Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters | Hacker News Reader

Do Not Disclose Your Salary to Recruiters

jacquesmattheij.com

216 pointsjessaustin184 comments

So you don't tell your current salary or requirement or any number, fly to the interview and get an offer that is half of what you are making. When you mention that you are making twice of that already your counterpart tells that they cannot afford you. Happened to me a couple of times. Maybe I am a bit too dim but I don't see how am I winning here: I miserably (flying nowadays is a major hassle) spent, at the very least, a day of my life for a matter that could be resolved in a 10 minutes phone call ("I am not looking for anything that pays less than $X", "Thank you, we will call you if we decide to proceed").

Sure, I'd like to get the maximum salary the employer could possibly afford, as same as the employer would like to pay the minimum salary I could possibly accept but I just don't see how being the second one to call a number resolves this. It's like believing that if you put an ask order only if there is already a bid at that price and vice versa then and only then you will be extracting the whole value from the market.

The only situation, I can imagine, where this work is when your maximum ask is below the firm's minimum bid, which, provided that you already have a job and understand few things about your industry, is very unlikely to happen. Even people out of college are pretty informed about the market situation as they talk to their friends who are getting offers too. And, even if this happened, you just got literally low-balled anyways, you took the lowest bid they could make!

You should simply ask for the range up front or state your requirements, if you don't do that and fly out to an interview without knowing if there is overlap that's sub-optimal, it also exposes you to the sunk-cost fallacy.

Remember: recruiters approach you, they are technically in the least favourable position during the negotiations and it will benefit you to keep them there as long as possible.

Asking them for their 'range' is perfectly ok, if they don't want to provide you with an answer then it is absolutely fine to wish them good day but to keep the door open in case they change their mind and wish to part with this important bit of information you require before you start to invest your valuable time in the relationship.

>You should simply ask for the range up front or state your requirements, if you don't do that and fly out to an interview without knowing if there is overlap that's sub-optimal, it also exposes you to the sunk-cost fallacy.

Have you actually tried that? I have. I have never got a number in reply to such a question. Usually the recruiter himself does not know neither does the hiring manager. All salary talks I had were with the CEO/GM/etc. If I refused to talk with any recruiter/hiring manager who does not have a range I'd never been employed.

>Remember: recruiters approach you, they are technically in the least favourable position during the negotiations and it will benefit you to keep them there as long as possible.

This is the thing I don't understand. The recruiter is still trying to hire me if I said or have not said my salary requirements. Not saying does not appear as a strong leverage, in fact, it does not seem like a leverage at all. I ask straight what I want and am willing to negotiate down for non-monetary perks and use the scarcity of qualified applicants on the market as a leverage (e.g. mention other offers I have). I'd love to strengthen my position but I just don't see what I gain with withholding my requirements.

You seem to be conflating your requirements with your current salary. Those are not necessarily the same number, your current salary could be significantly lower than what you require to jump ship.

Sorry I gave you this impression. I actually give two numbers: the salary that I already have and the salary which, if offered, I'd accept immediately and stop any other job search so I am quite aware of difference between two. I see no harm in disclosing my last salary unless it's against my employment policy. All it does is saving time and effort for myself. The cases when I am not asked for salary were when I am referred internally through friends.

Asking a recruiter for a range sounds like a good idea, but in my experience they often won't provide it (perhaps they don't have the authority). I gave up on one tech firm as the recruiter would not provide any salary range, other than the word "competitive" (which, in my experience, means nothing). The only way to find out an actual range involved traveling to their headquarters for a day long interview. I declined, unless they could provide a range. They declined to provide it. That was the end of that.

I suspect the hiring managers were never told the real reason I never interviewed there.

"Competitive" means "will beat an opening alternative offer. If your don't have one, the alternative is 0.

>So you don't tell your current salary or requirement or any number, fly to the interview and get an offer that is half of what you are making.

He said to go ahead and ask what their budget is, or to say what your requirement is:

>When asked this question I would suggest you ask the recruiter for his budget in return, or to simply state your salary requirement (rather than your current salary) instead.

Did you read the article? It says: tell them instead, what you want to earn.

Yes. I think the best way to handle this is to say, "It's tough to make apples to apples comparisons, but I really enjoy my current job, and it would take something in the range of X to Y to get me to move." The recruiter will fixate on the lower #, so it should actually be higher than what you'd be willing to accept.

If you're the one that applied for the job outright, then there is more pressure on you to give up what you're current making.

One other comment - if they come in with, "Well, they're only looking to pay between W and X" and X is lower than you'd like, you can then play the, "Well, I'm making Y, and would need to make Y + Z% to consider a move. I'm happy to give you a name or two of some more junior folks who may be interested."

> I'm happy to give you a name or two of some more junior folks who may be interested.

That's a polite way to tell them to shove it off. I like it.

It doesn't always work. This is what I got back from the last "I'm not interested" note I sent.

Thank you so much for the reply message. I was hoping I would have a few moments to talk on the phone but looking at my upcoming schedule I figured I better get some details out to you right away regarding a position one of my client's is looking to get filled. Thank you again for your replied message. JM is committed to helping small and large businesses with all of their needs, specializing in social media marketing. We are not a staffing agency but from time to time we are asked for help with staffing for everything from restaurant staff to office managers.

Yes I did. I was addressing other commenters here who advertise the idea of the "first to call a number loses". Thanks for your consideration though, it's indeed not very clear from my message.

The article advised just that: state the salary range that would be ok for you. In your example, you could have said just that: my current experience makes me feel comfortable with a range between X and Y. Serves both yours and the recruiter's purposes very well.

Yes that stinks but you did gain valuable experience nonetheless. You should get as much interviewing practice as you can, it's an investment in your career. The situation has happened to me too and it's frustrating and demoralizing to find out they want to pay you what is to you completely unrealistic, but here is an alternate ending: they regrade the job req to meet your requirement. They won't always be able to do this, but when they can you win big.

I am of the opinion that the successful interviews are not improving my job hunting skills. Only failures do. Since in these cases I got to the money talk I consider this successful.

> but here is an alternate ending: they regrade the job req to meet your requirement. They won't always be able to do this, but when they can you win big.

I find it very unlikely that a company that cannot even afford my minimum rate is going to turn around and "win big" unless winning big means getting what I already have with less job security on top (if I am pushing well beyond the salary range - I am the first one to go when the money runs dry).

I am not a celebrity programmer who is worth keeping around just for the bragging rights, I survive by selling the value I add at discount. If this value is unfavorable then neither myself nor the counterparty benefit from such a business.

> I am of the opinion that the successful interviews are not improving my job hunting skills. Only failures do. Since in these cases I got to the money talk I consider this successful.

I really don't agree with this. I've gotten a ton of value out of seeing what works--and even when I don't go to work for somebody, I've usually stayed in contact and made a lot of acquaintances that way.

But I treat interviewing as a game, and a game I enjoy; last time I was looking I interviewed at thirty-five places just to keep meeting people.

How are successful interviews not improving your job hunting skills? You have another data point for both salary negotiation and the knowledge/communication bar for people in your field (for better or worse). That just makes no sense to me.

