Salary Cinnamon

I’ve done a few blogs on salary in my time so excuse me if the titles are becoming less relevant to the subject, I thought it was pretty good though. Like the Swifty’s or the Bey Hive, those die-hard Islanders who follow the blog will have noticed that 2 weeks ago there was an unexplained gap in the usual consistency. My mum’s been over, so I took a bit of time off. I got to visit the great city of Dunedin! Home to an exceedingly steep hill and an awesome albatross sanctuary. Not to mention a heap of pubs that due to the colder and wetter weather reminded me of those back in Blighty. All this traveling sure does take a hit on the pocket. A culmination of garden furniture, an inbound new car and, Valentine's Day has me thinking more economically. Money seems to be at the forefront of many a recruiter's mind recently, it might be the slow end to last year, the strong start to this year, or the fact that salary reviews are around the corner, but I seem to be having a lot of chats around money and there’s a trend I’m noticing.

There used to be this understanding, that a job in recruitment came with a low-ish salary. This is because of all the lovely commissions you could potentially earn on top. What I’m seeing in the market is that consultants who have joined in the last 2-3 years don’t seem to be aware of this. Some are on pay packets so steep Baldwin St would be jealous! (for all my Dunedin readers!) I was asking a few clients about this, and one made the point that because they haven’t experienced a huge windfall of comms they don’t know it can be done. I joined the industry back in 2013 and not to say it was easy but, it wasn’t particularly hard to make placements. The market was hot as and there were relatively more candidates than now. In the 3rd month of my 1st gig, I managed to bill a little over $80K, a feat never repeated as the Talented Mr Walker always likes to remind me of. So, I suppose you can’t blame them as the last couple of years have been a bit hit-and-miss. Not talking to you Gun Recruiters but the majority of the market had pretty average fees. This again makes it difficult to justify a wee increase when moving position or giving you a stronger leg to stand on when going into negotiations.

What has been interesting, is speaking to some Principal Consultants who have been on salaries that are less than I would expect. It’s a bit of a range but generally speaking, if you’re a Principal Consultant on less than $110K that’s a bit of a problem. These are the billers, the guaranteed starters in a Fee FC XI. Considering most Seniors are around the $90K mark it is not much of a difference in rem when there is a big difference in responsibility and pressure. It seems to me that people with tenure in the market have a little more of a grasp on reality when it comes to salaries, perhaps knowing that it’s always better in the long run to have the ability to earn comms than it is to take a high salary and threshold. Of course, those recruiters have had the benefit of seeing multiple lights and the end of multiple tunnels. The market always turns back around but what is very hard to turn around is, pricing yourself out of it.

I have a very obvious horse in the race when it comes to how much recruiters are paid and, while I’m an advocate for being paid your worth I’m also a big fan of putting a ceiling on desires. Admittedly, I’m a recruiter just like you and I too despair when a gap of $5K can’t be met for a potential hire. However, I completely understand why. During my time as a rec-to-rec, I’ve found that those agencies who hold the line when it comes to salary bandings are the ones in a far better position when the market eventually slows down. It’s way more detrimental to the success and morale of an office when your fellow consultant, who is on an inflated salary, gets a bollocking or is even sacked for their sub-par performance. Sure, they can point to the market as the reason for lackluster returns but there was a deal made for that high salary you coveted so much, a pound of flesh, not 0.3 kg. It’s not a case of being frugal but more like preserving the fragile ecosystem of our talent pool. Some agencies are creating Monsters! The Chelsea FC’s of the recruitment world giving average players mental salaries. It’s all good till you look for a move and no one is paying then BOOM, out on loan in Turkey! Or whatever the recruitment equivalent is.