7 ms·

I tell recruiters what I want to make from the beginning (my first reply to them on LinkedIn or wherever they reach out) yet say that's what I'm making now ..ho

I tell recruiters what I want to make from the beginning (my first reply to them on LinkedIn or wherever they reach out) yet say that's what I'm making now ..how competitive is this opportunity? Either they can match or increase it. If they can the conversation continues and the pay is set in stone never to be discussed again thru all interview processes.

dijit 2y ago
Third-Party Recruiters are actually great, they're super expensive for the company who you hire through, but they're the only people motivated to make sure it's a good fit and are neutral on it. You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer, but there's something that seems to make this not true, perhaps reputation?
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Yeah if they put you in a crappy job or it's not what they represented it was, you'll never use them again and you'll tell your network not to use them. They are motivated to place you in a job, since that's how they get paid, but they want you to be happy with it.
- wordofx 2y ago
  Recruiters only get paid if a candidate stays beyond a period of time. If the candidate does not work out the recruiter needs to find a replacement. Recruiters won’t deal with shit people because if they don’t stay or are prone to not working out they are a burden. In terms of money it’s usually a percentage of the salary. So if the recruiter works on 10% then they have incentive to get you as much money as possible.
  - borplk 2y ago
    It's quite logical to think that they have an incentive to get you as much money as possible but in reality it's often not quite correct. Their stronger incentive is to establish a relationship with a business and to continue feeding them candidates at an attractive price point for the business. The marginal amount of extra commission that they make on your increased salary is not that significant.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    The incentive is not to make sure you get the most money. The incentive is to make sure you get placed fast. While $200K vs $220K means a lot to you over the course of your job, they aren’t going to risk losing a placement arguing for you to get $20K more so their firm can get $44K instead of $40k and the recruiter themselves can get maybe 60% of what the firm gets. There was a famous similar study published in Freakonomics about real estate agents. https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-revisited/ https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-revisite...
    - tomp 2y ago
      200 vs 220 is likely noise. The recruiter shouldn’t care about tha2, and neither should you. But £200k vs £400k is real! That’s the real span for e.g. hedge funds in London. Actually, it was a few years ago. Probably more now!
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        You shouldn’t care about $20K??? In 10 years invested at $20K a year that’s 370k at 10% returns (about average for the S&P 500). Thinking like that is how car manufacturers get people to pay for useless add ons. On top of that, raises are usually a percentage of current base. Would you tell someone making $20K not to worry about $40K
        killingtime74 2y ago
        you've not heard of tax?
        scarface_74 2y ago
        It’s called a 401K or HSA… One is free from federal and state tax up to $23K (well $30.5K for me this year - check my username) and one is free from Federal, State and FICA up to $4250 if you’re single or $8500 if married. That means I can shelter $39K from taxes. That $20K is over half the allowable amount.
      - 2y ago
- throwaway5752 2y ago
  "You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer" You answered your own question: "they're super expensive for the company who you hire through" The person that pays the recruiter money is their customer. The item their customers pay for is the recruiter's product, which is you. So the recruiter's reputation does matters to acquire additional inventory, but it matters more for their actual customers. Selling bad fits to their actual customer, the hiring companies, would be business-ending. It is so important to understand when you are the product and when you are the customer.

dijit 2y ago

Third-Party Recruiters are actually great, they're super expensive for the company who you hire through, but they're the only people motivated to make sure it's a good fit and are neutral on it. You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer, but there's something that seems to make this not true, perhaps reputation?

SoftTalker 2y ago
Yeah if they put you in a crappy job or it's not what they represented it was, you'll never use them again and you'll tell your network not to use them. They are motivated to place you in a job, since that's how they get paid, but they want you to be happy with it.
wordofx 2y ago
Recruiters only get paid if a candidate stays beyond a period of time. If the candidate does not work out the recruiter needs to find a replacement. Recruiters won’t deal with shit people because if they don’t stay or are prone to not working out they are a burden. In terms of money it’s usually a percentage of the salary. So if the recruiter works on 10% then they have incentive to get you as much money as possible.
- borplk 2y ago
  It's quite logical to think that they have an incentive to get you as much money as possible but in reality it's often not quite correct. Their stronger incentive is to establish a relationship with a business and to continue feeding them candidates at an attractive price point for the business. The marginal amount of extra commission that they make on your increased salary is not that significant.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  The incentive is not to make sure you get the most money. The incentive is to make sure you get placed fast. While $200K vs $220K means a lot to you over the course of your job, they aren’t going to risk losing a placement arguing for you to get $20K more so their firm can get $44K instead of $40k and the recruiter themselves can get maybe 60% of what the firm gets. There was a famous similar study published in Freakonomics about real estate agents. https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-revisited/ https://freakonomics.com/2008/02/real-estate-agents-revisite...
  - tomp 2y ago
    200 vs 220 is likely noise. The recruiter shouldn’t care about tha2, and neither should you. But £200k vs £400k is real! That’s the real span for e.g. hedge funds in London. Actually, it was a few years ago. Probably more now!
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      You shouldn’t care about $20K??? In 10 years invested at $20K a year that’s 370k at 10% returns (about average for the S&P 500). Thinking like that is how car manufacturers get people to pay for useless add ons. On top of that, raises are usually a percentage of current base. Would you tell someone making $20K not to worry about $40K
      - killingtime74 2y ago
        you've not heard of tax?
        scarface_74 2y ago
        It’s called a 401K or HSA… One is free from federal and state tax up to $23K (well $30.5K for me this year - check my username) and one is free from Federal, State and FICA up to $4250 if you’re single or $8500 if married. That means I can shelter $39K from taxes. That $20K is over half the allowable amount.
    - 2y ago
throwaway5752 2y ago
"You'd expect that they would be incentivised to place you somewhere bad so that you're a repeat customer" You answered your own question: "they're super expensive for the company who you hire through" The person that pays the recruiter money is their customer. The item their customers pay for is the recruiter's product, which is you. So the recruiter's reputation does matters to acquire additional inventory, but it matters more for their actual customers. Selling bad fits to their actual customer, the hiring companies, would be business-ending. It is so important to understand when you are the product and when you are the customer.