Hello, recruiters.I have a simple question:When interacting with a candidate, what impresses you?

A strong match with the job

Not wasting my time.

Please elaborate...

I wonder if mars a day works for the mars partnership who feature in the top-consultant reports. Hmmmmmm........

Not sure what the relevance of being impressed is. You can be impressed with a candidate who is not suitable for a job, this could be for any number of reasons and would apply when you meet anybody in any aspet of your life, not only when you talk to a candidate. If a candidate is suitable for a job then they will be submitted, but I wouldn't necessarily be impressed by their suitability. Unless the job was an impressive one.

To clarify: I do not, have never worked at The Mars Partnership. I was simply eating a Mars bar the first time I came on to this site and had to think of a username.

Suspiciously convenient

And frankly irrelevant.

I can vouch for Mars A Day. Similiar experince myself.

me too

There is a serious point here raised by rec. You could be very impressive in terms of personality, achievements, drive etc.. However what matters is experience in the right industry, doing the advertised job, at roughly the right salary.This is a shame because businesses miss out on some impressive candidates; and in reality jobs change so fast that one might expect the transferable skills should carry more weight.Cest la vie.

The last three consulting companies I have worked for have had a policy of looking at what else an applicant could do if the specific job/specialism they are being recruited for disappears for any reason.

"at roughly the right salary"Interesting. So you could be exactly right for the job and have great experience and so on... but you&apos;re nonetheless gonna be pigeonholed based on current salary? I <b>knew</b> recruiters do this! They just tick boxes and look for matching words in CVs and JDs don&apos;t they!!

IMO the first filter is always done this way. If you have 100 CVs then the simplest filter is hard facts - degree class, industry, function. If you do not tick the boxes you are off the list.Of course at interview stage there is more scope for assessing personal skills. Perhaps at this stage you might be able to overcome lack of experience in one area.As regards salary then it is always a rejection reason. No one ever got recruited because they were cheaper than the others.

Anon - It depends on the type of relationship a recruiter has with the client. If they provide a job spec and say &apos;get me people that match with that&apos;, then yes, the process will involve box ticking and word matching so if you get pigeonholed, it&apos;s by the client, not the recruiter. The recruiter wants to provide someone who will fill the job, the best way of doing that is by asking the client what they want and providing it. If the client says &apos;here is the spec, find me 5 people who have these skills and I&apos;ll do the rest&apos; then that&apos;s what will happen. If a recruiter provides someone with the skills who is way out of the salary range the client normally says &apos;thanks, but they are way out of the salary range, please provide me with what I asked for&apos;. If it is done repeatedly the client stops calling and finds a recruiter who will do what they ask. Once a relationship builds, a recruiter will start to get the autonomy to make decisions. If they then pigeonhole people then, yes, that&apos;s bad. Normally they don&apos;t though, as cutting people out of the loop that can do the job doesn&apos;t make money. Which is what it&apos;s all about.

"As regards salary then it is always a rejection reason. No one ever got recruited because they were cheaper than the others."This is reassuring. Are you saying that they want to know your current salary, just in case it pays less than you currently earn (or not enough to induce you to move)? As opposed to thinking "well this job pays £100K but this candidate currently earns £40K so even though he is really bright and has loads of relevant experience and is great for the job, we won&apos;t be putting him forward because he&apos;s obviously too junior, judging by his current salary"?

I (as a candidate) have had 2 different types of experience wit that.One set of recruiters have asked what I&apos;m currently on and only ever talk about a max % increase on that figure - they rarely entertain more than 20%. Another set say right well the current position pays X amount so you&apos;ll be looking at a significant increase if you get it. I think the second option is the right approach because, particularly at present where people are on pay freezes and paid below what they would ordinarily have been on, your current salary shouldn&apos;t purely dictate your market value, your skills and experience should.It is for the above reason there is a lot of musical chairs happening in the consulting industry right now, particularly from the firm I&apos;m at (Acn).

