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Discussion on: Reasons Why Your Technical Recruiting Emails Are Failing

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webreaper profile image
Mark Otway

Given the broad range of salaries that could be applicable to the same role, depending on the candidate's experience and seniority, it's unlikely any quoted salary would be close to what was finally negotiated. So putting salary figures into these sorts of emails would be pointless - they'll almost always be fqntasy or irrelevant.

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shaunagordon profile image
Shauna Gordon

That is more a product of sloppy job postings than anything else. Several countries require salary ranges in their postings and use them to good effect, so it's certainly not impossible.

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ambroselittle profile image
Ambrose Little

Companies always know what their budget is for a role. They should share the range. Saves everyone a lot of time.

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webreaper profile image
Mark Otway

Perhaps. But it would usually be misleading. I've never started a role where I've been paid what the original recruiter said it was paying.

Also, whilst the OP talks about recruiters wasting candidates' time, the reverse is also true. Better to start talking turkey once you've established that both the candidate and the role are mutually suitable. If you just stick a high figure on, you'll get all sorts of chances. If you put a number that's too low, people will dismiss it out of hand when there may be plenty of headroom for negotiation.

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ambroselittle profile image
Ambrose Little

Hi, Mark. If you end up outside of an originally stated range (for the same, originally posted job/experience level), the company was misleading you or wasn't being honest with themselves. But the reality is that in the vast majority of cases, budgets are formed for hires in advance of posting them, having gone through an approval process, and so companies know what they expect to pay. Many companies have well-defined ranges/bands for particular salary grades that inform how much they "can" pay for a budgeted hire.

So they can say that range. In the "worst" case, they know their max, and they can say "up to NNN, depending on experience." Depending on the maturity of the company, that upper bound may be negotiable for the "right" person, but on average, it's not. And if a company isn't able to do this, I question the stability of the business itself. This is pretty basic accounting/fiduciary responsibility.

The truth is that it is and has been a candidates' market for a long time, with no end in sight. This means companies need to be more willing to waste time than candidates. Not sharing these real numbers up front is part of what is broken with current practices.

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phantomread profile image
phantomread

yeah, most of companies wouldn't give out their number yet many of them ask candidate's expected salary.

I think candidates should never ever tell a company their expected salary. Let them tell first.