Are recruiters able to help get a 10M+ offer? (Software engineer)

Just curious if anyone here got their 10m+ from a recruiter, or if it’s just pointless to talk with them if it’s 10-20M range.

by kokokokokokoo

12 comments
  1. I felt like it was pointless at that range as these typically are high talent positions at forward thinking companies where you can just apply directly to the companies or they have internal recruiters.

    All the big places I applied to that I ended up getting offers at (Stripe 15m, Google 13m) had internal recruiters.

    Internal opinion was that you actually look worse coming from an external recruiter unless it was an executive search type of recruiter.

  2. Sure. Research the market and be very upfront about your salary expectations, and that you aren’t willing to go lower. Good recruiters won’t waste your and their time on roles you aren’t likely to take, its also bad for their reputation and good recruiters should care about that, bad recruiters might waste your time. Push a bit on who the companies they want to introduce you are, research their salaries and if they are sending you stuff clearly below your range, cut ties and find a better recruiter.

  3. I just got 12.5m through the recruiter Talisman; they did me good. (I won’t share individual contacts, but I just messaged them cold; you can do the same).

    The key to this is to set your lower limits in the first conversation. Some people say like, “don’t talk numbers, play your cards close,” but I did that for months and what happens is you don’t say numbers, they don’t say numbers, then when it comes down to it they try and bargain bin your ass down to like 8m. I was at 11m previously and companies would literally do that, “we know it’s below where you’re at now, but…”

    Like, no, make it clear up front, 11m (or whatever your number is) or bust. They will ask like if there’s any flexibility — > Nope.

    Of course you set this lower limit with the *recruiter*, not the target company. The recruiter wants to get you the highest offer possible, so then you work with the recruiter to go higher, but just don’t get involved with some snivling recruiters that are out to nickle and dime you.

    Your contacts will go down drastically, and/or recruiters will get frustrated with your inflexibility and lose interest, but assuming you’re not in a rush, you’re good, just wait it out for the right one to bite.

  4. If you’re gonna get anything high, it is always from a recruiter than direct hire. Some recruiters have a way of selling you. Companies already included recruiter fees in their budget and have decided their ceiling budget for the role. I like using a recruiter because it saves me so much time. I just have to show up in the interviews.

    Salaries are much higher now. 10M is mid range now

  5. Not sure what the point of the OP is… use a recruiter, be bad ass, get money. Use a recruiter be mediocre, get decent monies. Be shit, use a recruiter and get a visa…. what are you looking for in terms of response?

  6. 10M for SWE position is not a high bar. But always go through a recruiter unless you have something catchy in your resume.

    Reality is, not many companies have the HR resources to go through all the applications they receive. They usually use a platform like Workable for their hiring pipeline and aggregates all sources like LinkedIn or Tokyo-dev to that. And there’s a ton of applications coming in, especially through LinkedIn-free.

    And the HR recruiter has no time to go through all the applications. What they’re trying to do is to reject the obvious bad ones as quickly as they can do they can pay some attention to the resumes that looks promising.

    But they also have a direct communication with agents. Agents don’t spam the HR with resumes that are bad. So the recruiters always pay more attention to resumes coming through recruiters. So if you want your resume to get looked at, always try to go through an agent

  7. Seeing people’s responses here makes me feel like I really need to get out of the game industry..

  8. Yes, definitely. Over the past maybe 8 years I have had several recruiters approach me with 15m to 20m jobs. They are more product management/prod strategy because that is what I do, but a close friend does dev and he was approached for a 30m position.

  9. quite the opposite. Lots of reqruiters focus on high paying jobs and positions. No company would hire a recruiter to get staff to their ramenshop.

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