To pass an interview I had to correctly answer certain questions and behave in a certain way, right? So the success means I already knew the correct answers to the questions and my behavior was adequate hence I'd better not to change anything. An improvement is a change by definition. I don't see how reaffirming the status quo causes a change.

> To pass an interview I had to correctly answer certain questions and behave in a certain way, right?

There isn't always "1 truth". There are multiple ways to answer most development questions. A range of answers are usually acceptable. A reaffirmation that an answer is effective is a change for me. It's an additional weight for those answers that are successful (even if I have to reason out to the interviewer why). That's just my algorithm.

But don't sell yourself short just because you're not Vint Cerf! You don't have to be a celebrity programmer to demand to be compensated what you're worth. Let them decide if you're capable of adding value on top of what they pay you, but don't try to do the math for them and try to short sell yourself.

In the long run $30k won't break them, if it does then they have bigger problems. Most firms that intend to gain a competitive advantage realize they should pay a little extra to attract talent. Be that talent.

What I am saying is only a celebrity programmer can keep a job where he or she is producing less value than his or her salary. This math won't go away just because you did not do it.

"Value" is spectacularly subjective, though, and there are lots of people who can talk up their perceived value enough to be on the happy side of this calculus.

But neither you nor they can do that math with sufficient precision. Certainly not to the degree of accuracy where 150k vs 130k will make or break them. There are a lot of unknowns: your raw talent + their code base + how well you will work with others + market opportunities + experience you have that could help them break into new markets + your ability to mentor and hire friends from your network + a lot of other factors. Your job is to present yourself as top of market, worth the gamble to pay you extra to secure your talent. Again you don't have to be a celebrity. And they simply can't reduce your potential value so accurately.

I did not notice where "twice" became 20% in the course of this discussion but I agree, it's hard to estimate the maximum affordable salary with 20% precision. It's quite easy to estimate within 100% though if you had been in the field long enough.

More importantly, it does not even have to be in any error band as all it takes to suffer from anxiety over being paid too much is to believe your own estimate. It is not worth it for me as there are plenty of jobs where I'd get just as much or more and be confident the company can afford it.

Ask the firm what their budget is for the position. Negotiate from there.

I always tell recruiters that my current salary is irrelevant. What's relevant is what I want my compensation to be in my next job, and I give them that number.

Same thing when I interview: if the company insists on knowing my current salary (bit of a red flag already), I lie and I tell them what I expect them to pay me if they hire me. In the unlikely scenario they will find that I lied (my current employer should certainly not disclose that information to them), no big deal walking away, they were most likely going to underpay me anyway.

(my current employer should certainly not disclose that information to them)

I agree with the overall message of your comment. Just for people looking on, I should make clear that most jurisdictions do not have ANY law that would ban a company from disclosing truthful, public information about a former employee, and it would be hard to make a case that disclosing a former employee's salary (which arguably is not "public" information for most business corporations) is in any way illegal. A company may or may disclose that, depending on its own policies. (Most companies don't disclose very much besides dates of employment, but you can't count on that as a matter of law.)

My former company (US based) HR department told me that they will confirm a salary $ number with a yes/no if asked. I told them I did not want this to happen, but they stated it is their policy to confirm.

In the USA in the EU I would argue that pay is personal information within the meaning of the DPA (Data Protection Act)

It's not considered PI by the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office)

Well this is't this place to have that debate :-)

Though the current ICO should be fired (over the employment blacklisting issue) which if Ed gets it on the 8th I might try and do something about.

Having said that the DPA is prayed in aid by some many organisations when they don't want to do something that your not got to get called on it.

I do both. My last time leaving a job I told external recruiters both what I was making and I would not field interviews for less than X+$21,500. Between all of the recruiters I worked with, I had 10 phone interviews with companies and a job offer within 2 weeks. I declined 5 or 6 in person interviews.

That is the key. You mentioned your threshold to even considering an interview. Setting expectations..

> my current employer should certainly not disclose that information to them

The laws on this vary by state[1] and are sometimes broad (e.g. Connecticut allows truthful statement of any facts) but looks like about 20% explicitly allow disclosure of pay.

[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-r...

I don't think laws are relevant to this conversation because the conversation will never take place to begin with. Image you get this phone call as a boss: "Hi, we are about to steal one of your employees from you guys, i just want to check if the salary he presented to us is the same as you actually pay him".

Because 1. As a job searcher you always use your previous previous job as reference and 2. No potential recruiter would be stupid enough to call up the current employer. I wouldn't be surprised if this actually happen though.

> As a job searcher you always use your previous previous job as reference

Not every job search is done without the knowledge of the current employer. Just a few examples of when that may not be true:

* moving across the country because of a spouse's relocation

* contract employee approaching the end of the contract period

* full-timer looking to switch to part-time

* switching careers

* volunteering for an "early retirement" deal at a company that's downsizing

* difficult to replace role (e.g. it's not uncommon for CEOs of large companies to announce their intention to leave a year or more out)

I do agree that recruiters (or anyone) should never contact your current employer without your permission but it's incorrect to assume all job searches are carried out surreptitiously.

What's amazing to me is how often I get recruiting emails to my current work email.

I take a fair amount of pleasure in banning the domains of anyone who tries to recruit me at my company email

Too often, we think that unless we are perfect compliant unicorns, the company won't hire us.

Remember this: Recruiters don't hire people, and companies don't hire people. Hiring managers hire people.

I completely agree with Jacques on this. Tell the recruiters that you won't disclose your salary until after you receive an offer from them. Tell them what you'd like your offer to be.

If you are sought after (and you were by the recruiter contacting you) they will make you an offer without you telling them your current salary.

As a partial compromise, tell them that you don't disclose your salary until you're further into discussions. That will assuage the dine-and-dash nature of some screener sourcer recruiters.

I'm just curious, why do you think it is necessary to ever disclose your current salary at all? It doesn't seem like it would ever provide you with an advantage.

I prefer a more aggressive approach: after discussing the benefits you bring to the prospective company, YOU ask what the company's budget is to see if they're in your ballpark. After the recruiter discloses a number, you can make a judgement call and negotiate up from there.

This pattern turns the tables on the traditional view of the recruiter-prospect interaction. Don't be passive; actively shape the direction of the conversation.

I agree with your overall point, but sometimes recruiters or other people at the company have veto power over a hiring manager.

To those who advocate avoiding all salary discussions till post-interview, how do you filter out companies that will never match your current pay? Just GlassDoor? What about smaller companies that aren't listed?

I don't want to waste my personal time and 1 vacation day to interview for a company that didn't have a hope of matching my current compensation.

I recently started asking in response to first contact from a recruiter. "I can't afford the time to look at positions without compensation expectations stated" seems to work pretty well. So far that's gotten hard numbers out of everyone but google, who basically says "as much as it takes".

> So far that's gotten hard numbers out of everyone but google, who basically says "as much as it takes".

Can you elaborate on this conversation a little please? Only if you don't mind.

I haven't gone through the interview process yet, but when I asked about salary last time a recruiter called, they said if I made it through the interview process they're sure they can do what it takes to come up with an offer that works. Which is basically a non-answer, but given Google's resources is fairly believable.

