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I interview techies, and I always make a point to ask them to give me their expected salary range. The purpose behind this isn't to one-up them and pay them as

I interview techies, and I always make a point to ask them to give me their expected salary range. The purpose behind this isn't to one-up them and pay them as little as possible. It's just in both parties' best interest to avoid wasting time if the expected pay is too high. Neither we nor the candidate want to go through several rounds of interviews for something that ultimately won't work out. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, if a candidate gives a number that's too low, we ignore that and offer them what we think they are worth (which is a higher number). Our reasoning is simple: if we treat people fairly, they will be more loyal and less likely to jump ship at the earliest opportunity that pays more.

tamana 11y ago
Why don't you just tell the candidate your offer range and let them decide if they are interested? Because you aren't honest at all, to system is trying to get rmpoyees for less.
p4wnc6 11y ago
A lot of recruiters say that it's not about ensuring the candidate gets the lower end of their expected range, but that's just what they say. I actually have a friend who worked at one of the aggressive boutique recruiting firms who mostly focus on the New York investment banking jobs. He told me that almost always, their client companies would tell them that if they were able to get a candidate to come in with a salary below X, the recruiting firm would get an extra bonus on top of their commission, and the bonus was priced to make sure it was more lucrative to try to suppress candidate wages than to adequately represent the candidate's higher-end expectation. Whenever I hear a recruiter say anything like, "Look, I don't get paid unless you do so clearly I'm trying to get you the most that I can..." it's an immediate dealbreaker. They are probably being paid a bonus precisely to ensure I come in at a lower salary than what I could otherwise command.
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  Agreed. I had two different recruiters offer to increase my contract rate when I told them I had accepted another offer. That suggests to me that they're paid amount $X and were offering me $Y < $X, with their commission being the difference.
- bboreham 11y ago
  I hired developers into investment banking for 18 years. If we gave somebody a low number, the next bank would poach them in 1-2 years, wasting all the time we spent training them. After I learned this the hard way, I always went as high as I felt able to on the initial salary, because raises were much harder later on.
  - timv 11y ago
    That was my experience as well. If you want to pay your team well, the best option is to bring people in at the highest number you can justify. Raises were always harder to arrange, but it was a lot easier when we had evidence that new hires were costing us 20% more than our existing high performers were paid
JoshDoody 11y ago
This response makes me wonder why you don't just tell the candidate the range you're willing to pay and let them tell you if that works for them. I definitely understand the need to be efficient with everyone's time, but "have the candidate share their desired salary" is only one way to do that. I have heard this reasoning from recruiters many times, but haven't heard a good explanation as to why they don't just tell the candidate the range they're willing to pay. (This is a genuine question) Why not just tell the candidate your range if your concern is to respect everyone's time?
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  We do that too. We don't have a preference either way, because for us it only serves one purpose, which is to determine if we should continue the interview process. Surprisingly, very few candidates ask us upfront what the position pays. In fact, we've only had one candidate who tried to play the "salary game" (if you will) and turned the question back on us when we asked what their salary range was. Like I said though, we just reveal it. To us, it's not a game, but rather two parties exchanging information in a fair and transparent manner.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    You may think it is not a game, and I don't doubt your intentions, but it still is a game. At the beginning you are not invested in the candidate. A candidate that wants to work for you, but wants to maximize salary would be foolish not to try to get you to invest more before starting to talk salary, as it's far harder for you to walk away over 5% or 10% or even 20% once you've decided you have a candidate you like and face the prospect of spending time on another candidate instead. You have the power advantage that passing the candidate over has less impact for you than it has for many/most candidates, so to a candidate it is far more important to spend the effort of selling you on just them first before talking price.
- albinofrenchy 11y ago
  The reason is because the first person to say a number is at a slight disadvantage, and recruiters and managers don't want it to be them. It is true that making sure you are on the same page salary-wise is a good idea, but it doesn't always have to be the interviewee to establish that.
mdpopescu 11y ago
On my phone interview with an US company in 1999, they asked me what salary I wanted. I told them "in my previous remote job, I was making $3.25 an hour; I would like $4". They replied "we'll give you $6". (Romania, Eastern Europe - this was about 8 times the average salary.) This was the only time someone offered me more than I was asking :)
- vidarh 11y ago
  I've been on the hiring end of similar conversations. Often the thought process is that you're dealing with salaries so small compared to what they're used to that it's worth quite a bit extra to get someone who is so happy with what they're paid that you increase retention and don't have to spend time hiring replacements as often. It can be one of the great parts of negotiating with someone located in a much higher paid location.

