How do you get recruiters to disclose pay for a position?

thomas_

Every once in s while I’m contacted by recruiters for positions.  I’m not really looking at taking a new position for various reasons, but I am interested in learning what the pay is for the position.  So far, I’ve been asking what the pay is for the position and most of them respond back with the standard “it depends on your qualifications and years of experience”.  At that point, I don’t respond which doesn’t really help me in getting the pay range for the position.

Any advice?  I’m thinking about responding with something like “I’m not entertaining new offers of employment unless the pay for the position is $x” with $x being a significant bump in pay, but not unreasonable given my experience, certs, etc.

UnixGuy

I insist on it. I tell them something along the lines of "..I need to know the range they have on offer to save both our time".

If they ask you how much do you want to, just stick to your ground and insist they tell you. That's what I do anyway..

JDMurray

This is because the recruiter is trying to stock his stables with horses before he has customers for his horses. He can't tell you a salary range because he has no job requisitions yet. Most requiters in this spot will just give a bogus salary range, like "$65K to $140K," to hook you while they are also fishing for business clients. 

PC509

I like working and having a job I'm not really wanting to leave yet. Because I can tell them that if I don't know, then I'm not interested and just leave it at that. If I were needing a job, then I wouldn't care. 

At this point in my career, I'm done playing games. Recruiters are a last resort, and when they start playing games like that, I just say "No, thank you" and leave it at that. I don't have time for those shenanigans. Same with cold calls with sales people. Quit playing games. If they can't be up front with things, I automatically have a huge distrust with them and that's not a way to do business. 

Be up front, and I'll all ears. If I can trust you, I'll go out of my way to help you out. I'll give you preferential treatment. I constantly have recruiters contacting me for various positions, sometimes multiple for the same position. If ONE were honest and upfront about things, I'd go straight to them. I'd go to them to ask what positions that they were recruiting for. Sadly, that never happens. 

In my opinion, they are predators on those that need a job. For those that are already employed and paid well, you can see how much they are preying and taking advantage of others with really bad tactics. 

thomas_

UnixGuy said:

I insist on it. I tell them something along the lines of "..I need to know the range they have on offer to save both our time".

If they ask you how much do you want to, just stick to your ground and insist they tell you. That's what I do anyway..

I think I'll try this out and see what happens. I don't really have anything to lose.

JDMurray said:

He can't tell you a salary range because he has no job requisitions yet.  

Most of the recruiters are contacting me about specific positions and job titles. Do you think they would make up the requisition just to get a pool of candidates? I can see this being the case if they wanted to do a "Meet and greet" or a phone call to "get to know me".

PC509 said:

If ONE were honest and upfront about things, I'd go straight to them. I'd go to them to ask what positions that they were recruiting for. Sadly, that never happens. 

Yeah, it would be nice to have something like.

DiffieHellman173

Recruiters should know the salary range for the position. I've noticed with contract positions, that the hiring manager is the one that can allow or deny the salary within that range. That being said the recruiter knows the range and should be able to give you at least that. Something like "What is the potential starting salary for this position?"

Danielm7

I've always viewed the ability to be extremely blunt about salary requests with a 3rd party recruiter to be one of the main benefits of even going through one. If they won't even tell me the salary ahead of time it's not even worth talking with them most of the time. 

JDMurray

thomas_ said:

Most of the recruiters are contacting me about specific positions and job titles. Do you think they would make up the requisition just to get a pool of candidates? I can see this being the case if they wanted to do a "Meet and greet" or a phone call to "get to know me".

Recruiters don't wait until they have the full job requisition details from a customer before they start looking for candidates. Remember that recruiters are salesmen to two groups of customers--hiring managers and job candidates--making recruiters brokers-in-the-middle. These two groups of customers are rarely in-synch with their timing or needs and coordination between the two groups is part of the "Art of Headhunting." Also, being salesmen, a recruiter will rarely tell you anything that will spoil the sale--including information that you need to make the best decision for yourself. Moral: Never believe that a salesman is on your side.