You can always ask what is the salary range for the position. If they refuse to tell you, you can stop the process early :-) but usually they will. Then if you fit in their range continue, otherwise walk away.

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> the candidate is at a disadvantage... there are companies that collect salary info from companies, and employers use these databases to look up salary ranges.

Collectively we have the power to stop at least one of those sources of information cold and the other is limited to the amount that the employers are willing to part with (and employers are typically not all that happy to supply external recruiters with such information because it may backfire).

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That's collusion and price fixing. Possibly even illegal in some places. Feel free to spell out the names of the companies involved, we may have a second hiring scandal on our hands if this is really true.

I make them tell me up-front what their salary band is. "Look, I really don't care to waste my time going through your technical interviews only to have you low-ball me on salary, so why don't you just tell me what your budget is and we can see where we go from there?"

But in general, I skip the places that list "competitive salary commensurate with experience." That usually means, "20% below mean, but we use this story to make you feel bad about yourself for asking for more."

Try hired.com, formerly developerauction.com

With Hired, companies need to show you a salary before they can request to interview you.

Full disclosure: I work @ Hired as an engineer. Yes, I was hired through their own site.

I had multiple companies bait and switch me on your site and you did nothing. Hired is a waste of time until you clean up bad actor companies.

Yep this seems pretty standard in general. Specifically companies will state a expected salary, and then when giving a lower offer explain it as a lack of experience or qualifications. I had one company lowball me, and try to make up for it by insulting my qualifications. Unsurprisingly this is only a waste of my time and theirs.

Yeah hired was a complete joke. All the companies I got offers from required you to live and work in either SF or NY. That's at least how is was a year and a half ago.

My biggest requirement from a company is remote work allowed. Coming is second would be compensation. Half of the offers I got from companies requiring you to live in the Valley were barely over 6 figures. That's the hilarious part.

I've also had a bad experience with hired. Seems like they do not run a tight ship at all.

Glassdoor is probably the best resource on salary, so yes. You can also ask anonymously on forums. Mostly top tier companies going to pay higher than others (Google,FB,Amazon). I have heard Netflix pays well too. But salary should not be the only criteria, some companies pay well but they also take their money's worth from you by making you work late nights and weekends e.g Amazon , Netflix are known to crush you with work load.

I recently had experience with Hired.com. It was pretty good. All companies that were interested in me were posting their salary offers upfront so I can decide where I want to interview.

> Glassdoor is probably the best resource on salary, so yes.

I disagree. For nearly every company I have personal knowledge of, Glassdoor is 30-50% lower.

Did you filter for geographic location?

I agree that salary shouldn't be the only criteria. Companies can help you save money in other ways as well like with better health coverage.

This is just a single case but I was surprised that Microsoft was willing to pay less than a start up I got an offer at, but I suspect that has something to do with the fact they have a set amount for junior developers. On the other hand, I realized later that even though they paid less it might have actually ended up being better for me compensation wise because of all the perks they have.

Well you have to also consider the Seattle location. State Taxes are %10 less than California and the cost of living is lower, so the compensation is lower than the SF Bay Area as a result.

While true, the start up was also in Seattle. I haven't found the compensation to be lower to be honest. It's part of the reason I've been staying here even though I like California more. It's way easier to save here

Not to mention you can actually afford a mortgage there.

I think it is important to distinguish between external and internal recruiters.

External recruiters are trying to intermediate a hot labor market. From my experience, many of them are dishonest. They will say anything, including outright lies, in order to get you to start talking to them, so they can shop you to another company.

For external recruiters, I would simplify this blog post to just don't talk to external recruiters. Whether you are hiring for a position, or looking for a job, don't talk to external recruiters.

Internal recruiters are different. They represent a company. Everything they say and do is on behalf of a company and they will act accordingly.

For internal recruiters, it's generally fine to answer the question as "this is my salary requirement". Internal recruiters deal with a lot of candidates and want to know early on if a candidate is a non-starter for salary reasons.

Also, for internal recruiters, both sides of the negotiation already have a lot of information. Glassdoor gives you a rough picture of salaries at the company you are talking to. And glassdoor also gives the internal recruiter a rough picture of the salaries that your last company offered.

Dude, internal recruiters are on a 6 month contract, they have no more loyalty to the company than the water cooler repair man. They get paid to undercut you. If you reveal your salary to them, it's basically like handing them a personal check which they will cash in for a week in Tahoe.

As for glassdoor, have you ever posted your salary there? Any of your friends? Ok let me rephrase: do you think it is a random sample, or could it potentially be biased?

That's a bold statement. Are you saying that some, a majority, or most of companies are hiring recruiting staff on 6 month contracts?

I'd be curious to see the underlying data here, because I feel like especially in the small company / startup space, either no internal recruiting staff exist (you're being recruited by some manager/engineer who also handles recruiting for their team) or they're hiring somebody full-time to bring in talent, on a contract that includes the terms "equity" and "long vesting term"

I'm trying to counteract what I consider a naive assumption that internal recruiters are more aligned with your interests or the firm's interests than are external recruiters. In a startup, yes, you are more likely to be talking with HMs directly, in which case they probably don't have access to the rigid job tables and classifications that professional recruiters use. They are also more able to tailor a job req for a specific candidate so they don't have to stick to a rigid salary range. At the same time, they also probably have limited budget to work with, so your ability to negotiate will eventually hit a wall because they simply can't afford to pay that much.

In medium and large companies, I think that recruiting is largely a revolving door. They work on contract, they are in it for themselves, and their primary motivation is to close deals fast and pay you the bare minimum they can to close the deal.

I merely wish to warn that you shouldn't distinguish internal from external recruiters. The main point being that in this negotiation, you can't trust anyone but yourself. Focus on impressing the hell out of whomever makes the decision, then you can bargain for a better deal.

Glassdoor requires you to post your own salary to view the salaries of others (unless that policy has changed recently). So if you're browsing a lot of glassdoor salaries, you've probably posted your own.

I interpret that differently - that most of the people that posted their salary lied. Myself, for example, I've never posted my salary because I've always worked for companies so small that the employer could easily identify me. So if I wanted to browse the salaries, I would just make up a salary (around the existing Glassdoor average) for a big company (Intel, Google, JPMorgan, ...)

External recruiters are normally compensated by a percentage of your first year's salary, so disclosing a salary requirement to them is actually usually less likely to decrease your earnings than disclosing it to an internal recruiter. The internal recruiter is never going to offer you more than your salary requirement unless you get a better offer, whereas the external recruiter will be quite happy to hint that the hiring company might be able to budget for more if they don't think you're less likely to be hired at a higher rate.

Deal with external recruiters if they're offering you jobs with higher prospective salaries than you're able to find from your own enquiries, and don't if they don't. External recruiters make huge amount of money placing people in positions they could have easily applied to themselves, but they also find out about positions you're unlikely to find simply by looking.

What's a good starting point trying to find internal recruiters?

Normally they find you when you send the company a job application and it goes - directly or indirectly - into their inbox

>just don't talk to external recruiters.

See, my experience? external recruiters (and body shops/contract to hire gigs) are a great way to get your foot in the door when you don't quite have the skills or experience required, or when there's something else wrong with you that prevents you from being really good.

