't quite there yet but wouldn't cost much to take a chance on and try to train up.

A few people definitely look at it with suspicion, but in general I think it's worked out better for everyone.

Also, as an aside, I would take issue with what you said about researching what a company pays. For so many companies (mostly small ones), all you can do is ask around and find a current or former employee who is willing to tell you. And that is so often, for most applicants, not an opportunity you get. I think you're making that research sound much easier than it actually is.

So as a recruiter, why not just state the salary range for the position, if that's fixed?

Then if the amount of money I want from you as a potential employee isn't an option, I won't waste both of our times in applying.

Because it's not fixed. We don't usually hire for a particular, specific level of talent/experience except in rare cases when we need to fill out a specific growth area. We just bring in people who seem interesting and then see if we can fit them somewhere.

Also, we're honestly pretty new at this. Our company's a little over two years old, and only in the past year have we gone from poaching people we already know and trust to interviewing people we've never met.

A) If how much money you want from us isn't even an option, we don't waste your time.

Because it's not fixed. We don't usually hire for a particular, specific level of talent/experience except in rare cases...

You may not realize it, but those two statements are contradictory.

Asking price and value are correlated values. If you have a hard limit on what you can pay, you have a soft limit on the quality of your candidates. And by putting a low-pass filter on the interview process, you are clipping off higher levels of talent/experience.

If you want applications to talk salary from the start, do you also hold yourself to that theory and mention salary range on the job application/first phone call?

Or do you only want the employee to give up information?

I have three times been denied the opportunity to interview because I refused to give away my bargaining power in this fashion.

If a company won't interview you until after you say a number, you don't want to work for them. Really, you don't. They are literally making their first interaction with you a dominance game designed to decrease your compensation. How do you think that will pan out for you two years down the road?

I have to agree, and even add: Never tell them first what you what want as payment. My method was always to say: Lets delay this unimportant money question. I'm a coder, I want to talk about coding, about your company culture, about your projects, about your testing environments, ... all those are much more important to me then salary.

And when they come out with a price tag finally I often tell: Well thats a nice salary for 20 hours per week work.

And guess what? I got 20 hours contracts this way 3 times.

Sounds nice, but I would make a big difference between being a contractor and an employee. Where I live, hiring contractors is much less risky (because of employment laws etc), therefore for contractors it is quite natural to pay more. I'm an employer myself.

Hourly payment is good for employees, and bad for consultants.

I'm now consulting again, and I avoid selling hours, because hours do not scale. Instead I sell solutions, because a solution to a problem likely has a much higher value than the hours summed up.

Also, if you switch from consulting to being employed you can ask for much better terms, then anyone who had been unemployed before. Always add the term to your contract, to allow you stay self employed in addition to employement, to serve old customers. And if you leave a company, offer them a maintenance contract.

For employed people, sometimes the 'cost of living' argument can make wonders. e.g. I once had a query from Munich, and after we went several weeks till I accepted negitiation of salary, I came up with:

I'll play only €208 per month for my flat in Bremen, including heating, waste removal and water. I only pay €100 for my yacht per year, including boats house in winter and mooring in summer. Your offer sounds nice, but rentals are 5 times as expensive in Munich, then in Bremen, and I better do not talk about prices for mooring a yacht in southern Germany. Get me a similar fat and mooring in Munich, or what do you think about home office + Bahn card gold (to ride the train for free) to visit your location once a week + hotel costs.

And you can really get those, if you switch from consulting to employed, because the company does prefer employed.

>I'll play only €208 per month for my flat in Bremen

I also live in germany and I'm always confused when americans talk about salary because I have no idea what the cost of living is. The only thing I know is that gas and electronics are cheaper in the US.

> I'll play only €208 per month for my flat in Bremen, including heating, waste removal and water. I only pay €100 for my yacht per year, including boats house in winter and mooring in summer.

Sheesh that's cheap. I can't think of anywhere in the UK where I could get either for that price.

Of course you tell them what you want first. Why would you wait? You want to be setting the stage, and anchor any subsequent numbers.

While I don't normally believe in lying during a hiring process, a former boss once told me that the right way to answer the "how much do you make?" question is to say you're currently making what you want them to pay you, figuring that they'll tack a bit more on top of that.

I haven't decided if I'm open to lying like that or not, but I liked it.

Being honest usually doesn't get you very far in a job search. It's sad but true. I've found stating that I have a BS when I don't at least gets me passed the auto filters. Then it's usually not as big of a deal once I talk to a person and they see my experience and I mention I don't have a 4 year degree.

I've seen people have offers retracted when something they've lied about is discovered, including lying about current salary, sadly.

IMO if someone's having issues getting past autofilters, they're doing it wrong. Personal network, reputation, etc doesn't need to pass through filters

One problem with that is that if they can see your tax details, they will know what you were on. If they catch you lying in the interview you could be fired. So if you ever piss off your boss, or they don't like you, they can let you go immediatly.

In countries that aren't the USA, and don't have that "at-will" crap, giving up all the legal employment rights is a bad move to make.

it means you've done at least a little research on what they should be expected to pay and you see somewhere around that range as acceptable. You don't have to tell them that you've researched their rates and find them acceptable

If you find your research is repeatedly off the mark, find better sources.

I'd be very much interested in what are you sources/methodology to carry out this research. I mean, if the company you are applying to is big and well-known ( and listed in glassdoor, angel list, etc), I may have a chance to figure out the rates. However even in the case of known companies, I often cannot find the salary information and instead I'm left with the classic competitive pay/salary/compensation.

Finding out these rates for each company is even harder if you want to be hired as a contractor.

> DON'T TELL THEM HOW MUCH YOU ARE CURRENTLY BEING PAID OR GIVE THEM A RANGE. [...] No matter what, don't give them a number. Make them give you a number first and negotiate from there.

What tactic do you use for this?

I tell them: "We both know that how much I am currently paid has absolutely nothing [emphasis in tone] to do with how you decide to compensate me."

This lets them know two things: 1. You're not going to divulge your current pay no matter what, and 2. Gives them a face-saving 'out' by complimenting them that their company is "different" and special (and makes it sound as if your compensation is totally their decision; the negotiation over a number has not begun yet).

There's also the anchoring theory, where the discussion centres around the first number that any party says out loud. So in the case where the company goes first they might offer a low number (for them) which may be reasonable for you but not what you want.

So the way to use that to your advantage is to say a number first, but make sure it is far more than what you think you can get, but not absurdly high. That way if they accept you'll be pleasantly surprised, but if they negotiate down it will be around that figure.

Of course if you're not confident in that, just let them put out the first number and go from there. But NEVER tell them what you are currently getting, that will anchor your salary to what it is now plus a small increase.

"I'm sorry but my employement contract with my current employer doesn't let me talk about my current salary while I'm employed. You wouldn't want to employ someone who breaks contracts, would you?"

Btw, I've heard exactly the opposite. That by giving a number first-hand, you can anchor the price point, and therefore gain an edge. What about giving them a number, what kind of salary you would except, instead of giving the number how much you earn now?

yes, its commonly only recommended to offer first IF you expect their offer to be WAY off from yours or expect them to significantly lowball you. ie set the negotiations into a range, and make them the bad guys for revealing they had:

a. a lower opinion of what you're abilities are worth

b. lower expectations for what you'd be delivering

c. lower value of the position they need filled

I used to trick of pretending that I was contractially forbidden (by my current employers) to talk about my salary.