just got off the phone with a recruiter. he was about to send me some opportunities to approve applying me to, then he asked me my salary and what I was looking for. I told him, and he goes "whoa! you get paid A LOT more than devs with your years of experience..."

.... yeah, and I also just told you that I'm proficient in at least a dozen of the technologies you just asked me about, and that I have successfully lead a team of other devs for the last year. at any rate, how is this supposed to convince me that you would represent me well to potential employers?

As a tech lead guy trying to grow my teams, and DBA/developer, I'm often on both ends of the recruiter calls.

The gist is that with the virus crisis and fears of recession/depression, employers are still trying to recruit skilled devs, but the budget dried up or is at least handled carefully at the moment -- also at the company where I work.

So we're telling recruiters: "Listen, with all these bankruptcies and reorganizations, I want to scoop up the absolute best of this rapidly moving talent. But I have... *checks wallet* about $3.50 to spend, if you know what I mean?"

If you're not being forced to leave and not terribly unhappy, probably best to stay put for a bit, especially if you have a long term contract. If you need to move, best to check for boring, stable, large companies which fare well in a crisis.

The only two job offers I got in the last 10 weeks leading to increased pay were for Netflix & Takeaway.

Typical apocalypse shit.

@bittersweet very insightful, thanks for sharing! I had only been passively looking up till this point. more so to "hedge my bets" just in case the proverbial shit were to hit the fan. truth is I am relatively happy and well paid where I am, and even have the luxury of being the most tenured dev with the most tribal knowledge where I am currently. and while I'm very cautious to avoid letting this cause me to become complacent, it ultimately is what drives my very aloof attitude towards recruiter interactions these days.

i'm also very aware that recruiters do talk amongst themselves, so I'm cautious to avoid agreeing to too many interviews and subsequently declining their offers so as to not build a bad rep.

Same happened with me, they told that although I have experience of 2 years, my salary is equivalent to senior developer in their company.

It's was not that my salary was high, they paid their dev less.