In general, good people won't take jobs through body shops and external recruiters. Most advice here, including yours is for people who are really good. And if you are really good, that's great advice. ignore external recruiters, body shops, and contract-to-hire positions; You should have no trouble doing way better through your contacts.

But... do you know what this means? this means that departments that hire through body shops and external recruiters tend to get employees who aren't very good. This can be an opportunity, sometimes.

That's the thing. if you're an ordinary run of the mill person and not some industry giant, say, and you're having a hard time because of personal issues, or because you made some poor career choices and need some time to catch up, or because your brain just refuses to work correctly? Deliberately targeting external recruiters and contract-to-hire jobs can be a good way to find a job where you won't be holding the team back; where your mediocre plodding (or where your earnest efforts at recovery) will be enough to make the employer happy, and sometimes even to shine. It will get you six months to a year where you get paid decently and where other people seem to think you are really helpful (which is really important to me.) where you can get yourself together to the point where you can handle a real job again.

I found myself in that situation recently; I was in a pretty bad place mentally, and simply wasn't able to perform up to a level that would be acceptable on the sort of team I'd normally work on. I tried, and someone I knew gave me a work from home gig. I put in, literally like five hours a week. I mean, I'm not going to lie about my hours, but without someone standing right there, i wasn't in a state where I could get much of anything done. (Depression seems... so counterproductive. So I feel shitty, right? but then I don't want to do anything that might make me feel better because I feel shitty. what the fuck, right?)

But yeah. I put my resume on dice, and let external recruiters and body shops call me all day. I interviewed a lot, which was fun; I found that I wasn't a senior devops person, even if I am a senior sysadmin. I eventually landed where I am now, in an environment where, in my degraded state, I was not the best on the team, but I was far from the worst. I had a manager who was cool with me saying "Hey, I'm distracted. Get me back on track" - and yeah, I'm still at the job now. I think my performance is improving with my general mental state; I'm almost six months in, and it was exactly what I needed.

That's the thing. You can't outright say "Uh, hey guys, I'm kinda broken. I need an easy job I can do while I get myself together." - As far as I can tell, the best way to signal that sort of thing? talk to those external recruiters; to those body shops. They'll fix you up with a job that pays slightly more than you'd get full time for the same job, but where standards are dramatically lower.

Working 5 hours a week sounds great. I can use the rest of the time to upgrade my skills and apply it to the job. Is the company still hiring?

No, I mean I got fired 'cause I only put in 5 hours a week, and thus did not complete the projects that I was expected to complete, because I was unable to keep myself focused for longer than that.

It was hourly work, too, so I was only getting paid for those 5 hours. (that's what I meant about being honest with my hours. Lots of people stare at the screen for 8 hours and call it a day.)

Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification. I thought you meant that 5 hours a week was all it took to fulfill your job requirements.

Btw, Thank you for your candor. I can relate to your experience; knowing I could do so much better, but just not being able to focus on work adequately because at times my "brain just refuses to work correctly." So frustrating. Glad to see that someone has hacked a workaround to the problem.

> When asked this question I would suggest you ask the recruiter for his budget in return, or to simply state your salary requirement (rather than your current salary) instead.

I would argue that even this should be avoided. Salary negotiation is a chess game that rewards Black. Make them come up with a number, yes it will piss them off to no end and many recruiters will simply refuse to deal with you. Know what? That's perfectly fine because there are a hundred other recruiters who are so eager for a chunk of your salary that they will take a chance to negotiate with you.

Another reason not to spit out a number is that by not doing so you are making yourself look like hot shit, rather than a commodity.

What if you went to an open house and the agent said, "so, you like the place, eh? How much do you want to buy it for?" This would be so ridiculous, nobody would play that game buying a house yet we do it all the time when negotiating our salaries.

Be willing to walk away, be polite but firmly defer or deflect any attempt at making you state the number first. Above all, remember that 5 minutes after you hang up the phone, another recruiter is going to give you a call.

I think developers should make the first offer. Here is a professor who has studied negotiation who talks about how it's advantageous to make the first offer because of the anchoring effect. [0]

My belief is the way to win a negotiation is to convince the other party that what they're looking to buy(top end development talent) is expensive, and you are just looking for a fair price. So use the salary guide to price a top end developer.

Most recruiters say they are looking for top end developer talent.(If they say they are looking for mediocre seat warmers run for the hills :) ) Explain why you fit that description and explain that you're looking for a salary commensurate with your abilities ( around 218k for a Java Dev in San Fran[1] pre-benefits). Cite the salary guide, then see what they come back with.*

* - If however you're trying to push your salary above this top end I think your previous salary starts to become your ally. Disclosing you're salary when earning 218k will help remove a lot of offers immediately and convince other people that you are such a great dev you are earning 218k.

[0]http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2014/04022...

[1]http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_2015_salar...

I agree that experienced people should make the first offer, in the sense that I already know what I should expect for a salary given my experience and location, and at the same time I don't need any particular job. If they decline me because I'm too expensive, it's no skin off my nose. I can tell them up-front "agree your offer will be no less than $X now or I don't even go through your interviewing process." And it works. But I have a great resume and a comfortable position right now.

It sucks to be a junior dev, though. You have no idea what the market is like yet, you don't have any bargaining capacity, you're basically stuck taking what you can get. And that's where "tell us your previous salary" becomes a major liability. If you're trying to find your 2nd job, your current salary could have no bearing on your actual value as an employee. If you have still not learned the lesson that recruiters are not your advocates, you could end up in yet another low-paying job, punting the issue further down the road.

I started freelancing part time during university and got up to a $100 per hour rate. When I was negotiating for this current full-time job, after interning for half a year, my employer lowballed me with a very low offer $X. I told they could give me $2X or I'll go back to freelancing where I will make $2X+Y. $Y is a imaginary number I hand-waved.

A recruiter contacted him, and I didn't read this thread, I told him my current salary, and he told me of a position that offered $3X. So I don't know, I don't think he's my advocate, but he gave me some information too.

I plan to finish launching this project I've been working on for almost 2 years, that I'm responsible for, in several months time, and then, see what happens.

You might ask why I'd work in an place where employers would lowball a salary in negotiation...They let me make all the decisions regarding development, and pick the developers I'll hire to work for me, so...

I currently make maybe $10k more than the average developer of my age in this country, so I'm content for now even if it's less than the average for my level. My employer forbids us to work more than 8 hours a day, and I can come in at 11am, and there's the cafeteria coffee machine, and I love the stack I built...It's the first thing every developer who comes to interview mentions being interested in, so I'm kind of proud of that.

>I love the stack I built

Please do elaborate.

Also, what kind of work did you do when you were freelancing? And were you subcontracting or working directly with the end client?

When I was freelancing I built entire django websites according to exact specifications of the client. I worked directly with the client, and each time made the client very happy, collected a reference, then bumped my rate by for the next client. I made sure to really focus while working to give my client the best value for money.

