Dude, that right there is the problem. They make a commission off your starting salary, so OF COURSE their primary concern is your past and future financials.
I disagree. Recruiters have a conflict of interest that often goes to the candidate's advantage and against their employer's interest. The higher your salary, the higher their commission. And employers are fine with that because a good hire is better than no hire.
For the recruiter, getting you in at 160k is twice as good as getting you in at 80k, and infinitely better than you walking away.
As a candidate that currently earns 100k, an 80k offer is worthless.
(Threatening to) walking away from a deal is one of the strongest strategies in negotiation. But that's the one thing a recruiter will never want you to do.
Candidate: High salary > no deal > low salary.
Recruiter: High salary > low salary > no deal.
You are right, that the recruiter has an even bigger conflict of interest with their employer. But that conflict does not mean the recruiter's interests are aligned with the candidate.
(One way to align any interests is generally to repeat games. That's why internal recruiters are usually less sleazy than the external kind: they are at least clearly on the site of the employer. And honourable employers have a reputation to defend---another repeated game.)
That is what you would expect, but they want to optimise both on commission and on throughput. If a slightly lower salary makes it easier to position you and get you hired fast, the cost of the lower commission is less than the cost of working on your case for a long time. It is the same with real estate agents. From that perspective, their knowledge of the market should theoretically set the price at the optimal short-term, hiring decision point. Nevertheless, for the employee and employer this is a long term relationship and it works out bad on both sides (lower salary than could be achieved for the employee, greater employee turnover for the employer.)
While a fair salary is ideal for all parties, optimizing for job satisfaction would be a wiser decision than optimizing for salary amount. Scoring a high salary may merely mean the new hire will be one of the first to be cut from the crew should the firm hit choppy waters... an outcome that recruiters do not need to care about.
Dude, that right there is the problem. They make a commission off your starting salary, so OF COURSE their primary concern is your past and future financials.
This is why I hate recruiters.