Reality check here (albeit not relevant to the original question!): 1)if a person wants more than a 20% increase there has to be a compelling reason. Employers rarely throw their money around and talk of market rate is a largely hypothetical concept: most like to get candidates, if not cheap then reasonably priced. If an agent doesn’t tell you that they are mismanaging your expectations and telling you what you want to hear. Sure, you will always hear of people who get great salary hikes: many are disingenuous at best and you never hear of all the others who make a sideways move or a cut.2)If you are on £40k and tell me you want £60k without a clear reason I can save wasting my time and yours on a time consuming interview process which ends up with you being offered £45k and turning the job down. There are plenty of other agents out there who might take a different view so this is surely win/win!3)Agencies are paid % of salary: it is in their interest to get you a decent rise, but they are also only paid if they find a job which you accept4)If you don’t tell me you salary you clearly have something to hide and therefore potentially wasting my time5)If you are on £40k and claim to be doing a job worth £60k what am I to believe? That claim and that you are very underpaid, or that actually you have bigged up your CV . Or aren’t very good. Any is potentially correct and the only hard fact I have is your salary (assuming you aren’t lying)6)If you lie it will be uncovered during the interview process unless you lie to your potential future employer too or refuse to tell them. Neither of which is a great plan

surely points (1) and (5) are somewhat contradictory - either there IS a market rate against which you can make a judgement and filter out the CV inflaters, or there isn&apos;t - in which case how can you say a job is "worth" £60k?To me this is the classic agency problem - a recruiter NEVER works for a candidate, they work for the hiring firm and would thus be much more likely to talk your salary expectations down than to defend your £60k salary dreams to a client who can give him £££&apos;s worth of business. I do value the role of recruitment agencies in that they make the job market efficient - but I would never think they were on "my side" in a negotiation. Saying "you must have something to hide" if not revealing your salary is retarded. If I were in the job market (which I personally am not), then the interview process (CV -> phone interview -> face interview) is designed to assess my suitability versus the hiring company&apos;s standards, and I do not want to prejudice that by talking about what I currently get out of bed for. Sorry, but you&apos;re getting my salary when there&apos;s an offer on the table.

someguy - from my experience I think you are overstating the degree to which your interests and those of the recruitment agent differ. Facts:1) A recruitment agent doesn&apos;t want to invest their time pushing you through a process where there&apos;s a high probability of you not accepting the job offer at the end of it (because then they don&apos;t get paid for the time they&apos;ve invested)2) Once a recruitment agent has a strong candidate for a role, their major concerns will include i) making sure your current employer doesn&apos;t present you with a counter-offer that makes you decide to stay put; and ii) ensuring the prospective employer puts a competitive offer to you so that the other avenues you are exploring don&apos;t end up trumping the offer that they&apos;ve been able to secure for you.For the above reasons a recruitment consultant has a pretty strong incentive to ensure that you aren&apos;t low-balled. You are right that there is minimal incentive for them to go the very last mile for you, but generally speaking they will secure you an offer that is competitive rather than exceptional.But similarly they quite reasonably will want to know your salary expectations at the outset so that they can make sure your time and theirs is not invested in a process that&apos;s ultimately going to be fruitless.I would also add that from my own experiences that any hires in a consulting business who&apos;ve been brought in on a low salary tend to be able to ratchet up quite quickly during the subsequent reviews; and similarly those who&apos;ve managed to negotiate at the upper end of what&apos;s possible will suffer negligible remuneration progress if their skills on the job aren&apos;t seen to warrant this. So ultimately how you perform on the job will dictate what you are paid (with the caveat that playing "catch-up" in the last 18 months will not have been possible, so if you accepted a low offer in 2008 you&apos;ll still be suffering for that).Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Tony - I think the key here is "salary expectations" vs "salary history" - as a candidate, while I am perfectly happy to share my pay expectations (and expect brutal and honest feedback if I am living in fantasy land), I am unwilling to set an anchor for my negotiations until an offer is on the table.I have used recruiters in the past on both sides of the equation and have generally been satisfied. With a hiring firm&apos;s hat on, I expect recruiters to secure decent candidates at the right price and I know that having the candidate&apos;s current salary is powerful leverage to manage their expectations. I quote from a memo our HR director sent regarding a very strong (and rather underpaid) candidate: "To head off further negotiation please authorize [an offer of] £46k which is 15% above his current salary." These discussions DO happen and it&apos;s no reflection on the recruiter but simply a business reality. Pay negotiation is adversarial in nature: a recruiter is on your side to argue your qualifications (you are THEIR candidate after all and they will have a reputation to protect), but on the firm&apos;s side to argue their offer once it&apos;s made.To your point on pay rises once hired: while this is true to some degree, I personally find job performance has a diminishing impact on your pay rises the further up you progress on the consulting ladder (annual performance related bonuses become the differentiator from Partner upwards as you&apos;re expected to "own a piece of the firm"). Also, the bigger the firm, the more restrictive the all-important "pay bands" are. You could be a junior Steve Jobs, Arthur D Little and Jack Welch rolled into one and still get no more than a 20% "Top of Band" payrise at a big4 as a entry level consultant. This is right and proper: if you really wanted 50% pay increases, start your own firm and grow your revenue by that much every year.