Our stack:

    Jenkins & Gerrit for code review and automated unit-testing
    Nginx, Django REST framework
        * Set of classes I wrote that it makes it easy declare field-level 
            (and view-level, of course) permissions, e.g.:
            fields = {
                ("majors", "minors"): [
                    IsUpdateOnly, IsOwner('user'), ],
                ("id", "user", "url", "relation", "branch", "organization"): [
                    Or(IsCreateOnly, IsReadOnly, IsOwner('user')), ],
                ("interval",): [
                    IsCreateOnly, ],
                # Stuff that should be viewable if its public,
                # or able to be created by the user:
                ("location", "position",): [
                    Or(
                        Is('user.is_public', True),
                        And(IsCreateOnly, IsOwner('user')),
                    ), ],
            }
    Gulp
    Node.js
    server-rendered React.js / Angular.js (depending on product)
        * A standard pattern to retrieve data from the server, like a poor cousin
          of Facebook's graph API - child data elements don't
          depend on their parent data elements.

Why does making a salary demand before they make a salary offer put you at a disadvantage? (Note, this is not rhetorical, if you have a good rationale for this, I'd really like to understand the reasoning.)

Because they don't know how much you will accept. They have salary bands, a budget, and past experience, but they've never encountered you before. If you give away your salary requirements, you may well cost yourself a great deal of money because no matter how much they want you later in the process, you will already have revealed how much you are willing to accept.

Try responding with "I'm fairly certain my CV commands top of market, what are the budget expectations set for the role?" If the recruiter then gives you a budget range, react unimpressed, REGARDLESS OF THE NUMBER. Keep your best poker face and say "Well, I'm sure they could be flexible for the right candidate". Even if the number they tell you is 2x more than you wanted, you act unimpressed. Your attitude should be polite, but absolutely not willing to settle for one penny less than what you are worth. And you will not tell them what you are worth, they have to figure that out for themselves.

You wait until the late stage when everyone has given you a green light, the company has already invested a lot of time with you, and they want you. Are they going to start all over to save a mere $30k? No, but if you already told them you don't need that extra $30k, they certainly won't give it to you now.

You maybe undervaluing yourself so when you put out a number, the offer will be anchored around that number.

That's not a problem with making a demand before an offer, that's a problem with making a low demand.

> Be willing to walk away

This, or understanding your "best alternative to the negotiated agreement", is really the key to behaving in your own best interests.

If fear of rejection is one's rationale for giving up bargaining power by revealing too much info or for not asking for enough, then the game is lost.

This really only applies if they cold-called you, doesn't it? If you applied, then you started the game and chose to play white.

To follow your other analogy, if you walk into an open house, a realtor is totally within his or her rights to ask you about your budget.

I agree. Let them make an offer first. At that point, your current salary is hopefully irrelevant. If it is relevant, however, you're going to stick with your current job anyway.

> What if you went to an open house and the agent said, "so, you like the place, eh? How much do you want to buy it for?" This would be so ridiculous, nobody would play that game buying a house yet we do it all the time when negotiating our salaries.

Really? Great! Start low! There's nothing wrong with this.

Ever seen something sold suffixed "Or nearest offer"? This is great news because it shows the seller has no conviction of their price, so try giving them a low offer. You don't know what pressure they're under to sell.

For salary negotiations try a high figure. Your current salary has NOTHING to do with what you expect in future. Again, you don't know what pressure the employer is in to recruit. Try chancing your arm. I've done this several times. It's great when you just get back "OK no problem".

Look, a negotiation is not about trying to mind read what the other party will accept. There's nothing wrong about discussing what you want. There's no law that you need to regulate your salary so your new salary is current * 1.1. It's about reaching something that works for both parties. You need to go in high so you know that you couldn't have got any more out of them.

If you're good and they want you, you'll probably be in a strong negotiating position anyway. Explain to recruiters what you want, and if they press for your current salary there's no harm in giving it. At the end of the day if you know what you'll accept and can justify it (e.g. "I'm on x but want Y because I've got experience of a,b,c,/I'm due a pay review soon/I took this job for the experience, etc") then you're in a strong position.

From the article:

> you have just blown your negotation position out of the water

Wrong. It may mean you need to justify what you want ("I knew I wasn't getting market rate, but I wanted the experience so now I'm worth x * 1.5"). I've never known this figure be passed on to employers anyway.

> you have passed information from your current employer to the recruiter and your potential future employer

Er, what? Who cares? See above.

> you have made it that much harder for all savvy negotatiors at your current company to play their cards close to their chest with this recruiter and your potential future employer

If the negotiators are truly savvy it's irrelevant what anyone else earns. If you ever hear the argument "we can't pay you X because we only pay so-and-so Y" explain you aren't that person. If they stick to their guns for "pay parity", thank them and walk away.

> you are assisting in an underwater price-fixing scheme between employers where they will all attempt to pay roughly the same rather than to negotiate with each individual according to value presented

The supply and demand "price-fixing scheme"?

This is what it's all about. If you're in an industry where good people are hard to find, and you're good, you're in a strong position. Try and recruit someone decent in IT if you want to see a bunch of clowns.

Honestly, if you're good, this post is irrelevant.

BTW - check out "Everything is Negotiable". That book has made me thousands...

> Look, a negotiation is not about trying to mind read what the other party will accept. There's nothing wrong about discussing what you want.

I agree 100% with your first sentence, but not the second. As you note, everything is negotiable, this includes the budget range and expectations that the company has for the role. If you say, "my requirements are $130k", then there's no way they will pay $150k. But if you keep your mouth shut, you wait until you have a bargaining position -- leverage -- which is the fact that they want to hire you. If the hiring manager, his boss, the interview loop, have all given you the green light, they will NOT allow a recuiter to low ball you just to save $30k.

Not every recruiter phone call will get to this position, but the point is, when you do get to this final round, you DO NOT want to have already given away how much you are willing to work for. Does this make sense? If/when you get to this final round and they still don't know your number, you can bid yourself up to the freaking stars. You still be willing to walk away, but they have already invested a lot of time and will not bat an eye at throwing you another $30k. Hell, if the kismet is working, you could double your salary this way, it all depends on how much they want you. If double your salary is well outside the range of the budget for the position, it doesn't matter because they simply re-level the job req on the spot, just for you, because they want to hire you so f'ing bad they will do it.

But if you already told the recuiter on day 1 that $130k is enough, then it just doesn't matter any more.

I disagree.

Recruiters will know how difficult it has been to fill the position. They generally work on a percentage - in which case the more you can get the better, or a flat fee, in which case they don't care.

It's all about making them want you, and justification. Even if you initially say to the recruiter that you're looking for $100k, but when the manager asks you you reply with $130k, this isn't a problem provided you can justify it ("I'm looking at several other options at the moment/I've reconsidered/something else creative"). Often the justification doesn't need to be watertight - just something to say that sort of makes sense. Even just saying that you've reassess the market is sufficient. There's no wrong answer if you say something subjective.

> they will NOT allow a recuiter to low ball you just to save $30k.

Agreed. But the recruiter should do as they're told by the client. It isn't the recruiter you need to convince.

> it all depends on how much they want you

This is the key point. Make them want you and then negotiate. But make sure that your opening offer is so high that they can't do it - or if they do you'll be very happy anyway. Then come down a bit or change the package ("Oh, OK well if there was more holiday/working from home/whatever I'd consider it for that salary"). Most of the time managers aren't paying with their own money. The only place I've ever had to bargain hard was for a small company. Never again. It's just so much easier negotiating and working with people who spend someone else's money (i.e. bigger corporations).

