Last 3 years I spent enormous amount time for interviewing and talking to different big companies. I got offers from top companies. But as soon as I passed HC, i started discussing compensation with recruiter. All of them are simply trying to trick you (really in a bad sense) and pay as less as possible, lying to you directly even if you provide actual data. My impression is that people inside company might be the best, but recruiter representing a company behaves similarly to drug dealer from the street. Why do such respectful companies as facebook, google or amazon create so negative impression about themself? Do you have similar experience?
They have no incentive to pay you less but they do have incentive to hire you and the comp committee does have incentive to pay you less. So recruiters are middle men to oil the usually rough experience between the two. Hence toning down your expectations is the best thing they can do to prepare you for the low-ball offers Comp committee gives them. It's not a easy role to lie and present offers that are obviously going to be rejected and then get measured on number of acceptances you could achieve although the number one thing that affects it (comp) is not in their control. So bottom line, I don't take it personally. I tell them the number I want and I hold steadfast on it. Only then they can convince Comp team that I'm about to walk away. If you don't show competing offers or give a indication that you are going to accept eventually they won't have the tools to negotiate a better deal for you. So yes, to get the best deal for yourself make friendship with recruiter and give him all the tools necessary to go fight for you. If you are rude with them or show that you are not interested in taking the position they will simply not waste their energy to fight with Comp committee which can never work to your advantage
^ This
Wow, thanks for explanation! Now it does make sense for me why my recruiters behaved like this. Based on your words, it sounds like super shit work.
A lot of recruiting agencies get a percentage of the salary so it’s in their best interest to go as high as possible.
Don’t deal with recruiting agencies, those are for bottom feeders. Talk directly to the company. 🍆
So true Microsoft
Get multiple offers, tell them you know your worth, research blind and levels.fyi, and be ready to walk away. It’s just like negotiating anything else. I’ve had good and bad recruiters. Some feel like used car sales people. But it’s always funny to hear them say that their amount is the best they can pull off. But then you get a better offer and suddenly tc goes up by 5%. It also helps to interview well, it makes them want you more. And as for those people who go to work at google for less, they are enabling google to pull this on more people. I wish people would push harder to avoid this situation.
Yeah, you are dealing with someone very experienced at salary negotiation at that point. There is a reason they don’t have managers handle the salary negotiations with their new hires. Another factor here might be that your interview wasn’t strong enough to justify the top of the range. Sometimes recruiters will ask me if I’m willing to go a bit higher for a candidate. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes no so just because you are getting an offer does not mean they will give you the top of the range. I only want someone coming in near the top of the range if I am pretty sure they are going to excel at that level and probably be operating at the next one. If the interview and test data tells me they’re coming in at the middle of that range or we stretched a bit to make an offer at that level, Then I don’t want them coming in at the very top of the range. A counter offer tells me maybe we missed something during the interviews and yeah I might reconsider going higher.
It makes sense about interview performance.
Internal recruiters at most places, not just FAANG, have an incentive to low ball you. They represent the company and their job is to hire you as cheaply as they can get away with. It is my belief that negotiation skills are something every software engineer should work on developing.
^Ignore
^Troll
Do you realize how many people want to work for Google? We hire less than 2% of referals
But picking up the best people and humiliating them by low salary is not long term solution. I know several my friends who joined G recently and realised that they were f.cked by recruiter. Obviously when you are inside, you find info about salaries quickly.
Do recruiters get bonuses if they successfully hire on low wages?
I think so, but if company is respectful and wants to earn trust, it needs to be more careful to choose its representatives. Who wants to deal with garbage drug dealer recruiter?
Hmm, yeah I'm sorry you had such a negative experience.