| Topic Name: |
Current salary disclosure |
| Message Name: |
My experience |
| Date Posted: |
07/12/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
I was recently contacted by a recruiter about a position. He asked me for my current salary. I went an answer I had seen on this site?? that I would prefer to wait until a mutual interest had been established before disclosing that info. He wrote back saying he was reviewing a # of resumes for the positions and needs to know not only my current salary but also my salary when I started with the company. Honestly I still would rather not disclose the info?? would I hurt my chances with the job if I don??t disclose the salary? Issue is also I don??t really know the recruiter and I don??t remember sending him my resume although I have just started a job search and have sent it to other recruiters??
Thanks much for any advice/thoughts??
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| Message: |
evergreennn,
Recruiters are not really looking to find you a job, they are looking to find a person to fill a job for their real client, the hiring company. So they don't really have any need to contact you unless you fit their qualifications for a job. Recruiters are great ways to get into a company who wouldn't post on Vault, Monster, WSJ, etc.
But, once you tell a recruiter your salary, they play the percentage game to accomplish two goals. The first is to get you in front of the client so you can impress them with your skills and knowledge. That way they can be ahead of competing recruiters. Secondly, they get $0 if you don't get the job and somewhere between 25% to 50% if you do.
The percentage game is they find your current salary and the employer will offer a 15% increase which sounds like a lot until you do the math. If you make $50,000 a year that translates into $57,500. That is the percentage game. A recruiter can tell you things like, "most employers don't ever give more than 20%." If your recruiter says that he/she is negotiating for his/her client against you. A recruiter may say, "The more your offer is, the more I make too, so we have the same goal." Again he/she is negotiating against you. In reality he/she makes around 33% of your starting salary so the difference between a few thousand dollars after taxes and his/her firm's cut is pretty small. But if the company picks a cheaper candidate from another recruiter who conned his candidate to divulge his salary your recruiter gets $0 for his/her efforts.
I left a job where I was making $good money with excellent benefits for one paying 15% more and not so great benefits. A few months ago salary.com said my fair market value was somewhere between $85-95k. If I had told my recruiter just what you told yours, I probably would not be at my current company, I'd be somewhere better getting fair market value!
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