Someguy and Tony,Nice one - quality exchange of views. Can&apos;t argue with the facts and like the differing interpretations.

Good points someguy. I&apos;m reminded of an article I saw in the Economist a few years ago, where researchers had shown that in the States estate agents typically sold their own properties themselves rather than putting them on with an agent - and so were able to squeeze a higher offer price than was typically secured by third party agents. This was attributed to the fact that it was worth the individual going the last mile, whereas for the agent the incentive was to get the deal done rather than extract the very highest offer price possible.I can certainly see how the same could apply to recruitment agencies - and that showing your hand by revealing current salary could make this more likely. So will a recruitment agent definitely get you the highest possible salary - probably not. But will they sell you way short either - I would also say probably not. To revert to earlier points, they&apos;re likely to get you a competitive if not exceptional offer.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

I think the situation around disclosing current pay is in general almost totally irrational.It&apos;s clear that a lot of agents and HR folk just want to know your current salary so that they can make sure they don&apos;t offer you "too much". Either that or they make assumptions about "how good" you are or "how suitable" you are for the job based on your current earnings - as if that&apos;s even the slightest bit relevant!Why don&apos;t they instead say "this job can pay anything up to XYZ - are you interested?"We all know why they don&apos;t do it that way around! It&apos;s because some irrantional, emotional part of their brain thinks that, no matter how under-paid you are, the biggest increase you can ever "deserve" is some arbitrary figure (15% or so) and there is no way whatsoever they are going to give you more than that because you&apos;re not "senior" enough to "deserve" it.There is only ever one reason why a recruiter would want to know your current salary. It&apos;s to anchor you down and tie you to a range based on your current earnings. It&apos;s never in your (the candidate&apos;s) interest for them to be able to do that.

Mr Cool, Tony - thanks, even though I/we have well and truly threadjacked the OP&apos;s query...@anon: it&apos;s not irrational for the firm to want all the information possible, just as it&apos;s not irrational for a candidate to withhold. Each side&apos;s motivations are rational but at odds. (Can you tell arb/neg is a hobby horse of mine?!) The reason (I think) recruiters are obsessed with current pay is that it&apos;s a proxy for other, hidden information - unless your candidate is a recent promote, past performance is not always assessed easily by CV or phone.Am gonna step off the soapbox now by saying that I think recruiters are necessary for a "liquid", efficient jobmarket and I wouldn&apos;t have got my current job without one - though I wish there were less cold calls and CV farming going on...

I was attracted to this thread because I&apos;d love to understand other people&apos;s perceptions - particularly those with work for me! 15 years ago I was an employee of a consulting company earning £54k and charged out at £1500/day. Having worked on my own for 10 years, my best year was just short of £100k and my worst (current) won&apos;t even attract income tax! Fortunately I&apos;ve no debt or major commitments.I&apos;m now happy to accept almost anything - but what sort of salary expectations say what about me?

