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I was recently talking to a 3rd party recruiter who started asking me for detailed salary info of all my past jobs. I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable answering that, then when he pushed back I told him I’m legally not required to give him that info in my state (and the potential employer’s state.) He abruptly cut the call off and ghosted me.

I decided to apply to the company directly. They were happy to talk to me because my experience was a really good fit for them. I come to find out that the recruiter emailed them saying that I was a poor candidate and that he suggest they don’t talk to me. Luckily they didn’t listen to him.

I am also done with 3rd party recruiters.

[monksy]

I talked with a mortaging company that's pretty big after hearing a friend's experience. Got through with the first interview. A recruiter at a third party firm heard about this and called me up: "I thought I told you about this, do you want me to say some nice things about you?" I didn't understand what she was conning me into so I said yes. (This was mid morning. By late afternoon I get a call from the gmorgage people saying "hey you did great in the first interview but we're going to pass.")

Recruiters comment on that: "They keep passing on everyone I refer"

Ended up getting a job elsewhere, and the recruiter still hit me up on "do you have any referrals?"

[larkost]

It is ok that you did not feel comfortable with that, but pay negotiations are exactly why you would want to have a recruiter: they handle that for you, and are generally incentivized to get you as much money as they can since they generally get a percentage of your yearly salary as their pay. So by telling the recruiter you were not going to share that with them you were hamstringing them... of course they thought you were a bad candidate (for them).

It is a bit petty that they told the company that you were a poor candidate, but you seem to not understand what was happening. And it could have been they had already mentioned your name to them, and then had to explain why they suddenly were not representing you. I don't know, but that is a reasonable explanation.

I personally have had a mixed bag with recruiters: many I have dealt with are worthless in that they don't understand the jobs they are recruiting for (so give very bad matches to both sides), but I have been lucky twice and had recruiters give me great jobs and handle the pay negotiations so well that I probably got $20-40K/year more than I would have by myself (if I had somehow found those positions).

[throwaway6532]

>and are generally incentivized to get you as much money as they can since they generally get a percentage of your yearly salary as their pay

This is not quite true. They're optimizing for throughput, not max dollar value. If they optimized for the maximum amount of money they could get you that would come at the cost of their time which would lower their throughput of placing candidates and hence the maximum amount of money that they can personally earn in aggregate.

They'll still try to spin you that line though.

[pandaman]

The only reason a recruiter would ever negotiate your comp up is that you are asking way below market. Then they will indeed "negotiate" up to the lowest bound of the comp band for the position. Otherwise, it makes no sense to try to get a few grand more in commission at the cost of risking the whole placement. In fact, all recruiters I've ever worked with tried to negotiate me down instead of negotiating with the HM on my behalf.

[picture_view]

So the only good candidates for a recruiter are the ones willing to let their recruiter break the law and make a salary history a requirement for consideration?

WA state law makes it very clear as a candidate I don’t need to share salary information, and by some readings of the statute it’s illegal for them to even ask.

My most recent job is at a very large public company where the salaries are well published (levels.fyi) - there was no need for me to give a detailed salary history of all my recent jobs.

If the value-add of a recruiter is getting a better negotiated salary, what is the value-minus of putting another point of failure between me and a job I want. Surely it’s possible that over time the minuses are greater than the pluses.