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I think it is important to distinguish between external and internal recruiters. External recruiters are trying to intermediate a hot labor market. From my ex

I think it is important to distinguish between external and internal recruiters. External recruiters are trying to intermediate a hot labor market. From my experience, many of them are dishonest. They will say anything, including outright lies, in order to get you to start talking to them, so they can shop you to another company. For external recruiters, I would simplify this blog post to just don't talk to external recruiters. Whether you are hiring for a position, or looking for a job, don't talk to external recruiters. Internal recruiters are different. They represent a company. Everything they say and do is on behalf of a company and they will act accordingly. For internal recruiters, it's generally fine to answer the question as "this is my salary requirement". Internal recruiters deal with a lot of candidates and want to know early on if a candidate is a non-starter for salary reasons. Also, for internal recruiters, both sides of the negotiation already have a lot of information. Glassdoor gives you a rough picture of salaries at the company you are talking to. And glassdoor also gives the internal recruiter a rough picture of the salaries that your last company offered.

czep 11y ago
Dude, internal recruiters are on a 6 month contract, they have no more loyalty to the company than the water cooler repair man. They get paid to undercut you. If you reveal your salary to them, it's basically like handing them a personal check which they will cash in for a week in Tahoe. As for glassdoor, have you ever posted your salary there? Any of your friends? Ok let me rephrase: do you think it is a random sample, or could it potentially be biased?
- akerl_ 11y ago
  That's a bold statement. Are you saying that some, a majority, or most of companies are hiring recruiting staff on 6 month contracts? I'd be curious to see the underlying data here, because I feel like especially in the small company / startup space, either no internal recruiting staff exist (you're being recruited by some manager/engineer who also handles recruiting for their team) or they're hiring somebody full-time to bring in talent, on a contract that includes the terms "equity" and "long vesting term"
  - czep 11y ago
    I'm trying to counteract what I consider a naive assumption that internal recruiters are more aligned with your interests or the firm's interests than are external recruiters. In a startup, yes, you are more likely to be talking with HMs directly, in which case they probably don't have access to the rigid job tables and classifications that professional recruiters use. They are also more able to tailor a job req for a specific candidate so they don't have to stick to a rigid salary range. At the same time, they also probably have limited budget to work with, so your ability to negotiate will eventually hit a wall because they simply can't afford to pay that much. In medium and large companies, I think that recruiting is largely a revolving door. They work on contract, they are in it for themselves, and their primary motivation is to close deals fast and pay you the bare minimum they can to close the deal. I merely wish to warn that you shouldn't distinguish internal from external recruiters. The main point being that in this negotiation, you can't trust anyone but yourself. Focus on impressing the hell out of whomever makes the decision, then you can bargain for a better deal.
- landryraccoon 11y ago
  Glassdoor requires you to post your own salary to view the salaries of others (unless that policy has changed recently). So if you're browsing a lot of glassdoor salaries, you've probably posted your own.
  - tomp 11y ago
    I interpret that differently - that most of the people that posted their salary lied. Myself, for example, I've never posted my salary because I've always worked for companies so small that the employer could easily identify me. So if I wanted to browse the salaries, I would just make up a salary (around the existing Glassdoor average) for a big company (Intel, Google, JPMorgan, ...)
notahacker 11y ago
External recruiters are normally compensated by a percentage of your first year's salary, so disclosing a salary requirement to them is actually usually less likely to decrease your earnings than disclosing it to an internal recruiter. The internal recruiter is never going to offer you more than your salary requirement unless you get a better offer, whereas the external recruiter will be quite happy to hint that the hiring company might be able to budget for more if they don't think you're less likely to be hired at a higher rate. Deal with external recruiters if they're offering you jobs with higher prospective salaries than you're able to find from your own enquiries, and don't if they don't. External recruiters make huge amount of money placing people in positions they could have easily applied to themselves, but they also find out about positions you're unlikely to find simply by looking.
- flinty 11y ago
  What's a good starting point trying to find internal recruiters?
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Normally they find you when you send the company a job application and it goes - directly or indirectly - into their inbox
lsc 11y ago
>just don't talk to external recruiters. See, my experience? external recruiters (and body shops/contract to hire gigs) are a great way to get your foot in the door when you don't quite have the skills or experience required, or when there's something else wrong with you that prevents you from being really good. In general, good people won't take jobs through body shops and external recruiters. Most advice here, including yours is for people who are really good. And if you are really good, that's great advice. ignore external recruiters, body shops, and contract-to-hire positions; You should have no trouble doing way better through your contacts. But... do you know what this means? this means that departments that hire through body shops and external recruiters tend to get employees who aren't very good. This can be an opportunity, sometimes. That's the thing. if you're an ordinary run of the mill person and not some industry giant, say, and you're having a hard time because of personal issues, or because you made some poor career choices and need some time to catch up, or because your brain just refuses to work correctly? Deliberately targeting external recruiters and contract-to-hire jobs can be a good way to find a job where you won't be holding the team back; where your mediocre plodding (or where your earnest efforts at recovery) will be enough to make the employer happy, and sometimes even to shine. It will get you six months to a year where you get paid decently and where other people seem to think you are really helpful (which is really important to me.) where you can get yourself together to the point where you can handle a real job again. I found myself in that situation recently; I was in a pretty bad place mentally, and simply wasn't able to perform up to a level that would be acceptable on the sort of team I'd normally work on. I tried, and someone I knew gave me a work from home gig. I put in, literally like five hours a week. I mean, I'm not going to lie about my hours, but without someone standing right there, i wasn't in a state where I could get much of anything done. (Depression seems... so counterproductive. So I feel shitty, right? but then I don't want to do anything that might make me feel better because I feel shitty. what the fuck, right?) But yeah. I put my resume on dice, and let external recruiters and body shops call me all day. I interviewed a lot, which was fun; I found that I wasn't a senior devops person, even if I am a senior sysadmin. I eventually landed where I am now, in an environment where, in my degraded state, I was not the best on the team, but I was far from the worst. I had a manager who was cool with me saying "Hey, I'm distracted. Get me back on track" - and yeah, I'm still at the job now. I think my performance is improving with my general mental state; I'm almost six months in, and it was exactly what I needed. That's the thing. You can't outright say "Uh, hey guys, I'm kinda broken. I need an easy job I can do while I get myself together." - As far as I can tell, the best way to signal that sort of thing? talk to those external recruiters; to those body shops. They'll fix you up with a job that pays slightly more than you'd get full time for the same job, but where standards are dramatically lower.

