Recruiting 101: Setting yourself up for Salary Success

Hey everybody, welcome back to Recruiting 101 with Camille and Kierra. Recruiting 101 is dedicated to helping candidates understand the process from a recruiter’s perspective. In this segment we’ll be sharing tips and tricks as we experience them. And our topic for this week is salary. Yeah. So one of the things we do when we are working with a candidate is we ask about a salary range.

It’s really important that you’re able to give a recruiter your salary range just so we can target roles that are within that. We don’t ever want to give you a position that is completely out of your targeted range. So we feel that it’s important when you give us a range that isn’t super wide.

Like giving us between a 10 to $5,000 range would be great for us to know exactly what you’re looking for and what types of roles we can send you. Just having such a big range is kind of hard as far as what types of roles to send you and what your experience is in that range. So I think that’s a really important piece to helping us help you.

Definitely. And I think knowing what you’re looking for to keep up with the lifestyle that you have and to be able to pay your bills is important. So even before you start for your job search and the interview process, make sure you know what you’re looking for, like the absolute minimum what you can take and what would kind of be a comfortable salary for you.

And making sure to voice that with confidence to your recruiter, making sure that it has to be above this salary in order for you to make the move just so it’s clear to them if they do get to the offer process and they offer you a salary and you said, “Oh, I could take between like 50 grand and a hundred grand” and they offer you 55. But you really weren’t planning on taking anything less than 70. But what you gave them was kind of an unsure answer, so they were just going off of what they told you.

So just make sure that you have your ducks in a row, you have that all figured out before you start, and then just kind of display that with confidence to the recruiter and just make sure you know what you want and it’s very clear throughout the whole process just so everyone’s on the same page.

Yeah. And I think transparency is really key. If you give us a range and then when you get to the interview process and ask for much more, that could hinder how you do as a candidate because usually we know the top amount that the client that we’re working with can give. So we don’t ever want to stray you in the wrong direction.

And if we know what that top price is, we will be transparent with you. We want you to get the most out of your salary as well. So I think just working together on that is super important. But also researching like what are people getting in that role that you’re applying for? Do you know what other people are making?

I think that’s all super important too, just to know kind of what that range should be. And also will make you better prepared for what types of offers you’d be getting offered. Yeah, and definitely do some research based on your location, especially if it’s remote too. See where the company is located cause that can all change upon the salary as well.

So just doing your research, seeing what that average pay is for that job title, and just kind of compare it to the cost of living in your area, any bills that you have to pay, just see what would work for you. And then another interesting question that I often get, and I’m sure you do as well, is when do you bring up a salary question in the interview process?

I know I have brought it up at many different times as a candidate or as a recruiter myself. It just kind of depends on the role, the hiring manager, the company that you’re working with. So I think if you are looking for a specific answer within like the first phone screen, sometimes you may be able to get a good range, but sometimes they’re not able to disclose that.

So I think just asking questions about the role, the responsibilities, what type of level role, is it like an individual contributor, a manager level role? And sometimes you’ll be able to do some research with that information and kind of look around on the internet and see what range that would be for that role,

get a good idea if that’s something you’d be able to move forward with. Yeah. And like most people will be able to give you a range on what they’re looking for to hire for that role. But there’s also just a lot of different ways you can be really respectful about asking that comp question. I know it can kind of be sometimes an uncomfortable question to ask, but there’s just different ways you can word it

like “What is the salary of this position?” You can word it in different ways that’s respectful, but also gives you a little bit of a better idea of what that range is going to be. What has your experience been with that? Like what ways would you word that question if someone was looking to ask about a salary range?

Yeah. I would usually wait till the end of the interview after I have asked like all of my questions about culture, like job responsibilities, all of that stuff. I would just ask that I had one last question, “I know what I’m looking for in terms of salary or hourly rate. Do you have in mind of what the salary range would be?

Just so I can make sure that this is something I’d be able to move forward with. I don’t want to waste your time.” And then they’d be able- and I have, when I was a candidate, like I did end quite a few phone screens with that. And we weren’t able to move forward because what they were able to offer was not what I was able to have at all.

So it has definitely happened and it has saved a lot of time. So I think just waiting to the very last question, just ask it very respectfully. Usually they’re able to give you a range. And if it’s like a little less than what you’re looking for, I would still move through, still move forward with it just because there can always be like bonuses or increases, like they can always make up for that.

And you never know what the end offer will be. But if it’s like drastically like 10 grand less or like 20 grand or something like that less than what you’re looking for, then definitely just respectfully decline. But stay in touch. Maybe another opportunity that will pay higher will come along.

Yeah, I do think it’s important that you’re checking that after the first interview because you don’t want to waste your time, you don’t want to waste their time. So I think that’s a really good point. And it just tells you like what other positions in that field are going to be around. And then you can have that as a kind of a comparison as you’re moving forward.

Did you have anything else to add about salaries today? I don’t think so, do you? I don’t think so. So thank you so much for joining us today. Remember to check out all of our content on talentinsights.hirewell.com and follow us on LinkedIn for more info and content. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Bye everybody.