Hi Nie!

This is a true story. "Jim" is an alias, but everything else is true.

Jim felt like he ran into a dead end at his job, and missed being challenged and having opportunities to try new things. He had a strong Mechanical Engineering resume that landed him plenty of job interviews, but he struggled to get call-backs.

So he hired me to help.

Today we're talking about red flags to look out for when you're being recruited by a company.
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This email is about Jim's story, but since there is already so much in this email I am leaving out another story from "Carrie" whose recruiter tried to tip her off that the hiring manager had some control issues...

​Click here to read Carrie's story and learn about a few other red flags to watch for​

His interviewing technique improved dramatically as we worked together, and he made it through several rounds of interviews for an exciting opportunity at a promising company in his field.

It seemed like a job offer might be on the way...

The recruiter asked about his current salary, which he declined to share. She seemed a little frustrated, and shared the salary range for the role he had interviewed for. The range she provided looked like this:

Principle Mechanical Engineer: Low-end salary - Medium salary - High-end salary

She asked if that salary range and job title sounded reasonable. Jim said:

This is where things start to get a little confusing. The recruiter had essentially said, "If we offer you this job with this salary range, would that be reasonable?" And Jim said, "Sure, I would consider it!"

But the recruiter responded that...

This was a mixed bag.

On one hand, there's definitely a red flag that the recruiter said she felt Jim was being vague, and then asked him if he would accept a hypothetical job offer.

On the other hand, at least we have a more precise number to work with now!

Jim replied:

Now the recruiter had everything she needed to make an offer that she knew Jim would at least consider, and Jim had made it clear that what she proposed was reasonable, but that he would also evaluate any offer in the broader context of the entire benefits package. We were just waiting for an offer to consider and negotiate.

Sure enough, she made an offer!

But the offer she actually made was below the "Medium salary" she had previously suggested with the hypothetical job offer. She had suggested a specific number in the hypothetical phase of the discussion, then reduced it by $4,000 when she made the actual offer.

Another red flag.

She also said Jim had 6 days to "accept, decline or counter" (her words) from the date he received it officially.

At least she had firmly left the door open to negotiate. It seemed like the original "medium" salary was available, so we could hope to negotiate at least that amount.

Suddenly, things went sideways

It was sort of a painful process to get a firm offer, but at least we knew the company would consider paying a higher salary than offered and the recruiter explicitly said countering was an option.

So Jim sent an email countering about 15% above the offer—still well below the "High salary" that the recruiter had shared earlier.

He quickly got a reply from the recruiter:

And just a short while later, she followed up with:

Say what?

He emailed back asking if that meant they were fully retracting the offer or if it just meant that they were standing firm on the initial offer.

She didn't respond to his email, so he called her directly. She didn't answer and didn't return his calls.

She totally ghosted him. Jim still hasn't heard back from her since that last email.

Why we celebrated when Jim lost this job offer

You might be thinking, "Whoa! That really blew up in his face!" But Jim and I ended up celebrating this as a huge victory. Why?

Here's a short recap of Jim's experience "negotiating" with this company who eventually retracted the offer and stopped speaking to him:

• They asked for his current salary, but he didn't share it.
• They suggested a range of salaries for the position - Low, Medium, High - and asked if he would consider an offer in the "Medium" range.
• He said he would consider such an offer.
• They made an offer below the "Medium" range they had suggested and said he could "accept, decline or counter" (those were the exact words from the recruiter) within six days.
• He chose "counter" and countered about 15% above their offer (still well below the "High-end salary" part of the range they told him earlier).
• The recruiter implied that talking to Jim had been a waste of time and that she would run his "counter offer" [her scare quotes] by HR.
• The recruiter then got back to Jim and said they had declined his counter offer.
• Jim asked for clarification on whether the original offer stood or not.
• The recruiter ignored him.
• Jim called the recruiter to talk about the situation.
• The recruiter ignored his calls and never returned his voicemails.

Looking back on that experience, one question keeps coming to mind:

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD JIM WANT TO WORK FOR A COMPANY THAT TREATS CANDIDATES THAT WAY?!

The recruiting process is typically when the company wants to put its best foot forward and make the best impression so they attract the best candidates to join their team.

This isn't a simple case of "Jim negotiated so they pulled the job offer."

The recruiter suggested they would offer a salary higher than they did, and asked Jim to pre-commit to accepting it. When she offered a lower-than-suggested salary and he negotiated well within the range they told him the job would pay, she completely stopped talking to him. She even mocked his "counter offer" a little bit and implied he had wasted her time.

So if this experience is the best they have to offer, what's it like to actually work for them? Probably pretty awful.

Fortunately, Jim had been interviewing with another company at the same time. They made a better offer and were very friendly throughout the subsequent negotiation. Now he's working there, making more money and he loves what he's doing and feels great about the career opportunities that lie ahead of him at a solid company.

Takeaways from Jim's story

I've been coaching people through salary negotiations for eight years now. I've personally worked with about 200 people one-on-one to help them negotiate. I have seen this sort of thing happen a grand total of ... twice.

This story is one of them, and the other time this happened was extremely similar (and that client also had another offer in hand).

Both of those firms were small-ish firms where the recruiter was an HR generalist who was wearing multiple hats. In other words, they weren't professional recruiters. Instead, they were HR people who were also responsible for finding talent.

We saw several red flags throughout the interview and recruitment process, and each red flag on its own could be explained away charitably as "this person is just really busy" or "they're probably inexperienced with this sort of thing".

But the totality of these red flags painted a picture of a company whose employees were stretched thin, wearing too many hats, and probably under a lot of pressure. That would not have been a great environment for Jim to join, and I think we were both relieved when the retracted the offer. That seemed like confirmation that the red flags we noticed were part of a pattern, and not just random events.

I've never seen this happen with a big tech company, or even a medium-sized tech company.

Negotiating your job offers can help improve your comp, but It's also an opportunity for you to interview the company itself. You get to see how collaborative they are. You get to see how they handle internal decisions that require multiple levels of approval and budget changes.

Those are all really useful signs as you consider whether you want to spend 40–60 hours a week working with that team over the next few years or so. A few years can fly by if you're working with the right team, but it can be a real grind if you join a company who doesn't treat their employees well.

Make sure you take note of how thy treat you when you're negotiating because negotiating your offer can give you a sneak peek into how they treat their employees.

Have a great week!

Josh