The latest hiring debate on The Rock Twitter involved a recruiter getting very real about how salary negotiations went downhill with a potential candidate over the weekend.
Freelance recruiter Mercedes Johnson shared on her Facebook page that she recently offered a woman a job for $85,000, despite the fact that the company Johnson worked with had $130,000 for the role. The budget was “I offered him this because that’s what he asked for and I don’t have the bandwidth to personally give a lesson on salary negotiations,” Johnson said.
“Always ask for the salary you want (lol), no matter how big you think it might be… #confidence,” she said.
Her words were quickly screenshotted all over social media, leading to a very heated conversation about the recruiter’s responsibility to help a candidate who downplayed their value during the job offer process.
Some argued that what Johnson did was not something he should have proudly celebrated:
Some used Johnson’s story as an example of what not to do, with many sharing the stories of assistant recruiters who saved candidates from themselves:
Ultimately, Johnson posted an apology on Facebook. and twittersaying she understood how her post “made a lot of people feel, especially the candidate who was directly influenced by my choice.”
“It doesn’t feel good and should have gone differently,” she wrote. “She deserves to be paid what she deserves from the company, despite what she thinks the job’s responsibilities are worth.”
Johnson told HuffPost on Monday that as an independent talent acquisition specialist, he didn’t feel empowered to share the salary budget with the candidate and was let go of his role with the company because of his viral post.
“I posted on my personal Facebook to encourage people around their value. I never thought it would leave my personal page,” she said. “With this particular candidate, I did what the company needed and I was let go.”
Johnson said he already has another job in recruiting, but declined to elaborate.
Such recruitment practices are common. But what’s the best thing to do in this situation?
In his Facebook apology, Johnson said what he did is a common practice in hiring. But should it be? And what was the right thing to do?
“We all know it happens. We saw it happen,” said Tejal Vagadia, a recruiter for a major tech company. “For people who care about closing unequal pay and the gender pay gap, the racial pay gap, They won’t do what this person did.”
Vagadia said the blame does not lie entirely with Johnson, pointing out that he is a product of a recruitment system designed to degrade candidates and save companies money.
Diversity recruitment consultant Jennifer Tardy said that although this is common practice, it can also perpetuate inequalities.
“Many recruiters have been conditioned to believe that it is a good thing if a candidate’s salary expectation is below the salary range for the role because in their mind they are saving the company money, which can often be observed. ,” He said. “The second challenge is that many recruiters are not linking this practice – reducing candidates to save company money – to a larger systemic issue regarding inequality in the hiring process.”
So in an ideal world, what should happen at the salary negotiation stage?
Some recruitment experts argued that candidates Doing It’s a responsibility to figure out what role they want is worth it. Tardy said it’s important for candidates to recognize that “salary is related to the role, not to the individual,” and to find roles that match factors such as their desired salary and title.
Kira Buscombe, a human resources manager at Empowered Diagnostics, said salary reporting tools like Glassdoor and PayScale can be used for research, but she believes 90% of the time it takes to figure out a salary range falls to recruiters. It depends on the candidate, not the candidate, as there are many factors such as company size, industry, experience level and location that go into calculating an employee’s salary.
Had she been in Johnson’s shoes, Bascombe said, she would first assign a candidate a salary range if she hadn’t already been posted. She will then make a recommendation about what she believes should be paid to the candidate based on the company’s salary range.
“This smoke-and-mirror game when it comes to wage and salary negotiations is really disappointing,” Bascombe said. “We are going through a great resignation, and that’s one of the reasons.”
Vagadia said candidates should ask recruiters what the budget is for the role during salary negotiations. “There’s nothing wrong with being like, ‘Hey, can you share your budget? This way, candidates have a better understanding of what their skills are worth to the company and whether they want to take the job.
But, ultimately, Vagadia agreed that recruiters take most of the responsibility when it comes to creating fair and equitable recruitment conditions. Ideally, she consults with hiring managers to determine where a candidate’s skill set falls in the company’s compensation band, and makes job offers based on their answers.
“Even if the demand for a candidate is less, I will offer them what is worth their skills and what is in our budget,” Vagadia said. “Just because one is asking less doesn’t mean we need to pay people less, especially when it comes to people of color, minorities, women who don’t know how to negotiate, historically their Paid less than white counterparts. For employers, the real responsibility lies on us.”
Whether candidates and hiring teams needed There is an ongoing debate in wage negotiations. And Johnson said that in the end, he believes the controversy over his position holds a positive lesson for all, recruiters and candidates.
“Not everyone is going to agree with what was said in that post, but I believe the post did 100% of what it should have done,” she told HuffPost. “I am confident that the more than two million people who have viewed my post will now interact properly with the interview process.”
