After applying online I was first called by a recruiter, this discussion felt extremely impersonal and cold. They seemed to be filling in some kind of checklist and were trying to get as many answers out of me per minute as they could.
They made no effort to make me feel comfortable or make me like the company. As part of the questions they asked me my salary expectation and just noted down what I told them. They called me again next morning telling me that the recruitment manager wants to speak with me but they will need to lower the salary by about 20% due to the type of experience I am bringing. I felt bummed out by this as I think I have very relevant experience for this role and seemingly more experience with the tool than the hiring manager himself. Furthermore I had based my expectations on high-confidence salaries shared on this platform.
As reasoning she pulled out the typical BS around how they want to hire people who really want to join them as a company rather than people who want money. Mind you this is the same a company that jacks up its license prices by minimum 20% at every renewal as a standard and justifies it by talking about the value their tool brings.
This whole thing felt wrong already but I decided to proceed regardless as I was hoping that once inside I will have opportunities that I wouldn't have working for a partner.
A couple days later I had the interview with the Hiring manager and a team member and I felt it went quite well. I get another call from the same cold recruiter the morning after and she confirms that the feedback is positive, however they want to reduce the type of package they would put me on by another 15% and the way she was saying it it sounded like they are already making a stretch, even though earlier she was the one who gave me a number... At this point I felt like they are playing games with me and I pulled out from the process.
I never had any company simultaneously tell me they like my profile, they liked me during my interview and want me to work for them while also trying to reduce my salary expectations by belittling my past achievements... They tried to do this twice in the process. I feel like they wasted my time and I would not recommend applying for a role there.