[brendangregg]

I'm sure these reasons happen, however, the most common reason recruiters don't talk salary to me seems to be that they know it is below market, and want time to sell all the other benefits. I treat it as a warning sign of a very low salary.

It also often wastes everyone's time. After going through multiple rounds of communication, the salary is finally revealed: often way too low, even after hearing about the benefits.

Other recruiters will talk salary early, and those jobs are usually the ones that pay well.

I don't waste time (mine and theirs) talking to recruiters who don't share salary information (expectations or ranges). There's a major tech company that needed my expertise (systems performance), for whom I never got past the recruiters because they wouldn't talk salary. (After several months, I don't think they ever filled that role.)

This all doesn't matter much to me now, as I'm at Netflix and very happy. Netflix does talk salary expectations.