Recruiters 24

<Frustration Alert>

Had a phone screening yesterday afternoon with a recruiter for a major enterprise software company. Went through the usual drill and then we came down to The Question: what’s your current salary?

Now, first of all what you’re earning from your current employer is only mildly relevant to what the prospective one should be paying you because each situation is different. Your role is different; your compensation package is different; your benefits are different. Even if you have the same title, your duties could be wildly different and so should the compensation; you’re lucky if you’re talking about the same bowl of fruit, much less comparing apples to apples.

(It’s made even more ludicrous when your current job is in a different market, although that’s not the case this time.)

And then there’s the contractor-vs-FTE shift. It’s just patently absurd.

But what completely ate my lunch was the recruiter explaining to me that this company (which is almost as large as its CEO’s ego) has to have my current comp because “we have to justify any increase over what you're making now.”

Well, it’s not an “increase”, because they’re not paying me now. And to say that any offer they make is pegged to whatever you’re being paid by a different company, in different circumstances, for a different job is completely whacked. What if I were unemployed? Would they have to justify paying me 20% more than unemployment insurance? Or 10% more than what I was making at my last job, which might have been years ago in another state? What if I were waiting tables? Or clerking at Target?

Look—you don’t pay someone for what they did before they got to your organization, you pay them for what they’re contributing to your success now. You pay what the job is worth to you. (Which means that someone with advanced degrees or years of experience in X typically doesn’t get paid for those qualifications unless advanced degrees or years of experience in X are germane to doing this particular job.)

But I have to say I don’t find it particularly surprising coming from this company. When I worked for them eight years ago they were every bit as blinkered, bureaucratic and tight-fisted as they’re coming off now.

What’s interesting is that, in the process of sending them my CV, I saw what the top of the salary range is. And it’s a whole lot more than 20% over what I’m getting now. But clearly, unless I were already making 90% of that figure, I wouldn’t ever see it from them.

Well, I’m not going to worry about it—since every offer extended has to be approved by the above-mentioned CEO, it’ll be a long, long time before this might ever be an issue.