Also, if you let the other person open the negotiations, as another commenter has said you're then in an uphill struggle. People compare things - since there is no absolute value here - so start the comparison at the top end where you want it. Don't let the other party dictate where the negotation starts.

I think avoiding negotiating salary in advance is the best way to waste one's own time in the hiring process. Why do a phone screen, one or more interviews, and possibly some day-long coding challenge only to find out that the company wants you but does not want to pay your rate? This has been exactly my experience a multitude of times. Figure out what you want to make and what the market pays and ask for it up front. Add a bit of wiggle room so they can knock off a few thousand on their end and you're still getting what you want. That would be my advice because many negotiations will get to the offer stage and be out of reach or unwilling to pay, even if they really want you. You can try to play the game of not giving out a figure first, but it's much harder to do when you're avoiding a direct question ("What will it take for you to join our company?") in salary negotiations with the CEO after an interview. When you've had enough time wasted by the process and companies not willing to pay an extra $10 or $20k to even be at market rate, eliminating fruitless job-seeking endeavors is much more important than trying to play games around salary.

I think any serious candidates would bail at "day long coding challenge"

The typical experience in my experience is a few recruiter calls first, a phone screen or two, then a full day of on-site interviews with 4-10 people, possibly including a take-home project due in the next few days.

To be blunt that is the sign of an amateur HR department and possibly in need of being put on a PIP plan.

But how ? What is the appropriate response to be given when a recruiter presses you for this information and mention that they cannot move forward without it being given.

I am earning at least 30 % lower than median pay (based on glassdoor information), more like 11 percentile in my category. I try to quote a figure that is 20 % higher than what i get in case the recruiter presses me but i really do not know what is the right way.

You won't be on a good negotiation position if you aren't willing to risk lost the job offer for not agreeing to disclose your salary. That also applies to salary negotiations of a job you are already in. If you are not willing to quit if you are underpaid, then you will be underpaid. Forever.

So, just tell the recruiter that you won't disclose your current salary - no explanations on why - and what is your desired salary. If the recruiter says it is mandatory, so just decline the offer and go find a better one.

The appropriate way is just being polite. Not lying, not being rude. Just say "sorry, but I won't disclose my current salary" and move on with the conversation.

I tell them that my salary is covered under an NDA and that I cannot disclose it. I don't mention that the non-disclosure agreement is between me, myself, and I.

I can't imagine a situation where you would lose a job offer because you wouldn't disclose your current salary.

I've been there: I've lied about my rate, I've used the NDA excuse. It doesn't work.

I'm a bad lier so I don't lie anymore: I simply apologize and tell them you are not willing to disclose that information.

Always be professional and honest when dealing with (potential) employers, they will respect that.

As I understand it, the National Labor Relations Act makes such NDAs unenforceable (in the USA) and a recruiter could potentially see right through this.

You can always say you are not sure about enforceability as there are other provisions in the NDA and you are certainly not going to risk your current job or getting sued by your current employer over it. Then, in the same breath, turn it around and ask them if they are asking you to break the NDA because that is what it sounds like.

That is valuable information if I wanted to reveal it, however you can still say that you aren't going to risk it or that you think sticking to your word is important.

Indeed. My total compensation package has elements covered by NDA. Technically even disclosing this fact could be considered a breach of my NDA.

My salary figure is an important part of my compensation, but it's a long way from telling the full story.

Though, I wonder if that might signal that you're willing to put up with silly employment requirements.

When recruiters say they can't move forward without the information, your response should be, "I guess we can't move forward." They can move forward with whatever they want; there is no reason to give them anything just because they are willing to flat out lie to you.

"What are the current salary bands at your company for someone with my level of experience?"

Since you feel that you are underpaid and your salary is 30% lower than median, and assuming that you want your salary to be 20% above median, just tell them that "the salary I'm looking for is around 1.7*X" (where X is your current salary).

"No". Just say "no thanks". You owe no explanation.

I would probably says something close to, "I'm sorry, I signed an NDA and I'm not sure if my salary is covered but I'm happy to give you my salary requirements".

I would just say "I have a policy of not disclosing current salary information" and if they refuse to move ahead without it, just call it off.

Find out what the median salary is for the position you're applying for and basically just make up a number you want because they'll probably raise it 5% with an offer. I've done it in the past to get what I want rather then what they want.

Tell them what you want to make. If the press, just say that your current role isn't directly related to the new one so that it doesn't make sense to compare. If they still press then just lie I guess. Or don't use recruiters.

Don't lie. It's not nice, it's not ethical, and you could be fired in the future if/when they find out.

Tell them what you want to make, and I agree with you that you call out that this role is different so the compensation isn't relevant.

I've been bullshitted so many times when it comes to pay. There's nothing ethical nor nice about the whole process. People have to stop being afraid to stand up for themselves. If you don't have to lie then don't but I don't see why you owe them the truth when it comes to your current salary.

You can always politely decline to answer the question. You are not forced to play their game.

>> Or don't use recruiters

Recruiters really are a terrible way to get a job. I've never gotten a job I liked or what I thought was a fair salary when I've used a recruiter.

Recruiters, used car salesmen, and telemarketers: if they were better people, they'd have better jobs.

I don't like being in a position to defend the above professions, but that's a really horrible way to look at people. I'm sure you were somewhat joking, but still. Everyone has a story and you can't always guess what it is.

I would see your point if they didn't all use the same high-pressure sales tactics. Good people have ethics in what they do, regardless of what their job is. I don't overpromise and then nickle-and-dime my clients on support issues with my freelance work, even though freelancers have that reputation. I've yet to see a recruiter grow a spine and not use manipulation to place people in jobs they may not want just to keep their close rate up.

Well, you pretty much just summed it up. You differ from the stereotype of Freelancers, but you can't imagine that some recruiters differ from the stereotypes you have of that profession.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I'd like that job. Thanks for your time."

I got my best job so far through external recruiters. Mileages vary :)

"If my salary would be adequate, I wouldn't be looking. I'm looking for -not too ridiculous figure but high X you are willing to negotiate down-"

Employers have more information about salaries than employees. This information asymmetry can be problematic for employees who aren't savy enough (or have the time enough..) to find out what a fair-market salary is for their position. I'm NOT suggesting this is a legislation-level problem, but just pointing out a frustration that has been voiced by many of my developer friends (in NYC in particular).

I was just thinking about this the other day. I'm not currently looking for a new job, but have friends who are. One of them asked me if I had ever been asked something like that. Usually, it goes something like this:

Recruiter: "What were you looking for in terms of salary?" Me: "[figure]" R: "Is that in line with what you're currently making?" EVERYONE EVER: "YES".

What a complete and utter waste of time. Who is going to say no?! They have no way of (legally) verifying any of your private salary data.

I once had a recruiter try to scare a friend saying he would access his public tax info. That recruiter should have been arrested.

My favorite hobby, say what I actually want for a salary. The recruiters always get a "are you kidding?" tone after that. I guess recruiters are used to juggle the lowest players in the pool.