As soon as you mention base salary people get hung up on it. I say I am on 60K and immediately the 80K jobs are out of reach. Recruiters get bored if you start rabbiting on about the 30K bonus and a 10K car allowance and 6K pension contribution.So I now state a range based on base salary expectations and say this depends on other benefits. And I set the range based on the role not based on me. This is critical and allows me to apply for a job at 10K less if I decide the market dictates I have to.

@Curious - hard to say, annualised compensation means less when contracting independently. Accepting what little work is offered in a down economy is not an indicator of performance. You could spin it to say "I managed to stay in contracted work in the worst downturn for a generation", I suppose. I wouldn&apos;t go beyond quoting a day rate though, there&apos;s no need for anyone other than your accountant to know just how bad business has been.@serious: I also used to say "based on the role, I expect a salary of X" - but I&apos;ve been told even that wording signals something to a sharp recruiter, and he will mentally "discount" your figure to arrive at your true current comp. There is no "right" answer, and as Tony says some will want an upfront base figure so as not to waste your time and theirs, and will push for it. Interesting point about being able to accept less though. It turns the argument around - would you admit to a recruiter that you&apos;d take a pay cut for the right job?

When these morons take it upon themselves to ask such personal questions as your current salary, some might at this point feel free to tell them any old bull5hit. You could tell them 30K, 60K, 120K - anything. As far as I&apos;m concerned, they might as well be asking my d1ck size - after all, what&apos;s it to them!As for my personal tax affairs - well, that&apos;s my business. I can simply join on an emergency tax code and take care of my own personal finances via my tax return at the end of the year. No need for a &apos;nanny&apos; HR department to do it for me."But what if they ever find out that you lied???!", I hear the eager beaver recruitment consultants holla. "You would be instantly dismissed!!" they cry. Au contraire, it would be up to them to show their evidence (AND then prove that it was a relevant matter to justify a disciplinary). And there&apos;s not really any way they can find that out unless somebody breaches the Data Protection Act, in which case it&apos;s possibly non-admissable in a tribunal anyway. And besides, you could always argue that the &apos;evidence&apos; is wrong whilst at the same time being under no obligation to actually disclose the true figure anyway!

wich is such a shame really

A double barrelled surname always impressed me

The reason recruiters ask for your salary is an indicator of performance, genuinely, it is nothing to do with trying to manage down your expectations. If I headhunt someone about a role but I know it only pays up to say £55k on the base (PwC Consultant grade for example) I need to know what their current salary is so I can explain to them the differences of salary structure at the company, and whether they would accept less on the base but for a higher overall package.I feel a lot of consultants on here sound bitter about giving out salary, if you’ve had bad experiences with recruitment consultants then that’s unfortunate, but a good recruiter needs to know your salary as to be honest, it is an indicator of performance. If you have ten years experience but are only on £40k it will tell me you are not a top performer, probably have limited impact and aren’t rated by your current company. If this is the case, then it’s likely I will feel you aren’t of the calibre the client is looking for and realistically you won’t get the job (and I won’t get the commission).Going back to the original point – honesty. Being honest with a recruiter is the best thing - whether it is saying that salary is the reason you want to move; whether you want to limit travel; whether you want more responsibility etc. If a recruiter knows this then they can manage the client, or also come to you with other roles 3, 6 or 12 months down the line that might be right, given the parameters you’ve stated.

The only reason recruiters want to know your current salary is so that they can make assumptions about you (and then later make sure they don&apos;t offer you more than they need to).It is a lazy way of assessing a candidate.It is never in the candidate&apos;s interest to disclose current salary to a recruiter.

Anon – absolute rubbish.

recruiter - Whatever. You yourself said you judge a candidate&apos;s level of performance and &apos;calibre&apos; by his/her current salary. A very lazy approach indeed.The difference between me and you is that I&apos;m writing from the candidate&apos;s perspective, whereas you are a recruiter and therefore biased in favour of the recruiter&apos;s interests.I think most, if not all, candidates will agree with my point of view. Except of course for the flood of recruiters who will now respond to this thread pretending to be candidates and disagreeing with me!

