About not to state the salary expectations upfront -- I found myself doing the opposite all the time. I often give a number to recruiter very early, in the lower end of my acceptable range, and then negotiate up once an offer extended. The mental model here is, coming from a big tech background, my expectation is often a lot higher than market average, and set an anchor point early on helps 1) eliminate companies that just couldn't pay that money; 2) make the recruiter thinks they found a (relevantly) bargain candidate, which I imagine might be a good strategy in current market.
This approach is entirely based on my own speculation, didn't got a chance to validate really. Would love to hear what you may think about it :)
Tao: I actually did something similar when I *knew* that my current salary is closer to the top of the range (or above) to what the company offers I'm interviewing at! Looking at the trimodal model: when you interview a tier "lower" or in a similar tier (but your comp is high within the tier) doing this can probably be more benfitial for everyone: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal-nature-of-tech-compensation
It can hurt people who are coming from a tier "below" and by disclosing, the hiring manager realizes they could just give the bottom-of-range offer, or even a downlevel would result in offering more than what they make!
Here is the way I think about it (and have trained recruiters to think about it) - and FYI I recruit at the executive level in tech, so am writing from that perspective.
I think it is important to have an honest conversation about compensation expectations as early in the process as possible. A recruiter’s job ultimately is not to put together the lowest offer necessary, but rather put the right offer together - on behalf of both the candidate and the company.
I ask very early because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time - the candidate or the hiring team. It is a terrible outcome to get through the entire process, have excited folks on both sides, and only then not be able to come to terms on the offer.
I give candidates a very honest reaction to what they tell me. In exchange for their transparency, I’m transparent in return on what I believe we will be able to do and how comp works at the company I am representing. There are times when a candidate’s expectations are on the high end - I let them know that it’s high, but not out of the realm of possibility for the right candidate. There are times when their number is so high, it is simply not do-able and I let them know that. Sometimes, that ends the process right there and other times the candidate expresses “flexibility” (that we then need to quantify).
When a candidate expresses an expectation that is low, I actually strongly advocate on their behalf for a stronger offer. The last thing you would ever want is for a great hire to join only to later learn they are underpaid relative to their peers - that’s bad. Real bad. You don’t want a great hire that could easily be lured away by another company that is actually going to pay them what their skillset is worth. At the leadership level, my hires often went on to become my hiring managers - and, if that leader is underpaid, it creates compression issues with candidates they are subsequently trying to hire onto their teams, which is frustrating for everyone.
I’ve had cases where we’ve gone more than double a candidate’s (originally low) expectations - it’s rare, of course, but it happens. I’ve commonly seen us give offers at 20-50% above expectations. Note - we are typically not over-paying them - we are just trying to give them the right offer for that role. It leads to happy, productive hires - and isn’t that what everyone wants?
Just my .02
I honestly don’t appreciate someone giving me an expectation at the beginning only to later negotiate upward. At the end of the process, there should not be any surprises - typically (again in exec hiring), the recruiter has done a lot of work to align HR, Exec Comp, the Hiring Manager, and other stakeholders on what that offer needs to be. Mis-alignment at that stage either looks bad on the recruiter or the candidate (or both) - not something you want at that point in the game.
I really appreciated hearing the insight behind the recruiter processes so I can have a better understanding on how to best approach things as a candidate. Thanks for sharing! :)
"For example, when we were hiring for the Payments team: we'll decided that we needed to find a couple candidates working at companies where they have relevant Payments experiences, or they can wrap up quickly."
About not to state the salary expectations upfront -- I found myself doing the opposite all the time. I often give a number to recruiter very early, in the lower end of my acceptable range, and then negotiate up once an offer extended. The mental model here is, coming from a big tech background, my expectation is often a lot higher than market average, and set an anchor point early on helps 1) eliminate companies that just couldn't pay that money; 2) make the recruiter thinks they found a (relevantly) bargain candidate, which I imagine might be a good strategy in current market.
This approach is entirely based on my own speculation, didn't got a chance to validate really. Would love to hear what you may think about it :)
Tao: I actually did something similar when I *knew* that my current salary is closer to the top of the range (or above) to what the company offers I'm interviewing at! Looking at the trimodal model: when you interview a tier "lower" or in a similar tier (but your comp is high within the tier) doing this can probably be more benfitial for everyone: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal-nature-of-tech-compensation
It can hurt people who are coming from a tier "below" and by disclosing, the hiring manager realizes they could just give the bottom-of-range offer, or even a downlevel would result in offering more than what they make!
Here is the way I think about it (and have trained recruiters to think about it) - and FYI I recruit at the executive level in tech, so am writing from that perspective.
I think it is important to have an honest conversation about compensation expectations as early in the process as possible. A recruiter’s job ultimately is not to put together the lowest offer necessary, but rather put the right offer together - on behalf of both the candidate and the company.
I ask very early because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time - the candidate or the hiring team. It is a terrible outcome to get through the entire process, have excited folks on both sides, and only then not be able to come to terms on the offer.
I give candidates a very honest reaction to what they tell me. In exchange for their transparency, I’m transparent in return on what I believe we will be able to do and how comp works at the company I am representing. There are times when a candidate’s expectations are on the high end - I let them know that it’s high, but not out of the realm of possibility for the right candidate. There are times when their number is so high, it is simply not do-able and I let them know that. Sometimes, that ends the process right there and other times the candidate expresses “flexibility” (that we then need to quantify).
When a candidate expresses an expectation that is low, I actually strongly advocate on their behalf for a stronger offer. The last thing you would ever want is for a great hire to join only to later learn they are underpaid relative to their peers - that’s bad. Real bad. You don’t want a great hire that could easily be lured away by another company that is actually going to pay them what their skillset is worth. At the leadership level, my hires often went on to become my hiring managers - and, if that leader is underpaid, it creates compression issues with candidates they are subsequently trying to hire onto their teams, which is frustrating for everyone.
I’ve had cases where we’ve gone more than double a candidate’s (originally low) expectations - it’s rare, of course, but it happens. I’ve commonly seen us give offers at 20-50% above expectations. Note - we are typically not over-paying them - we are just trying to give them the right offer for that role. It leads to happy, productive hires - and isn’t that what everyone wants?
Just my .02
I honestly don’t appreciate someone giving me an expectation at the beginning only to later negotiate upward. At the end of the process, there should not be any surprises - typically (again in exec hiring), the recruiter has done a lot of work to align HR, Exec Comp, the Hiring Manager, and other stakeholders on what that offer needs to be. Mis-alignment at that stage either looks bad on the recruiter or the candidate (or both) - not something you want at that point in the game.
I really appreciated hearing the insight behind the recruiter processes so I can have a better understanding on how to best approach things as a candidate. Thanks for sharing! :)
There's a typo here:
"For example, when we were hiring for the Payments team: we'll decided that we needed to find a couple candidates working at companies where they have relevant Payments experiences, or they can wrap up quickly."
That should read: "they can ramp up quickly."
As someone in big tech, this was very enlightening to see behind the scenes.
Good to know the other side of the desk. Thx.