I got a lot of this recruiter incredulity when I was looking for work late last year. It got to where I was talking about salary range at the front of every call with a new company/recruiter to make sure that we were on the same page.

Incredulity? To me, that has flipped around dramatically recently.

I'm a freelancer, so to me it's the hourly rate that matters. About two years ago, when recruiters asked for my hourly rate, it always ended up with less than what I originally asked for. This year, I've noticed that every single recruiter is very eager to agree with my rate, and my next project marks the first time I'll make more than my asking rate. Something clearly changed, and I suspect I may have to increase my asking rate.

Not sure how universal this is, but I think many large companies have compensation systems/plans that are very uniform and don't leave a lot of negotiation to happen:

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-tips-for-negotiating-...

So outside of top ranks, and maybe stock package, it's ok to reveal your current salary.

That may be true in some cases but you'd be very surprised at the amount of discretion and leeway available in case they actually want someone and a recruiter contacting you is a sign that the hook is baited and that you should negotiate to your best abilities.

Revealing your current salary is dumb because (1) it blows your negotiation position to kingdom come and (2) it tells them something they can use against other candidates as well that are better at negotiations than you.

If you want to believe that all salaries are equal within narrowly defined bands ask yourself this: who benefits from such an arrangement and what can I do about it?

Unless you want to work for reddit and there is no negotiation :)

Even if you really want to work for reddit you'll have a cut-off value at which you no longer want to work for reddit. Otherwise it's not called 'work' but 'volunteering'.

Telling someone your currently salary doesn't affect your ability to say "no, thanks." I consider it a complete irrelevance, unless you're deciding what you should be paid based on what price people offer you jobs at -- but don't do that.

They key here is to still state your salary requirements _or_ get the potential employer's range for this position.

I've been on both sides of this when both sides interview blind, and it's disappointing far too often.

I'm just curious because I see so much negativity: has anyone had a positive experience with a tech recruiter?

Yes. I met with a recruiter who offered to buy me coffee. He gave me resume advice and talked about the tech scene in the city I was new to. He didn't expect anything in return, and I found an internship through my own networking later.

edit: Also, fecak on /r/cscareerquestions is an amazing wealth of knowledge.

Yes, I know a few that are "good" (i.e. not scum or annoying). I'm a developer in London (finance), and using recruiters, I learned about interesting positions that I wouldn't know about otherwise, I saved a lot of time (talking to different employers and organizing interviews), and got some interesting advice and insights that only people with lots of experience can give. I was lucky that the right ones contacted me :)

I think they're talking about some other recruiter.

Cause the one I'm thinking about gets a commission base on the salary the company agrees to pay you. So it is their goal to try to get you a good salary.

In general many of those type of recruiters have no loyalty it's a shot gun approach and throw as much people at the company and perhaps they'll hire one.

I had one that were asking for answers of the questions given during the job interview. I gave it and asked for a call back. Never got the call back and realized later on they probably giving it to their next interviewer. They gave me a tip before hand to study the questions in w3schools website. Roughly over a year later they call me back and I basically told them I'm not doing business with them.

There are a few job recruiters that are professional enough. Nothing that stands out but they gave tip, didn't lie to me, nothing fishy, set up an interview or phone call and went from there.

In general, all my job I got was from me, direct. The job recruiters never got my skill set right or the company were too corporate-ish.

99% are scum, 1% are good. I've received a couple of jobs through headhunters.

I have a rule that works surprisingly well. When a headhunter contacts me, I search my gmail for past interactions. If I sent them my resume several times without getting an interview, no response. The more annoying ones get an auto-archive filter.

If it's someone I haven't heard from before, and the posting is relevant to my experience, I'll respond.

I treat all headhunters as if they're competent and honest until they give me evidence to the contrary. Fortunately, the spammy ones make it clear pretty fast.

One common red flag: The headhunter wants to meet you in person before sending your resume to the client. I don't waste time on those anymore. All the good interviews I've gotten through headhunters were from ones that didn't insist on meeting me in person first.

Interesting why do ou feel that way? A real head-hunter not a fancy name for a standard recruitment agency employee will want to see who they are sending.

That has been my experience. I've gotten better interviews from headhunters who don't insist on meeting me first.

A lot of the ones who insisted on meeting me are shady body shops, where they're just looking to build a large candidate pool in case something comes up later. They also tend to be fishing for leads, asking who my hiring manager was at former jobs so they can hit them up to sell other candidates.

For the headhunters who insisted on meeting me, they either never sent me on an interview or sent me on a lot of low-quality interviews.

It's just like a pre-interview screening test anti-correlates with good interviews/jobs, to the extent that I usually just pass now.

Those arn't head-hunters just lower tier recruitment agencies.

Real head hunters will want to meet candidates - as will serious agencies.

How do I tell the difference between a real headhunter and a lower tier recruitment agency?

Is it a real company like Michel Paige - and reputation in the industry.

You mean like Robert Half Technology? They're a big name, and they've repeatedly wasted my time to the extent that I now refuse to talk with them.

Also known as "Robert Half My Rate". :-)

oh and reputation I have sacked one major uk agency and refuse to talk to them as well.

Don't disclose your current salary--agreed.

Recruiters are actually useful for targeting high-salary jobs. Going on interviews without knowing a ballpark salary range is time intensive, and a good way to end up settling.

Recruiters know the budget and are highly incentivized in 2 ways: 1-For their to be a deal, and 2-To not waste their time when no deal is possible. Since the recruiter also doesn't want the deal to "blow up" they can be counted on to mainly pass information that they think helps the deal.

With a recruiter, you can easily say "I'm only looking at things that are 170k+, and this is justified because I have n years of experience, and can do X Y and Z."

Now, the number you give should really be the number you are hunting for, and you should have a good idea that this is at the generous end of realistic. But if you're sought-after, you can quickly screen out the "pay-them-peanuts-we-think-we-are-so-awesome" crowd and their recruiters. And if the interview goes well, then the recruiter basically will collude with the company that now really wants you and make sure that they don't make an "insulting offer" so that their time isn't wasted.

Basically, with the recruiter you can have a conversation that is much tougher to have with an employer directly beforehand without seeming "interested in the money only."

No, I've found recruiters will tell you a lower number than what the company is actually willing to pay, because they are trying to gauge your reaction and how steadfast you are to your number. If you bend, then they have a much faster time filling the position because you already think you're at the ceiling when you're only at the floor. If you don't bend, then they "go to bat for you" so they can artificially make you feel like you are special. "I talked to the company and they said they'd be willing to go a little higher on someone with your experience."

No, there is no incentive for recruiters to be honest about anything.

You can't negotiate if you do not know your worth.

The number they give is their business, your reaction to it is yours.

So if they lowball you just tell them in response that they are well below your acceptable range based on your reputation and being in demand due the difficulty of finding quality people (believe me they will understand that line) and offer to terminate the conversation unless they significantly up their range to avoid wasting time.

In my case, I know that. But tell that to a jr dev straight out of college.

Hence the blog post. Jr devs straight out of college could do worse than to interview their buddies to see how much they are making without asking them to disclose their numbers publicly.

