How do you handle this part of the initial negotiation?
1. Ask them what the compensation is for the role earlier in the interview process. If you are feeling bold/pushy yourself you can start by asking them to explain their compensation model for finding a candidate and discuss whether or not they are working for candidates or the company. (This gets recruiters on edge making them less likely to look for firm numbers from you)
2. Start by asking about what they offer in non-salary compensation, and be as detailed as possible. There are big differences in equity, health care coverage, 401K match, etc... work your way up to salary.
3. Use your current compensation (TC) to stress that you want a reasonable percentage increase... TC should include estimates for how much your health insurance costs, bonus, perks at work, severance (conferences, food/ beverage, company functions, etc).
4. Use the stack overflow developer survey to figure out roughly what your comp should be. Focus on getting to the high end of the salary range. If you good they should have to "think about it"
Also going to throw this out there... dumb companies worry about how much someone will cost, smart companies worry about the value that someone will bring. So if you keep on running into this you should probably look at different companies.
1. "It's too early in the process for me to discuss compensation. If we both decide it's a good fit, then I'm sure we can work out reasonable compensation."
2. If they press, I reiterate. Sometimes repeatedly. Sometimes I ask "is salary expectation one of the criteria you use to decide who you'd like to work with?" If the answer is 'yes', then I politely decline to continue.
Sometimes, they'll say "We have to know your salary expectations to continue". That's a big red flag for me, and I decline there, too.
Last: If they're snippy about it, I sometimes ask "What's your budget for the position?". I've never had someone actually tell me.
Fundamentally, it's a negotiation, and the other party is trying to get information to leverage in the negotiation. Don't give it to them. Keep your power.
"Hi, thanks for reaching out. I'm very happy where I currently am. Lemme know if you can beat ${2X FAANG Total Comp), 5 wks vacation, and fully WFH (before COVID was a thing), with a great collaborative culture dealing with scaling highly available systems. Cheers!"
Usually, the response is, "wow, great gig. We will circle back at a later time."
For me, I find things usually go the other way. I could spend a lot of time working through the process, only to find out that I'm too expensive for the company. I don't need the frustration of working through the process at several companies just to find out that none of them will pay me.
That phrasing works really well with internal recruiters.
In my personal experience, recruiters that asked this did not have a serious potential for a new job. That's because recruiters are either 'retained' or the equivalent of bounty hunters. The latter are the kind that have the least information/contact with the hiring manager and are just trying to get the most number of applicants. It's a hustle, and it should be shamed within industry.
One should ask if they're retained first, in the initial reply (they may lie, such as all the recruiters I spoke to for a role at Qualcomm). If they aren't, the conversation is likely fruitless, because their incentive is to get your resume to the hiring manager (who they have not spoken to) and not to fill the position. This means they have very little information about the job or team or its potential compensation.
To contrast this, some recruiters are plugged into the team and trying to actually fill a role that the hiring manager is too busy to take a part in the search. These folks are great, they usually are extremely insightful and up front about the compensation if you ask.
And more importantly, don't tell someone what you're currently being paid - ever. It's illegal for a company to ask in California, and should be illegal everywhere. If its a required field on the form, put the market value + 15% or something like that.
I wonder, though, if the recruiters are asking because they've lost their feel for the market. Maybe they're trying to find out what realistic salaries are so that they know what to get for the people they're placing.
As soon as you ask for something in the higher tier, the expectations change. If desperate for a job, you can ask for a lower tier, something like 3800 or 9400. The higher your tier, the more people have to approve the salary, the more complex the process is, and the higher their expectations before they fire you. I got my current job asking for a lower tier, and they hired me 12 hours after the interview.
Benefits are much more complex but usually non-negotiable with recruiters. Whatever benefits is usually not worth the salary change. I normally care about things like no open office over insurance, or having a good keyboard and work chair over gym plans. I've seen drastic changes like $2000 salary drop in exchange for $50 in parking benefits, so they're usually not worth bothering with.
Sometimes recruiters counter offer with a more narrow range. Sometimes they respond by saying we have positions in that range. If they ask me to become more narrow immediately, I respond that is a function of the interview process
PS. I’m one of the founders of http://levels.fyi and we help folks out with this quite a bit
Add 10-15%
You may add word "negotiable"
If recruiter insists on knowing your current slary - lie with ~above number. It's not their business knowing.
Also:
Recruiter is never your friend (even is he is presenting himself this way). Everything you tell him, may and will be used by him to increase possibility of him getting commissions. Your career and compensation level is his lowest priority.
What one recruiter (a good friend) told me is that I should just put a high number, because he charges commission based on the salary offered.
Also negotiable means they have to negotiate. Expect it to be 10% lower than the offered number. I've had someone negotiate as far as 33% when the offer was already very low but that kind of low balling destroys trust.
and then after three or so more iterations of that:
"I appreciate your persistence but there's truly no single thing, including salary, that would convince me to accept or pass on an offer"
IMHO I'd rather have the interview and negotiation experience than the time back. Practice makes perfect.