tamana 11y ago

Why don't you just tell the candidate your offer range and let them decide if they are interested? Because you aren't honest at all, to system is trying to get rmpoyees for less.

p4wnc6 11y ago

A lot of recruiters say that it's not about ensuring the candidate gets the lower end of their expected range, but that's just what they say. I actually have a friend who worked at one of the aggressive boutique recruiting firms who mostly focus on the New York investment banking jobs. He told me that almost always, their client companies would tell them that if they were able to get a candidate to come in with a salary below X, the recruiting firm would get an extra bonus on top of their commission, and the bonus was priced to make sure it was more lucrative to try to suppress candidate wages than to adequately represent the candidate's higher-end expectation. Whenever I hear a recruiter say anything like, "Look, I don't get paid unless you do so clearly I'm trying to get you the most that I can..." it's an immediate dealbreaker. They are probably being paid a bonus precisely to ensure I come in at a lower salary than what I could otherwise command.

mdpopescu 11y ago
Agreed. I had two different recruiters offer to increase my contract rate when I told them I had accepted another offer. That suggests to me that they're paid amount $X and were offering me $Y < $X, with their commission being the difference.
bboreham 11y ago
I hired developers into investment banking for 18 years. If we gave somebody a low number, the next bank would poach them in 1-2 years, wasting all the time we spent training them. After I learned this the hard way, I always went as high as I felt able to on the initial salary, because raises were much harder later on.
- timv 11y ago
  That was my experience as well. If you want to pay your team well, the best option is to bring people in at the highest number you can justify. Raises were always harder to arrange, but it was a lot easier when we had evidence that new hires were costing us 20% more than our existing high performers were paid

JoshDoody 11y ago

This response makes me wonder why you don't just tell the candidate the range you're willing to pay and let them tell you if that works for them. I definitely understand the need to be efficient with everyone's time, but "have the candidate share their desired salary" is only one way to do that. I have heard this reasoning from recruiters many times, but haven't heard a good explanation as to why they don't just tell the candidate the range they're willing to pay. (This is a genuine question) Why not just tell the candidate your range if your concern is to respect everyone's time?

enraged_camel 11y ago
We do that too. We don't have a preference either way, because for us it only serves one purpose, which is to determine if we should continue the interview process. Surprisingly, very few candidates ask us upfront what the position pays. In fact, we've only had one candidate who tried to play the "salary game" (if you will) and turned the question back on us when we asked what their salary range was. Like I said though, we just reveal it. To us, it's not a game, but rather two parties exchanging information in a fair and transparent manner.
- vidarh 11y ago
  You may think it is not a game, and I don't doubt your intentions, but it still is a game. At the beginning you are not invested in the candidate. A candidate that wants to work for you, but wants to maximize salary would be foolish not to try to get you to invest more before starting to talk salary, as it's far harder for you to walk away over 5% or 10% or even 20% once you've decided you have a candidate you like and face the prospect of spending time on another candidate instead. You have the power advantage that passing the candidate over has less impact for you than it has for many/most candidates, so to a candidate it is far more important to spend the effort of selling you on just them first before talking price.
albinofrenchy 11y ago
The reason is because the first person to say a number is at a slight disadvantage, and recruiters and managers don't want it to be them. It is true that making sure you are on the same page salary-wise is a good idea, but it doesn't always have to be the interviewee to establish that.

mdpopescu 11y ago

On my phone interview with an US company in 1999, they asked me what salary I wanted. I told them "in my previous remote job, I was making $3.25 an hour; I would like $4". They replied "we'll give you $6". (Romania, Eastern Europe - this was about 8 times the average salary.) This was the only time someone offered me more than I was asking :)

vidarh 11y ago
I've been on the hiring end of similar conversations. Often the thought process is that you're dealing with salaries so small compared to what they're used to that it's worth quite a bit extra to get someone who is so happy with what they're paid that you increase retention and don't have to spend time hiring replacements as often. It can be one of the great parts of negotiating with someone located in a much higher paid location.