Stand Up For Your Qualifications and Salary

Your Time and Efforts are Valuable

Since November 2022, through the publication of this post, I had sent over 700 applications to a specific role type that catered to my résumé. While some applications received hits, a majority received rejections, or simple ghostings.

While a few interview requests came in, and while I did take them, I had myself open to recruiters reaching out to see if I would align with a role they had in mind; some were internal and some were external recruiters.

Meeting The Salary Expectations

The first was from a company based in California, whose name I can't remember at the moment. The recruiter was internal, and seemed turned off when I gave her my salary range. During our "screening" call, she expressed frustration about the fact that she had to re-post the role several times, a few times with the salary, and a few times without. Needless to say, the times that she posted the role with the salary, she had very few—to almost no—applicants. She couldn't understand why.

She then mentioned that of the times she did not post the salary on the job description, she received several, highly-qualified candidates, with high salary expectations. When she gave them the fixed salary budgeted for the role, and told them that there was almost no room for negotiation, the conversations basically came to an end, and she went back to square one.

I, of course, was on the receiving end of similar phone screenings, several times, and noticed the trend immediately. This role had several bullet points, basically expecting the world, it was a very low-salary role, which means that in the United States anything over 40 hours is encouraged because they don't have to offer you overtime, and the responsibility for the role required much more caring than the salary would have any value their duties.

Knowing that we were not aligned, and knowing that my candidacy for this role was doomed, I asked the recruiter if I could be candid with her, tell her what I'm experiencing, and maybe help her potentially find the right candidate and the right salary. She was receptive to listen and take in my feedback as the candidate who keeps striking out.

I began to express that, after several hundred applications, and seeing salary descriptions for similar roles, that my requirement was the average, and not what her company thought was a reasonable compensation for a role with such high responsibility. 

I stressed that if she were to hire someone at that rate, and the candidate saw what they saw in terms of compensation among their team members, that she should expect (1) this potential new-hire to immediately begin looking for another role—even on company time, (2) not give their 100% to the role, and (3) cost the company more to [a] terminate this hire, [b] put out a new post for the role, [c] vet applications, and [d] hire-then-train a new candidate.

While my feedback was well-received, she did say that her employer was set on this salary for the role. She did mention that she would bring my feedback to her management to let them know that this is the trending salary for this particular type of role—when compared to other roles, and that this was the reason why they weren't seeing any good candidates willing to work for the company's set salary.

Pool of Potential

Companies love, love, love to say that they are equal-opportunity and love to say that they search far and wide for good talent. However, when companies limit their pool of potential to specific cities, and there's someone very talented well across the country, and aren't willing to offer relocation assistance, to me that falls into geographic discrimination. As a technology company, you most certainly didn't survive the pandemic without the option for remote work as an option to keep your operations running. I never want to hear that from another recruiter.

To that point, after applying to one particular company quite a few times, with similar roles in Alpharetta, GA and Parsippany, NJ—with a satellite office in Manhattan, NY, I was told by the internal recruiter that these particular roles reported to Alpharetta and Parsippany. Then she became aware that there was an office in Manhattan, and I told her that if I got the role, I would show up at the Manhattan office to take a selfie with their company logo behind me to prove that I showed up at the office. At best, the Parsippany location would have been a two to two-and-a-half hour commute each way. No.

I asked every question with respect to recent trends in remote work:

1. How did your operations survive through the pandemic's lockdown measures?
2. Did you work remotely?
3. Did you pause operations until it was safe to come into the office after a year or so?

While the answers to the questions were so obvious, asking them really helped the recruiter see and understand my point-of-view:

1. We gave employees the opportunity to work remotely
2. Yes
3. No

She knew where I was coming from, and promised to speak to the managers of the team to whom this role answers, to state my case, and to see if my qualifications spoke louder to the team as opposed to my geographical setting. After not hearing from them, I realized that my qualifications did not speak louder.

My conclusion to companies currently limiting their pool of potential is simple: trust and control!

If companies lack trust in their own teams to do a good job and would rather control their employees, they will lag behind in growth and qualified candidates. This ultimately leads to an unhappy workplace and an uncomfortable environment. With employees under the controlling and watchful eye of their employer, their time and efforts in seeking a better, healthier role becomes severely limited.

Please, don't be that company!