It's an interesting article but I hope it would not just dismiss wasting time: > The main question recruiters ask up front about money is: “What are your compe

It's an interesting article but I hope it would not just dismiss wasting time: > The main question recruiters ask up front about money is: “What are your compensation expectations?” They claim that it’s because they want to make sure that you’re not so far off in your expectations that interviewing with that company would be a waste of time. This is a nonsense reason — very few companies pay so much below market that it would be a nonstarter I down want to earn "market" or "average". I want to earn what makes sense for me, regardless of how much above (or below, although that would be weird) market it may be. Or I want my conditions to be specific enough that the whole thing is worth it (benefits in terms of remote, medical, etc). I also don't want to waste time interviewing a lot if there's no minimum bar that's close to my goal. I can always say no, and the part of aligning interviews so that you get offers at the same time makes a lot of sense, although it can be hard, since it's easy to overload yourself with interviews. Every second wasted preparing for interviews is somewhat wasted, regardless of the experience you gain from it, so you want to minimize it. One of the biggest keys is probably leaving at your own pace so that you feel perfectly comfortable saying no. "No" gets you renegotiations pretty fast because you've made the sale. You just don't want to keep making the sale many times fruitlessly. There's also a lot of "right time and right place" going on with interviews, so being open to change and knowing what you really want is important. There's a point where you also know your value enough that you don't have to play so many games or stress that much. It works quite well and gives one job satisfaction.