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RobinHanson's avatar

Why not charge a % of the salary *increase* than a % of their salary?

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Peter Gerdes's avatar

I suspect that it most professions the skills within an agents ambit just don’t make up that much of the variation in pay. Unlike a sports star or CEO in most jobs there is pretty low return on exceptional performance (think a model where the performance of the team is mostly a function of the skill of the least skilled member). As such there isn’t the same opportunity to negotiate for more salary since the market will be competitive and you’ll be interchangeable with any individual who has greater than team minimum skill). Note that CEO sports stars etc are the ones who all hire people for this task.

Another problem here is that using an agent would seem to be a credible signal that you won’t be able to get the job on your own merits. Since there is no real ability to negotiate up the salary the only thing an agent could help achieve is to land you a more elite job than you can on your own. Hence making the agent themselves a reason not to hire you.

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