czep 11y ago

Dude, internal recruiters are on a 6 month contract, they have no more loyalty to the company than the water cooler repair man. They get paid to undercut you. If you reveal your salary to them, it's basically like handing them a personal check which they will cash in for a week in Tahoe. As for glassdoor, have you ever posted your salary there? Any of your friends? Ok let me rephrase: do you think it is a random sample, or could it potentially be biased?

akerl_ 11y ago
That's a bold statement. Are you saying that some, a majority, or most of companies are hiring recruiting staff on 6 month contracts? I'd be curious to see the underlying data here, because I feel like especially in the small company / startup space, either no internal recruiting staff exist (you're being recruited by some manager/engineer who also handles recruiting for their team) or they're hiring somebody full-time to bring in talent, on a contract that includes the terms "equity" and "long vesting term"
- czep 11y ago
  I'm trying to counteract what I consider a naive assumption that internal recruiters are more aligned with your interests or the firm's interests than are external recruiters. In a startup, yes, you are more likely to be talking with HMs directly, in which case they probably don't have access to the rigid job tables and classifications that professional recruiters use. They are also more able to tailor a job req for a specific candidate so they don't have to stick to a rigid salary range. At the same time, they also probably have limited budget to work with, so your ability to negotiate will eventually hit a wall because they simply can't afford to pay that much. In medium and large companies, I think that recruiting is largely a revolving door. They work on contract, they are in it for themselves, and their primary motivation is to close deals fast and pay you the bare minimum they can to close the deal. I merely wish to warn that you shouldn't distinguish internal from external recruiters. The main point being that in this negotiation, you can't trust anyone but yourself. Focus on impressing the hell out of whomever makes the decision, then you can bargain for a better deal.
landryraccoon 11y ago
Glassdoor requires you to post your own salary to view the salaries of others (unless that policy has changed recently). So if you're browsing a lot of glassdoor salaries, you've probably posted your own.
- tomp 11y ago
  I interpret that differently - that most of the people that posted their salary lied. Myself, for example, I've never posted my salary because I've always worked for companies so small that the employer could easily identify me. So if I wanted to browse the salaries, I would just make up a salary (around the existing Glassdoor average) for a big company (Intel, Google, JPMorgan, ...)

