Go "too high". Why dump the recruiter when you can just price yourself out of the recruiter's league?
Believe me, if your salary seems impossible to achieve the recruiter will tell you, probably pretty bluntly. And if it is possible to achieve and the recruiter helps you get there she'll be thrilled. Recruiters get a cut of that number!
(Though, remember, take recruiter advice with a grain of salt: Their tendency will probably be to talk you down. As with buyer-brokers in real estate, the recruiter's incentive is to make the deal go forward, not to hold out for the best possible price for you. Alas, in the end, the responsibility for holding out for a good price is almost impossible to delegate: The buck stops with you.)
Of course, the take-home lesson is that if you aren't comfortable setting a high anchor point for your salary you shouldn't deal through recruiters. Which probably helps to explain why companies seem to love using recruiters.
While some recruiters get a cut of the salary, others operate on a fixed contract. I know of one company that pays a recruiting firm $110-$150 per hour, and the recruiting firm only pays $50-$60 per hour.
Believe me, if your salary seems impossible to achieve the recruiter will tell you, probably pretty bluntly. And if it is possible to achieve and the recruiter helps you get there she'll be thrilled. Recruiters get a cut of that number!
(Though, remember, take recruiter advice with a grain of salt: Their tendency will probably be to talk you down. As with buyer-brokers in real estate, the recruiter's incentive is to make the deal go forward, not to hold out for the best possible price for you. Alas, in the end, the responsibility for holding out for a good price is almost impossible to delegate: The buck stops with you.)
Of course, the take-home lesson is that if you aren't comfortable setting a high anchor point for your salary you shouldn't deal through recruiters. Which probably helps to explain why companies seem to love using recruiters.