Salary Ranges and Posting: From a Corporate Tech Recruiter

From: Lisa Hylas (lisahylasat_private)
Date: Mon Sep 23 2002 - 12:57:46 PDT

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    Hi Security Professionals:
    
    Please note that there are a number of reasons why we don't post ranges 
    that include a minimum and maximum.  And this is true for 
    consulting/staffing agency postings as well as direct-hire, corporate 
    postings.
    
    As Shawn noted, most people would ask (and do ask) for the top salary.  
    Please note that each position in a large corporate enterprise goes 
    through a compensation process that identifies the level or band, etc. of 
    the position.  That range is usually very wide.  Why?
    
    One reason is that this gives the hiring manager flexibility in hiring as 
    well as a benchmark for his current employees (fun HR stuff called salary 
    compression).  They also market price to determine regional salaries by 
    industry or services provided.  We might not like it, but HR is very 
    influential and ultimately determines the range based on criterion that we 
    don't always see.  We as recruiters are constantly fighting the battle 
    along with IT (our direct customer) to make sure that our IT compensation 
    is fair and highly competitive.
    
    Also, salaries are very subjective when you think about it.  A security 
    analyst or engineer who supports a distributed Fortune 500 enterprise is 
    going to be worth more than the same professional supporting a small 
    company - even if the architecture/firewall/IDS used is the same.  
    Remember, it is very often the depth and breadth of the organization 
    itself that defines its technical needs.  (i.e. variables like numbers of 
    servers, WAN, business units supported and mission critical applications, 
    etc.)  We recruiters see this all the time when recruiting OS Systems 
    Engineers.  Everyone thinks that because they are an MCSE, they merit 80K 
    without large enterprise experience, or hands-on experience in that size 
    environment with the specific technology requested.
    
    As a corporate tech recruiter in South Florida, the salaries are about 25% 
    lower than the DC, CA, WA, and NY metropolitan areas.  However, we do not 
    have state income tax here and cost of real estate balances this out.  I 
    personally moved from CT and took a 25% cut from my NYC salary (when I was 
    in an infrastructure management position).  But it evens out in the long 
    run.  It's the sticker shock that gets you!
    
    Also - market/economic conditions make this a buyers market.  However, and 
    this is a BIG however - recruiters are not out to nickle and dime 
    professionals because of this.  We know that if you don't offer a salary 
    that the candidate is worth, come Q1 2003 our hires will be walking out 
    the door. And guess who has to replace that person?
    
    My two cents:  I believe the best way to apply for a position is to 
    include current and requested salary and attach a resume as a Word or .rtf 
    document.   I also believe that the market will not open up until 1Q 
    2003.   Keep that in mind when you're requesting a salary that's over 10% 
    of your current salary. If you are not working, I would ask for the same 
    salary as your last.  
    
    Oh, and by the way, I don't know burger-flippers who make 65K to 110K - do 
    you?  Let's all realize that the dot.com craziness is over and come back 
    to reality.
    
    Hope this helps and good luck to all of you. 
    



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