Is it OK to lie to recruiters about your current salary to get a bigger increase if applying for jobs?

One of them told me I should lower my preferred salary (even though I've done research on the market) because it is more than the norm of a 10% increase.

I want to earn what I deserve, not what some titface recruiter dictates.

Yes, because it's none of their business.

IMO it's not okay to lie, but I agree with the part that it's none of their business. Just state a number you'll be happy with at the potential new job and leave it at that. After all very often the recruiters' job is to find the best candidate for the least amount of money within a given budget - and if you demand more than they're able to pay, you might lose out even if you're otherwise a good fit.

Lie away. Fuck em

Normally I’d find lying bad but I’m pretty sure that they are lying to you and have absolutely no shame doing so, so it’s probably ok.

you should tell them what inflation is

money supply basically doubled. everything is 80% more expensive. if you got a 10% raise it would actually be double your previous salary

ask them what they pay each of their current engineers. if they think that information is too private and irrelevant, no duh

@kamen yeah that's a good point. you don't have to lie just change the subject

"ah, I would be satisfied with a salary of X. that would make me happy"

"but what's your current salary?"

"well I'm leaving so it clearly doesn't make me happy"

🤣

@kamen recently I heard from an economist that current era economists believe in equilibrium economy

what he meant by this is that all costs must go down. it means every person must be the cheapest possible, every item

my mom had this belief when she was bidding for translation jobs, and she would never get any. me being a kid that's never worked got mad and told her to raise her price and stop trying to look cheap. she did and then she got a contract

in contracting a lot of self employed people noticed others associate the price of your services with the quality they will be getting, so having a higher price is not necessarily worse, and actually what these people notice is your clients that you charge more to treat you better because you cost more

this doesn't necessarily apply to companies which have set budgets (though even those aren't in stone)

if not equilibrium economy what is it? just supply and demand, so if they have demand and no supply you get paid a lot. no options!

Your last boss paying you scraps shouldn't have an effect on your next job

There's no 'increase norm'. And you're not lying, you just tell them the expected amount, if it's your salary or not is indeed none of their business. Some requiters help you to a big salary because they receive two/three month salary themselves when they sell you. Others downplay you and probably kinda make vast amount or going for (fuck, what's the word.. Kinda opposite of quality) or some quota.

I do got jobs from reqruiters, but damn, i hate them. They've added skills to my resume once that i didn't have and found out during applyment at office of customer. I told the customer when i saw then. I told the customer - i can talk myself out of not having some skill easy anyway.

Anyway, make sure to laugh a bit during interview :) Mine got humor and mostly get hired

@jestdotty haha, inflation. Dev making thousands per month. "Yeah, the butter became more expensive." :P

Lie to them. HR‘s only purpose is to be fucking useless and annoying. Absolute waste of money

Yep, lying is indeed bad! But yes, I am glad I am not the only one feeling this way. In my country it is common practice for recruiters to ask you to state your current salary and then give them what you'd like, only to have them tell you "nah, too high." I don't understand the hiring industry so well

@jestdotty When I did freelance work a couple of years ago, I noticed the most cheapskate customers where always the most difficult and demanding ones.

Its a stupis question that needs stupid counter-question and also a way to establish personal boundaries.

I got asked once by some asshat recruiter what is my current sallary and answered: that is irrelevant in this conversation, what is relevant and what I want to talk about is my salary for the job I am being interviewed for.

If this approach is too rude for your liking, ask him about his sallary or percentage that he gets.

Also if they ask for the range on annual basis, add 5k to what you want to get - if they are really into you they will try to match it or go 1k-3k lower than your minumum, so in the worst case you are still around 2+ above your aim!

Recruiters be recruitering, don't try to beat them in their own game, but get out of it the best you can!

@dissolvedgirl cheap customers are picky and pita, ones that pays thousands are paying you so they don't have to think about what you do, they pay you for the value and outcome.

Cheap ones are paying to squeeze you as hard as they can and will try to find even smallest flaw so they can get some shit for free. Fucking grifters!

Most things I noticed is devs are downplaying themselves in their CVs.

Be fucking proud that you made some shit work.

You can write: I worked on the frontend app with CSS to improve styling

Or you can write same shit but less boring:
I had crucial role in optimizing the styling of the app by refactoring CSS. This resulted in overall better look and feel of the app.

People like shit they don't understand because you sound like an expert, which you are, but this is the selling point you can use to get better positions and salary!

Sell yourself, you are not window cleaner, you are luminescence technician! Same shit, different package! And people love nice packages!

+ You are not lying

No it's not. You can say you do not want to disclose it if you think that will help in the negotiations. It's a very stupid way to shoot yourself in the foot to lie about it.

When your current salary is indeed quite high the recruiter might think that they can't go above your current salary to warrant a change. Or they notice something is off especially if they know your current company well. Indians so this all the time and our company always terminates the procedure when they do. Americans like to inflate their resume, same thing.

Some companies require proof of your current salary during the finalisation process of the contract. Here they can legally dissolve the deal if you wilfully lied during the process.

The lowering salary is very weird. 10% is no rule at all. Switching companies is one of the best ways to get a higher raise that can go 20% with ease.

@hjk101 That makes sense, I mean you wouldn't want to hire an incompetent programmer for an absurdly high salary. I've heard stories from a friend who had to recruit some juniors who asked for salaries three times that of mine and I'm about a mid-level engineer.