Can You Negotiate with a Recruiter?

When you’re on the job hunt, and you’re fortunate enough to have landed a role, you obviously want to get the highest salary possible. So, it makes sense that you would want to know if you can negotiate that salary with a recruiter.

The difference between a straight higher through a company and a recruiter, is that there’s an extra layer involved in the hiring process.

If you’re interviewing directly with a company (which is becoming less common due to the legal benefits of outsourcing the hiring to agency recruiters) then you can bring up salary directly.

However, when you’re dealing with an external recruiter, how does that exactly work? Is this something that you have any control over and can negotiate?

You certainly can negotiate with a recruiter, sometimes. Let’s look at some of the times you can, and some of the times you can’t or shouldn’t. And we will also discuss

What Do You Want to Negotiate: Salary or Something Else?

First off, are you looking to negotiate salary or something else? While most people immediately think of salary as the main thing to negotiate, there are other considerations.

In addition to salary, there is the all important benefits package. Now, the issue is that most temp agencies will not offer any benefits package. They will only pay you a hourly salary. They might advertise things such as health insurance, retirement plans, etc…but they are all empty promises.

In rare instances, temp agencies will provide at-cost health insurance for long term members at an inflated price. I would always suggest that people avoid paying a staffing firm for health insurance as the principal owners of staffing agencies are unfortunately incredibly money hungry and will take as much money as possible from their workers.

If you’re working with a headhunter who is setting you up with a direct hire role, then that’s a difference caliber of role. Staffing agencies, for the most part, want to nickel and dime everything. So, long story short, you’re not going to get anything besides an hourly salary even if they promise it to you.

While it’s respectable to want a 401k, healthy insurance, and all other things…many staffing agencies will simply not provide these things. So, it’s not worth your time trying to negotiate. You should ask, but once you get a no, move on.

As a side note, if the agency doesn’t provide any benefits (which most don’t) then understand that they are making a maximum profit off of your labor—so you should seek a direct hire elsewhere ASAP and also take any full time offer with benefits that a client offers you directly.

Staffing agencies that place people on worksites on an hourly basis are predatory, sadly, and they profit off of the large scale disfunction in the economic environment (government funded non-profits that are incredibly inefficient, corporate companies that want to avoid paying benefits so they outsource to staffing firms, etc..)

If you want to negotiate salary, then yes that is something you can do.

When it comes to staffing agencies and temp agencies, you can oftentimes negotiate salary. It’s important to understand how staffing agencies make a profit. It’s all to do with “markup”. That is the price they charge a client for your services.

For instance, if they are paying you 20 dollars an hour, then they are likely charging the client at a minimum 35. Many firms will bill much higher, depending on the client and sector (government funded non-profits and medical locations such as tax payer funded hospitals have much higher budgets than the private sector).

The best approach is to tell your recruiter exactly the rate that you are seeking. It can be a range, but don’t say you want 20 if you really want 40 an hour. You won’t be able to negotiate that much of a difference if you accept a role and then want to change your hourly rate.

There are a few different ways to negotiate with a recruiter regarding salary, which we will go over in later sections.

The main takeaway here is that you should:

Let your recruiter know beforehand your desired hourly rate.

If you are interviewing for a direct hire role, there is more wiggle room to negotiate with the recruiter and client.

Could You Lose a Job Offer by Negotiating?

You most certainly can, and it happens all the time. It’s seen as a bait and switch by recruiters, even though its often not.

What happens is that a recruiter will tell you a role is paying x dollars an hour and the person interviews and is offered the role. Then they come back to the recruiter and tell them that they need x+. Well, that causes a huge issue with staffing agencies, and in most cases they will immediately see if there is another candidate that they can swap in.

It’s important to remember that unless you are doing interviews for a direct hire role, you have very little negotiating power. If you are working as a temp worker in any industry except the medical staffing industry, you will simply be replaced by another applicant.

The sad fact is that administrative workers (the bulk of roles in office work for the most part) are highly competitive. There is a glut of applicants, so a recruiter will simply view you as a troublesome candidate and place someone else.

You can negotiate the rate beforehand, but once you accept to do an interview with a client and are offered the role, then its very risky to start to negotiate the rate with the recruiter.

For direct hire roles, it is not as troublesome and in fact, it’s considered normal.

Unlike temp roles where there is a set rate that the firm is willing to pay, with direct hire roles, there is much more leeway. You can in fact negotiate with your recruiter after the interview has been completed. If you try and negotiate for too much more, then obviously you will not get the job—think asking for 200k when the original salary range was 75-100k.

But if you’re looking for a small bump (think 5%) then that’s fine.

Takeaway here: Negotiating for Temp Roles is Risky, Direct Hire roles is fine.

How Do you Politely Negotiate with a Recruiter?

