Four weeks, five rounds, for a senior operations role. The listing had been explicit about pay: $110,000 to $130,000.
He cleared the recruiter screen, two technical panels, and a culture-fit conversation with a vice-president. Then a six-hour assignment — a strategic workflow presentation, delivered before any offer existed.
The HR director called the next day to extend a verbal offer. There was, he wrote, a theatrical congratulations speech and a dramatic pause. Then the number: a starting base of $75,000.
He went silent. When he raised the posted floor, she told him the $110,000 figure had included “total potential compensation” — the value of health insurance and annual performance incentives.
He told her that dressing entry-level pay in a total-reward package was predatory, that it had cost him twenty hours, and he withdrew on the spot. She was still talking when he hung up.