I hope I&apos;m not missing the point here, but reading the posts above I was thinking - wouldn’t it be more sensible that the recruiter phrased it as: "what salary are you expecting from the new role?" Advantages: 1) less time is wasted. The recruiter knows what the client is offering - this may be in line, below or above what the candidate wants - the outcome can easily be ascertained from there2) Candidate is happy because they can move on, go to interview, negotiate or realise they are not actually worth as much as they thought 3) Recruiter is happy as they can find a matching role or dismiss the candidate as a dreamer and move on 4) Client can gage whether the candidate is worth the proposition, is a real bargain or worth the higher than expected salary5) It feels a lot more in line with free market spirit. A person&apos;s abilities, experience or drive may not be reflected in their current salary package and therefore should not be used as a way of lowballing them

I nominate Ned&apos;s post as the T-C post of the year.Perfectly articulated.

Sometimes, the client will ask the question and want candidates submitted with information about their current salary. If that happens the questions has to be asked, if not, I high five myself and move on to the next situation with anticipation.

As another recruiter, I have to say that I agree with rec on this. It&apos;s not just a case of using a candidate&apos;s salary as a means of judging their calibre, but also, many Consulting firms have different structures/hierarchy&apos;s (job titles and levels) and very wide salary bandings. Therefore a senior consultant at PwC PIC could be on £55k base or could be on £80k base. Senior Con grade at PwC is actually sen con & manager grade at Accenture, so one good way of evaluating someone&apos;s level and comparing them to another firm is by salary... like it or not.Asking for a candidate&apos;s salary doesn&apos;t necessarily lead us to assuming anything, ithelps us to talk about relevant and suitable opportunities... although as Rec said, it is safe to assume that if you&apos;ve been in consulting for 10 years and your salary is only £45k - £50k, you&apos;ve not exactly been ripping up trees!!

"Asking for a candidate&apos;s salary doesn&apos;t necessarily lead us to assuming anything"then "although as Rec said, it is safe to assume that if you&apos;ve been in consulting for 10 years and your salary is only £45k - £50k, you&apos;ve not exactly been ripping up trees!!"<b>Direct contradiction detected.</b>You have made an assumption. There are many legitimate reasons why an experienced consultant may not be on a huge salary at the time of applying for a new role.

As you&apos;re being analytical, perhaps you also noted the fact that I said, "doesn&apos;t necessarily". I also never mentioned "huge" salaries.Please do enlighten me as to reasons why an experienced consultant would be on a far lower salary than the market would expect, other than they haven&apos;t been performing.

Anon - excellent detection skills, complemented by an appropriate use of bold.

Some of you recruitment guys are incredible. The almost obsession with a candidate&apos;s current salary is scarily close to being a communist mentality.

Don&apos;t be ridiculous. It&apos;s simply away of helping us to help candidates, that is it!! What&apos;s the point of me talking to someone about a role paying £50k when the candidate may be on £70k but hasn&apos;t told me!!? And please, don&apos;t tell me that Consultants aren&apos;t obsessed by salary, as most people tend to be... just look at all the threads on here moaning about not getting huge salary increases when many are lucky still to have a job!! I despair, I really do.

"What&apos;s the point of me talking to someone about a role paying £50k when the candidate may be on £70k but hasn&apos;t told me!!?"I can guarantee that the candidate will do a perfect job in deciding whether he/she wishes to apply for the role, providing you are up front about what it pays.

When I was in search of job, that time I contacted one recruitment agency from London. While interacting with them I realised. They are not just looking for right candidates they are looking for the best one. If you impress them with your knowledge and attire then everything works fine for you. But if not then some agencies will help you to improve your presentation skills.

