Recruiter scouts employee for office job, gets annoyed when they tell her they want to earn more than their current $110k salary: 'That is not a realistic expectation'

Ally Perry • Writer and Editor

Jun 14, 2026 9:15 AM EDT

Money is everything when it comes to changing jobs.

While not everybody derives most of their work satisfaction from their salary, there is no getting away from the fact that it is the reason for most of the workforce doing what they do. For every individual whose professional life is a passion project, there are a hundred people who have a job purely because they need the paycheck.

Although the likes of hiring managers and recruiters like to dance around how much compensation means to job applicants, it is always a crucial part of the discussion. While some employees are ready to take a pay cut for a role they really love or that has good room for progression, most only want to job hop if there is the promise of a larger salary. It makes sense; moving to another company always involves an element of risk, and it is nice to have some perks to mitigate that.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that are not willing to put in the investment to impress the best candidates. The result of this is that they miss out on hires that could have done good things for them if only they would pay them well.

via Christina @ wocintechchat.com M

_{^{A model representing a female employee sitting on a windowsill and holding a closed laptop in her lap}}
An employee who was making a living from temporary work was surprised to get a message from a recruiter about a role after leaving their resume on some job boards. They were not actively looking for a job, but they were willing to consider an arrangement that was more stable than their current one.
However, the opportunity soon looked like something they didn't want when they enquired about the salary range before meeting. They told her that they expected a salary that was higher than they were currently earning, and she claimed that this was unrealistic. They wanted to vent about the experience.
A recruiter reached out to me about a job, then got upset when I told her what I'd need to leave my current job

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