I applied via Linkedin and was immediately contacted by their lead recruiter.
The process was fairly easy, but also somewhat slapdash and poorly organized. It was also unusually abated by the sudden dismissal of the hiring manager, who was 100% the only reason I was excited about the role and organization.
The job posting also indicated that the role paid a specific amount, but that this amount was merely the baseline and could increase based off of skills and experience. I have two decades of successfully turning around small, medium sized, and large operations. I immediately indicated this to the hiring manager, provided my salary expectations, and she indicated that my desired range would be considered.
After my last onsite interview with the hiring manager and another colleague of his with whom I would potentially interact, there was radio silence for about 5 business days. I took this as a negative sign, despite the fact that each interview in the process seemed extremely positive, so I reached out to the hiring manager, who indicated that they had parted ways with the hiring manager about whom I had been so enthusiastic. This should have served as a warning to me, but they way she phrased it was vague and I felt that it could have been a resignation (and I held out hope that the hiring manager had left for greener pastures). She asked me if I wanted to proceed with a fresh round of interviews, and in an effort to remain open-minded and optimistic, so I agreed.
The recruiter set me up with a remote panel interview with three people, including the new hiring manager, yet only one of the three bothered to show up. The hiring manager was not one of them.
Since I was already on the call, I decided to remain open minded, so I remained on to speak with the lone participant, and was pleasantly surprised with the experience. The person with whom I spoke was actually quite knowledgeable and extremely pleasant, and I am positive she's a great colleague based on my sole interaction with her.
Jump cut to EOW, and I was somewhat surprised to receive an offer.
However,
The offer was the rock bottom, baseline salary from their job post. Again, this is after I made it a point to mention that this would not be an acceptable salary for me, and after I provided my rock bottom salary to the recruiter; this literally occurred on the first call I had with the recruiter, who at least *seemed* to record the information. And, if that wasn't bad enough, the hiring manager would not be the person with whom I spoke during the re-interview process, but it would be a guy who didn't even bother to show for the interview, which I felt was highly unusual and did not exactly fill me with confidence.
Additionally, the recruiter all but stated that they had made the decision to part ways with the original hiring manager, and was (understandably) vague about the details.
After indicating that this offer was not acceptable to me, the recruiter told me she would go back to her leaders with my salary demands (the ones I had provided a month ago) and would get back to me by end of day, which I knew was not remotely possible. After about 8 or 9 days, she indicated they would not be able to match my counter or even meet me half way. I had long since abandoned hope, of course, and had basically forgotten about them, but it was at least nice of her to follow up.