Alright, so let’s say that you do want to negotiate with a recruiter. How do you do it politely so that you don’t annoy them?

I know, most people would think, why would that annoy a recruiter? Well, the fact is that it very well might. Simply because most recruiters are under high pressure time constraints and don’t want to deal with candidates that are not all on board 100 percent for any job they offer.

Of course, that’s an unreasonable request, and it’s no doubt one of the reasons recruiters get a bad rep. Most recruiters will just want their candidates to accept the first offer for a temp role, and in most cases the offer for a direct hire role. Why? Because recruiters want to get paid and want their commission.

It’s that simple really.

However, you can and should negotiate especially with direct hire roles. If your recruiter is a sensible person, they will understand that you are entitled to seek the most you can get. But be advised, unless the recruiter is a sketchy person who tells you that the role will pay 100k when it in fact only pays 50k, then you should be aware of the salary range to begin with.

The best way to properly negotiate with a recruiter is to upfront at the beginning. Tell them you are open to a range, and would like to interview to see if the company is a good fit. Then, once you have interviewed and the company wants to hire you, you can advocate for the higher range.

Be polite, never tell a recruiter: It’s x or I won’t take the job. That will anger the recruiter and could even cause a problem with the client.

If you were offered another role, then it is fine to discuss this with your recruiter. You can use this as leverage when negotiating salary.

What I advise most people to do is to be completely transparent with regards to the salary you are seeking ahead of time. And then be cordial and honest. If possible, develop a friendly relationship with your recruiter so that it can be a kind of friendly talk. Remember, it’s perfectly fine to ask a recruiter about salary.

If, on the other hand, you switch it up after the interview and see that the client wants to hire you and then decide to ask for way more money, it’s going to cause an issue.

The reason that asking for way more money after the interview was a success is that you are putting the recruiter in a very bad situation. The client would have told the recruiting agency exactly what their range was. If they fall in love with a candidate and then are told : “sorry, actually this person wants 2 times what you’re offering”… well that can ruin a relationship.

So, the recruiter doesn’t just lose the placement, the agency might even lose the client as a business partner.

Here are my main suggestions to politely negotiate:

• Always be upfront from the beginning
• Don’t make ultimatums
• Always respond to emails, texts, or calls

How to Negotiate Salary with a Recruiter

Do it politely, right? But exactly how do you negotiate salary with a recruiter? Obviously, it requires that you communicate the information to them. But how do you do this exactly?

The most important thing to do is connect with your recruiter to discuss. I would always recommend a phone call, unless you and your recruiter never speak (which I don’t think it a wise decision).

While some communication is fine to do via Text or LinkedIn messaging or email, when it comes down to post interview discussion, a phone call is always preferable.

Having worked on roles ranging from short term e.a. temp roles, to Compliance directors for Multi-National investment firms, I would always jump on a call to speak about the interview and the person’s thoughts.

Nothing surpasses a phone call (or Zoom call) in terms of conveying complete info. A text and even an email can hide some of the subtlety that one gets when you hear that other person’s voice. There is a huge amount of qualitative data on this subject: Linked below.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277914/

Do You negotiate salary with recruiter or hiring manager?

Whenever you’re looking to negotiate your salary, it is important to know the correct person you’re supposed to discuss salary with. Should that be the recruiter or should that be the hiring manager?

Well, it depends upon how the interview was set up. If the interview was coordinated via a recruiter and a search firm, then you will need to communicate with the recruiter. That’s the protocol.

In most cases, the hiring manager won’t even discuss salary with you as they have contracted with a recruiter and a staffing agency to handle all of the particulars. Remember, that most of the time the idea of a salary negotiation can be difficult to handle and that’s a headache that many companies would love to outsource all of those headaches.

The ideal situation for a hiring company is outsource all of the headaches and just end up with the employee that they like the best. A clean and simple process. So, if you’ve been dealing with a recruiter and a search firm, then you need to negotiate the salary through them.

If, however, you have been interviewing directly with the company without the involvement of the recruiter, then obviously you need to discuss salary with the hiring manager. Be forewarned that in many cases there is very little flexibility when it comes to salary. The hiring manager is not someone who is a C-Level executive in most cases, and they are really just a employee with a set of instructions.

Therefore, the range of salary that they can adjust is almost minimal when it comes to the average person.

As a precaution for everyone reading this. If you are dealing with a recruiter, you are best advised to only discuss salary with the recruiter. Companies find it very alarming when candidates try and circumvent recruiters. While you might think it slick and the fastest approach, what you are really doing is telling the company you’re not a trustworthy candidate.

Remember, the company contracted with a recruiter and the search agency to do a job. If you try and make moves to sneak around them, then the hiring manager at the company will view you as someone who would behave unethically while at their firm. This will almost surely result in you not getting the hob.