Where you're wrong is that most recruiters get a percentage of the yearly salary in fee. So their cut is bigger if you have a higher salary.

Their job security is tied to closing rate, though, and the business is very high turnover. If they can close faster by lying, they can probably make more and also ensure they keep their job, even if their per-close income is not as high. Joe who closes 3 candidates at salary X makes a lot more than Sam who closes 2 candidates at salary X + 10% or Mike who loses his job because he only closed 1 candidate.

If you do the math, their cut changes by a dramatic amount in the deal/no deal scenario (all or nothing), and only a tiny tiny percentage in the 3% increase in pay scenario. To them, the incentive is to close, and fast.

It's like poker, if you're not willing to risk and don't play aggressively you have less chances to win. To play aggressively you need to be in an advantageous position, in our case it means being good, otherwise you just won't have the necessary leverage to make the game go your way.

I think there are two options that play in your favour:

a) be honest, but when they ask (and they will) why you are leaving the current company, say you know they are paying their employees way below market rate. This allows you to tell the truth, but points out to the recruiter you will not take you current salary + 5%

b) redirect the question to "While I make X, I'm discussing the move with other companies and have offers for X+Y". This accomplishes two things, puts a premium on you (other companies are already interested you) and lets the recruiter know how much they will have to offer you to accept their offer.

Of course, you need to be ready for the conversation to fall through at this point, but you should always be ready for that anyway ;)

It's funny how the negotiation discussions are always about salary. Most of us make good money. What I want to know is, how do you negotiate 8 weeks off every year (paid or unpaid doesn't matter). How do you bring up next years paternal leave already at the interview? How do you get throgh a negotiation making sure it is acceptable to work slightly less than the 40 hour week at times because kids need to be picked up from daycare at 4pm?

You move to Europe? ;)

I always tell them my salary plus £5,000. That establishes whether they are in my ballpark, doesn't give them any useful information, and ensures that if I do get a job offer my negotiating position is already up on where I am.

So far have managed to negotiate my way to 2.5x my salary from two years ago.

Salary is totally divergent from job, responsibility or title. Salary is simply the figure negotiated between you and an employer that both of you consider value.

Try a 50% increase next time. Think about it: if you managed to get 2.5 times increase in such a short time you are likely undervaluing yourself considerably and you should move to larger steps.

There's a bit of a dearth of executive technical roles within reasonable commute of me right now. Its not been worth pricing myself out of the market completely until I can cross the sector boundary (lots of PM roles in aerospace that look nice...).

Hence; there is a balance, find your value but don't leave yourself without a second option.

Yes, I learned this back in the day from the classic "ask the headhunter" series. Since then I've simply stated job/salary requirements to jump-ship and it hasn't been a problem.

http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hasalary.htm

I wonder if this was inspired by the recent #talkpay trend on Twitter. Announcing your salary on Twitter is not the best idea. It will likely to be found by a recruiter and then (possibly) used against you in negotiations. I support the transparency, but I do not know if this trend is in one's best interests.

The key question and the only one which counts here is how much revenue you are going to generate for the prospective employer. From that you should derive a figure which looks like a great deal for both sides.

Question here: are the article & all the comments talking about just base salary, or total comp? If you were to disclose, which number would it be? I assumed total comp, but now I'm not sure.

I much prefer "do not talk to recruiters, ever". It's an entire profession filled with nothing but sleazes.

I disagree. I had 2 good experiences with recruiters so far (I'm a developer in finance in London). In both situations, the recruiters brought two kinds of value: (1) they knew the companies I would want to work for (not positions, companies) that I wouldn't know about without them (I don't have a good professional/personal network that would allow me to source this information), and (2) they put in the hours (talking to employers, arranging interview) that I didn't want to, because I had a fulltime job.

If you can satisfy both of these yourself (e.g. a student with lots of free time and friends working at interesting companies), by all means, apply yourself! Otherwise, use a recruiter (a good external one, I agree that most are annoying, PM me for recommendations).

More often than not, the recruiters are acting more shady and so I stopped talking to them completely.

Is there any reason to not just lie about it, and instead tell them the salary you want?

Sigh - as always, this piece of advice works less well across the pond, where there is a requirement to honestly state your current salary, which your P45 will be checked against to validate it, especially now we have real time PAYE requirement.

My advice for the UK based folks is simple - go through an agent, defer all salary discussions as something "you promised to sort out with the agent", and then go for the rate you want, and stick with it.

It is hard, but can be done. Remember, most agents will play along with this, as they are often on a percentage fee basis, so it aligns with their sales-weasel interests too!

Wait, when did the P45 become part of the screening process in the UK. I have my P45 and the only parties that have asked for it are banks and credit agencies. If a recruiter asks for a P45 off he bat I'm marking them as spam.

Looks like he's not wrong: https://www.gov.uk/paye-forms-p45-p60-p11d/p45

As you say, I don't see any legitimate reason for a recruiter to have it though, just a new employer when you begin employment?

Well, if tried a strategy of not telling the new employer direct what your salary is, or worse, lying, they will quickly see when the P45 is passed onto their payroll to sort out your P45. Which is why it is better to simply state you promised the agent that you would discuss the salary with them, and would then focus on discussing the specific about the role with the employer.

You know you do not have to provide a P45 to your new employer

Just say "sorry I lost it put me on the emergency Tax code"

I Have started jobs with out a p45 and unless you have complex tax status its not a big deal.

Wouldn't they still be able to work it out when your tax code is corrected?

In my experience, you're being a bit pessimistic there. The only people who'll need to see your P45 are the employers you're joining, in the first few weeks of your joining. And if they've already hired you, they've already agreed a salary with you, so they probably won't care too much about this.

Even if they do hassle you, you can easily say that you just asked for the amount you wanted -- or that you were counting income you've made from independent projects that you won't be able to pursue in this demanding new job.

Of course, this does all hinge on your giving a number that they find reasonable... but then, that's a given.

At what point are you actually required to disclose your current salary during the interview process? I had one recruitment agent actually asked me to bring documentary evidence of my current salary with me to the onboarding interview.

I did at the time, but I have no desire to work with that recruiter again, especially as they lied to me about the nature of one of the interviews I would be attending. The whole process ended up feeling really shady.

I've never given an employer a P45 ever. I would never give an employer a piece of paper which stated previous salary. There's no legal requirement to do this and if I was asked it would be a dealbreaker.

Don't put up with these kinds of demands.

Is it? I haven't seen any legal rulings on this area in the UK.

Agencies would get in trouble with the Data Protection Act if they asked to see your P45.

And I just recalled you do not have to provide a p45 its just makes seting up PAYE slightly easier

I would not worry too much about it. P45 does not show your base salary, it only shows how much you've actually earned, it's not necessarily the same thing.

Way too many emotional responses here. Easy solution, when asked anything about salary just tell the recruiter the number you are looking for. Your past is largely irrelevant, except occasionally (salary can be used to prove how senior or junior you were if your job title lacked that status).

Refusing the answer the questions is a dick move, and all they really need to know is, "Does this candidate fall inside of the parameters set by the hiring manager?" You answering what you are looking for will achieve that and let you move on.

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