This happened a few years ago, but it has left a bitter taste in my mouth to this day.

I’m a software developer, and at the time had about 5 years experience. I was messaged about an opportunity with a startup consulting firm and I decided I’d at least hear what they’re doing.

Recruiter connects me and the CEO and we hit it off. This guy is doing cool stuff with interesting technology. I would be one of the first 3 hires, but he has capitol and said it’d be salary and company stake compensation.

Awesome. I’m young, this sounds very cool.

Recruiter calls and gets my feedback, says the CEO is interested. What salary am I looking for? I would be relocating to a metro area so I mentioned a number I thought would be reasonable. He gets defensive, saying that that’s too high and it might result in a rejection. I should go lower and continue the conversation. Naw, that’s my number.

A week later, he calls again and said the company is going to move ahead with a different applicant.

Well shit, that wasn’t great.

I look up the CEO’s LinkedIn and send him a message, wishing his company the best, and that I was sorry we couldn’t make something work.

He messages me immediately back asking for my phone number. We connect and he’s livid. He says the recruiter said that I wasn’t interested in the position and withdrew my application. And even more frustrating for him was that my salary expectation was right around where he had in mind. And to make things worse, he signed an exclusivity contract with this firm to get him applicants and he can’t hire outside candidates.

Turns out the recruiter had lied and withdrawn me because they had a quota of candidates they were expected to deliver him and get hired, and my salary expectation made the recruiter think I’d get rejected.

That company is thriving and growing and a recruiter stopped me from getting in on the ground floor.

TL;DR: Recruiter pulled my application despite mutual interest between me and the company due to my salary expectations, despite them being what the company expected.

Edit: https://imgur.com/a/yDl33lz I found the LinkedIn messages between myself and the company I was interviewing for. Kind of refreshed my memory on the details. The job posting had said 100k base salary and I asked for 85k because I wanted a new job. In retrospect, I don’t know what I was doing.