[ryguytilidie]

Recruiter here. I think: "The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter." is pretty simplistic and naive. You simply have to figure out how to get what you want. If you want 180 and currently make 140 and a recruiter asks what you make, just say something like "my expectation for my next role is around 180". You say that and you both probably get what you want and save a lot of back and forth.

[skewart]

Exactly. There is never a reason to tell anyone your current salary, just what you're looking for now.

[pc86]

Not a recruiter but I've gotten all but my current job through recruiters.

I think the quoted moral still applies - you obviously have to disclose what you want to earn if you expect to actually earn that. However, what I made at my last job had zero bearing on my expected salary at my current job. If a recruiter is just trying to find out what I want, they can ask. However, I think more often than not they're getting paid on the spread and if they can place me in a job with a cap of $180 for $150, they'll do so and pocket whatever their percentage of the spread is.[0]

[0] I know this isn't how all recruiters are paid, but many are.

[ryguytilidie]

While I'm mostly an internal recruiting manager, I've signed a lot of these deals and have a lot of recruiter friends and know their general contract structure. I do not know of anyone and have never seen a recruiter compensation package where they were paid on spread. That just seems like an incentive to hire someone other than the best person for the job. Seems really strange to me.

[pc86]

As recently as 2010 Aerotek paid their recruiters exclusively on a percentage of spread.

[pmiller2]

Exactly! I wish more recruiters thought like this. There's absolutely no point for either the recruiter or the candidate to go through an interview process only to get an offer that won't be accepted. For instance, I'm working at a great place right now, and it would take a significant bump in salary to get me to even consider moving.

[gedy]

Thanks for the insight. Though most of your peers I've dealt with only frame it as "what's your current salary" not expectations.

[kafkaesq]

I think he meant questions about current (or past) salary.

[ryguytilidie]

I get that. I'm just saying that this is a great situation to basically answer a different question and give the person the exact data you want to give them. Everybody wins.