That's not how it works. The company pays the recruiters commission. It doesn't come out of your salary at least not for a full time job. I know market rates for my area. I can guarantee you I'm not underpaid by 20%.
For a contract job, where the company pays the recruiting agency and they pay you, yeah you can get a larger hourly rate by going straight to the company.
As a hiring manager, can confirm. I am selective about roles I open up to external recruiter submissions, but those that I do, I am entirely indifferent between candidate A who was sourced internally (no additional fee to me) and candidate B who was submitted by an external. If candidate B has any edge over candidate A, I'm not going to even think about the 20-33% of first year comp when making the decision.
I have heard of people being able to negotiate a one time hiring bonus if they didn’t go through a recruiter. I was also offered a $5000 bonus through a recruiter to try to persuade me to take a job.
I welcome employees who know/can articulate their value and negotiate in good faith to take home in salary roughly 1/4 to 2/5 of the value they create for our company every year.
That doesn’t extend to paying cash bonuses because our in-house team found them nor to pay cash in lieu of relocation benefits just because they already live here.
To answer GP’s question where candidate A had a slight edge but wanted 20-30% more, first I probably wouldn’t know that at decision time (it’s not like I’m shopping cars where I can go pretty far down the negotiation path with two Honda dealers and one Toyota dealer or an Amazon purchase where I can use camelcamelcamel or something; these are human beings contemplating upending their lives in some way). Second, talent is the key element of this game. Candidate A has a (perceived) edge and I’m going to pursue that candidate first, realizing that the pay is capped by some proper fraction of the business value they can create. Where it’s a software IC role, I will likely pursue both A and B individually, intending to hire both.
Where it’s a one-off role (I’m not going to hire two CISOs or two tribe leads for one tribe), I pursue A first. If I hear “I want more salary/shares because you’re not paying a recruiter”, that’s a terrifically strong signal that maybe they’re not going to create as much business value as I thought because they’re prone to thinking shallowly or outright wrongly about what matters to the business. “I want more money because of my X, Y, and Z talents/skills/ability/dedication/other options”? Great, I’m interested; let’s talk about that.
I agree, I've never asked for hiring bonus from an employer because I didn't go through a recruiter - I've never had that opportunity and I wouldn't anyway. It feels tacky. I might ask for a slightly higher salary thinking they have more wiggle room because they didn't go through a recruiter, but I wouldn't mention that as a rationale.
I've never been in a position to ask for the highest salary in the range. Any job for which I would be able to ask for top dollar would imply that I meet all of the qualifications perfectly. That would mean that I won't have the opportunity to grow and after two years, my resume and skill set won't look any better than when I first started. I've always aimed for jobs that are a slight stretch, meaning I have all of the "must haves" but not many of the "nice to haves".
That gives me the opportunity to be exposed to new to me technologies.
For a contract job, where the company pays the recruiting agency and they pay you, yeah you can get a larger hourly rate by going straight to the company.