Really great points.<p>Maybe the better response is &quot;I tell you mine if you tell me yours&quot;? If you know how much the recruiter is taking home, you can get a sense of their incentives.<p>It&#x27;s also important to weigh these costs at the margin. If they have a candidate who will sign faster and for less money, the recruiter isn&#x27;t going to advocate for you.<p>While recruiters do often work with a small set of companies, the challenge of the job is supply, not demand. They are paid to find employees, not to find employers. Even if they&#x27;re working with a single client, in a hot market this will have next to no impact on salary pricing.