Heres the situation:
A headhunter calls me and sets me up with an interview. In the interview, the guy asks me what base salary range I am looking for. I tell him X amount of dollars + incentives. He sez that most likely his company might come close to X, within $2,000.(It is important to remember that the guy I interviewed with is NOT going to be my boss)
I get a call from the headhunter. He sez that the base salary I am looking for is way too high, that the company is going to offer me $10,000 LESS than what I had in mind. I said no way.
She sez she is going to withdraw me from consideration. I said go ahead.
Something does not look or sound kosher to me here.
Is my headhunter playing games with my head? Is she trying to impress this new client by getting someone to them on the cheap?
Is the company lowballing me? Or did the guy who I interviewed with just not know what the position paid? Or was he too afraid to tell me what it really paid?
Is it worth my while to call the company itself and make sure there is no misunderstanding? I am in no way obligated to the headhunter.
IIRC headhunters get paid a percentage of the final salary agreed upon. It is in the headhunter’s interest to get the highest salary for you possible.
If the headhunter gets a flat rate then it is in the headhunters interest to dump you off their list ASAP.
There could be miscommunication here somewhere or the company is trying to lowball you. Or you could really be asking for more money than you are worth.
I say call the interviewer and politely ask about the situation. It’s really the only way to know for sure.
Usually when a headhunter is involved, you do NOT discuss salary with the potential employer. It’s odd that it came up during the interview. If the HH is doing their job, they will find out the company’s and your desired salary range BEFORE scheduling an interview. If the ranges are too far apart, they shouldn’t bother sending you.
If I were you, I’d ask the HH why they wasted your time by sending you to a client who couldn’t afford your salary range. I would NOT ask the client about it.
It’s true that they usually get paid as a % of your salary, but if you don’t get hired because your price is too high, they get nothing. Better to get a % of say $40K than no % of $50K. Also, they might be willing to put you in at a lower salary to get themselves established with a new client.
I always make my pay requirement clear before agreeing to an interview.
You probably just got low-balled by a another client the headhunter recommended who asked for a much lower salary. I run into that all the time in my field. I have an MBA and generally, your salary is supposed to be based on how good of a school you went to.
Harvard, Stanford, or Whorton = $$$$
Joe’s Bar, Grill, and Business School = a lot less
Yet, when a company in my area (San Diego) is looking to hire MBAs, they are typically naive to this fact, and assume they are all equal, so they may go off salary, which is truely stupid in my opinion. Thus, the local state school which churns out tons of MBA graduates each year, floods the market with cheap labor.
The problem is, the headhunter may be incentivized to get you a high salary, but the human resources person at the other end is incentivized to get a person who can do the job at a low salary. And the human resource person doesn’t do the job in question so they have no basis to rate the quality of the people who they may be getting referred to them by the headhunter.
See, Yarster, if anyone had doubted that you were an MBA, those doubts would have been allayed by your use of the classic MBA-speak non-word “incentivized”–twice in one sentence even.
I used to work for ATKearney and Frank Lynn and Associates. Thanks for the moment of nostalgia.
Sorry…it’s like a bad disease with no cure 