notahacker 11y ago

External recruiters are normally compensated by a percentage of your first year's salary, so disclosing a salary requirement to them is actually usually less likely to decrease your earnings than disclosing it to an internal recruiter. The internal recruiter is never going to offer you more than your salary requirement unless you get a better offer, whereas the external recruiter will be quite happy to hint that the hiring company might be able to budget for more if they don't think you're less likely to be hired at a higher rate. Deal with external recruiters if they're offering you jobs with higher prospective salaries than you're able to find from your own enquiries, and don't if they don't. External recruiters make huge amount of money placing people in positions they could have easily applied to themselves, but they also find out about positions you're unlikely to find simply by looking.

flinty 11y ago
What's a good starting point trying to find internal recruiters?
- notahacker 11y ago
  Normally they find you when you send the company a job application and it goes - directly or indirectly - into their inbox

lsc 11y ago

>just don't talk to external recruiters. See, my experience? external recruiters (and body shops/contract to hire gigs) are a great way to get your foot in the door when you don't quite have the skills or experience required, or when there's something else wrong with you that prevents you from being really good. In general, good people won't take jobs through body shops and external recruiters. Most advice here, including yours is for people who are really good. And if you are really good, that's great advice. ignore external recruiters, body shops, and contract-to-hire positions; You should have no trouble doing way better through your contacts. But... do you know what this means? this means that departments that hire through body shops and external recruiters tend to get employees who aren't very good. This can be an opportunity, sometimes. That's the thing. if you're an ordinary run of the mill person and not some industry giant, say, and you're having a hard time because of personal issues, or because you made some poor career choices and need some time to catch up, or because your brain just refuses to work correctly? Deliberately targeting external recruiters and contract-to-hire jobs can be a good way to find a job where you won't be holding the team back; where your mediocre plodding (or where your earnest efforts at recovery) will be enough to make the employer happy, and sometimes even to shine. It will get you six months to a year where you get paid decently and where other people seem to think you are really helpful (which is really important to me.) where you can get yourself together to the point where you can handle a real job again. I found myself in that situation recently; I was in a pretty bad place mentally, and simply wasn't able to perform up to a level that would be acceptable on the sort of team I'd normally work on. I tried, and someone I knew gave me a work from home gig. I put in, literally like five hours a week. I mean, I'm not going to lie about my hours, but without someone standing right there, i wasn't in a state where I could get much of anything done. (Depression seems... so counterproductive. So I feel shitty, right? but then I don't want to do anything that might make me feel better because I feel shitty. what the fuck, right?) But yeah. I put my resume on dice, and let external recruiters and body shops call me all day. I interviewed a lot, which was fun; I found that I wasn't a senior devops person, even if I am a senior sysadmin. I eventually landed where I am now, in an environment where, in my degraded state, I was not the best on the team, but I was far from the worst. I had a manager who was cool with me saying "Hey, I'm distracted. Get me back on track" - and yeah, I'm still at the job now. I think my performance is improving with my general mental state; I'm almost six months in, and it was exactly what I needed. That's the thing. You can't outright say "Uh, hey guys, I'm kinda broken. I need an easy job I can do while I get myself together." - As far as I can tell, the best way to signal that sort of thing? talk to those external recruiters; to those body shops. They'll fix you up with a job that pays slightly more than you'd get full time for the same job, but where standards are dramatically lower.