Telling a recruiter your current salary is a very foolish thing to do. It will lead to you being lowballed, guaranteed.Let me explain it another way. When you&apos;re selling a house, do you tell the potential buyer how much you have left on your mortgage? When you&apos;re selling a car, do you tell the buyer how much you need to get in order to finance your next one? Of course not. Do Tesco and Sainsburys tell you the actual cost to them of each individual item they sell? Do your competitors tell you their profit margins for each job they do?Open your eyes. Disclosing information such as current salary during negotiations provides an advantage to one party only, and it&apos;s not you.

I disagree with the above. Offers are made based on current remuneration, expectations and benchmarking and clients tend to always request salary details with the initial application. Recruitment consultants are paid a fee based on the salary offered (20-25% in my case) so naturally it&apos;s in the rec consultants interests to try and obtain the very best offer possible. I don&apos;t think companies will try to reduce the offer to counter the recruiter fee, certainly not in my experience anyway.

[i]I disagree with the above.[/i] Well yes, as a recruiter you would. In the same way that turkeys disagree with the concept of Christmas dinner.[i]Offers are made based on current remuneration[/i]Now that is precisely why it&apos;s not in the candidate&apos;s interest to disclose his/her current salary. Why be anchored down in negotiations by disclosing one&apos;s current salary? Instead, focus on discussing the going rate for the skills on offer and the demands of the role. That&apos;s how a free market works.[i]clients tend to always request salary details with the initial application.[/i] I&apos;m sure they do! See above point for explanation.[i]Recruitment consultants are paid a fee based on the salary offered (20-25% in my case) so naturally it&apos;s in the rec consultants interests to try and obtain the very best offer possible.[/i] Ahh, that old chestnut. Yes it&apos;s in your interests to get the best offer for the candidate. But not much. It&apos;s more in your interests to present the candidate as cheaply as possible to the employer to maximise the changes of them being made an offer and taking up the new job quickly. A recruiter would prefer a deal - any deal - to happen... rather than to risk it all by getting an extra 5 grand for the candidate and then getting themselves a tiny slice of that extra amount. It&apos;s the same with estate agents. They just want to sell the house fast and bank their commission... before some other agent sells it... even if it&apos;s sold cheap and the vendor could have got more by holding out. [i]I don&apos;t think companies will try to reduce the offer to counter the recruiter fee, certainly not in my experience anyway.[/i] From the candidate&apos;s perspective, that&apos;s all irrelevant anyway.

As a recruiter, what impresses us is patience and being courteous. Instead of everyday chasing when we have already told you and then being rude about it when you don&apos;t have an answer straight away - this is not us sitting around doing nothing, it is usually waiting to hear back from higher management. Alongside that, energy, enthusiasm and fitting the job description!

@BEP - I completely agree with your post. specially as candidates are looking for a new job to get a better salary and since they feel they are underpaid..if they are not, then getting a 5-10% hike on their current salary is not difficult with their existing employer by negotiating than looking for a new job..However, as we all know recruiters are always asking the questions about current salary and dont proceed without that information, how do you ditch that salary question?

This is a great discussion. Recruiters are great for linear progression. Key assumption is that market is efficient in determining your pay, You are already at your optimal pay level (not per your assessment, market&apos;s - most of us believe we are underpaid). When you believe that you are underpaid, typically you are delivering more than the job description, or you are looking for a different job than what you are doing. In either of these cases, I have not found a lot of recruiters very helpful (of course, there are exceptions to this rule). To be fair to them, it is your responsibility to convince both them and the new employer that you, infact, deserve a lot more pay than your current salary. I found that in those cases, it is easier to just directly negotiate with the new employer, one less person to convince. When the bid-ask spread is too wide, it is never easy being the seller :)

Generally, while selecting a candidate, along with the educational qualification companies look for their soft skills, cultural background, creativity, cooperative attitude, learnabilty and leadership qualities. These requirements can also vary according to company policies and culture in the company. So before going for the interview, candidates should read the company&apos;s requirements and the key skills which they want in their employees.http://www.xist4.com