Originally Posted by
lou76
I personally don't believe this, but maybe it depends on the industry. It is in the agencies interest to get you the best salary as they are paid on a % basis. However they won't suggest the highest end of the range is they perhaps feel your experience doesn't match, resulting in your application being denied by the employer.
Dealing directly with employers is quite different as they will want to go lower rather than higher.
My experience is in IT jobs. Recruiters work for both, companies and candidates. But they are biased more towards companies, as it is a bigger customer and a constant source of Business, provided they supply them with good staff at lower salary range. So, for example, one sees a job listed between 120k-200k (in case of SEEK), sends the resume and gets a call. During the call, the recruiter will try (in my experience) to agree on 100k or even 90k.
Now the question might be, why to list a job with a bigger range when it does not pay that much? The reason, as I guess, they want more resumes/more candidates to apply, as salary scale is an important criteria for many people. More resumes= more likely to find someone who will work for less= happy client= more business for recruiter.