Recruiter Tells Job Applicant They're 'Too Expensive' When They Request $100k Salary, Relist the Job With a $100-120k Salary Range

Ally Perry • Editor at Memebase

May 28, 2026 8:30 PM EDT

Sometimes it doesn't pay to know what you're worth.

In the fickle world of the job search, many advise that we should be confident when discussing our salary expectations. It isn't necessarily a good idea to set them crazy high, but making sure that a potential employer knows that you want fair compensation is a necessary step. You want to start as you mean to go on.

The downside of this is that not every company or recruiter is going to be on board with how much you want to be paid. Much of the time, this is a blessing in disguise, because if the amount of money you want is not going to be respected, you probably aren't going to be either. Nonetheless, this can be a frustrating thing to experience.

One of the disappointments of looking for a new job is that you may be forced to learn that just because an employer didn't want you doesn't mean that they didn't take note of your standards. This makes it all the more important to keep them high, and make sure that you are putting across the best version of your skills and expertise (although ideally, not giving away too much of it for free).

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A project manager looking for a new role was excited to find a job listing in the salary range they were looking for, and in an industry they had experience in. It wasn't long before they had arranged a call with the recruiter who was advertising the role.
Things began to go not so smoothly when they started to discuss what they expected to be paid, with the recruiter implying that their expectation of a $100k salary was too much, despite it being within the advertised salary range. They swiftly received a rejection for the job, but the insult didn't end there.
Recruiter told me I was “too expensive,” then reposted the role higher two weeks later

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_{^{Representation of a female recruiter taking a call while a male job applicant sits in front of a laptop}}
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_{^{Representation of a female recruiter taking a call on her cell phone while a male job applicant sits in front of a computer in the background}}
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