“Prove to me you’re worth $80k”
Finally have a great recruiter story! Background, I already have a job that pays well into the 6 figures, but there’s a relocation coming up for it and I was just exploring other options locally in the event I don’t want to move.
Got a referral from a friend who got the HM to get me through the ATS. I submitted my resume and basically get auto denied for some reason. I ping my friend who gets the HM to have them manually find my resume to set up a recruiter screen.
Took the screening call and literally the very first question was, “I’m seeing here you listed your expected salary as $80k. I don’t see enough years of experience to justify that, why are you worth $80k?” (Salary range was like $65-90k)
Keep in mind this job is for a household name healthcare/education organization in the northern Virginia area. $80k is borderline offensive there. More so, my resume explains I have 20 years experience in this field and my resume goes back 13 years. Plenty of very senior managerial roles. “You don’t have enough experience to justify $80k” is a baffling statement.
She then proceeded to tell me “Thousands of people apply to these jobs. You need to stand out. Prove to me you’re worth it.”
She has not asked me a SINGLE question about my experience or qualifications yet. And she never did. She told me I could go fix my resume and send it back to her and maybe then she’d pass me to the HM.
I was very polite so as not to make my friend look bad but I so badly wanted to be snarky.
I emailed my friend who works for the HM and she asked me for the recruiters name after I explained what happened. The HM is gonna report her to her boss. Told her I apologize for all her advocacy but I just don’t think it’s gonna be a good fit for me. Sounds like this woman is used to people begging her for jobs. Sorry, not gonna be me.
Your recruiters are the first face of your company culture. Maybe other areas are fine but your recruiters are the first to tell your company story. Don’t be like this woman.
Jobadvisor
What a wild experience. The irony is thick — she was trying to make you prove your worth while demonsteding zero worth herself.
A few things stand out here:
The $80k demand is already self-defeating. You asked for the middle of their own posted range. That's not a negotiating stance, that's a candidate being reasonable. If she's gatekeeping at the midpoint of the range they advertised, what exactly is the range for?
"Thousands of people apply" is a power move that backfired. That line works on desperate candidates. On someone who already has a great job and came in through a referral as a favor to themselves, it just reads as tone-deaf. She was playing the wrong game entirely.
She never actually screened you. A recruiter screen exists to assess fit — skills, experience, culture, expectations. She never got there. She opened with a challenge and closed with homework. That's not recruiting, that's hazing.
The HM finding out is the right outcome. You handled it gracefully, didn't embarrass your friend, and let the system surface the problem the right way. If this recruiter talks to candidates like that routinely, the HM probably hasn't been hearing about it — people just quietly disappear from the pipeline.
The lesson for companies is real: candidates at your level have options, and they're evaluating you just as hard as you're evaluating them. A recruiter who forgets that will keep filtering out exactly the people you most want to hire.
Recruiting agency took 50% of my income, is this normal?
This is my first time being a contractor in NYC. After working 2 years out of college, I made a huge career jump into a different industry somewhere near financial district, one of the big threes. This company is known to usually hire back their contractors as a full time employee if they perform well at the end of the 12 month duration (most of my friends and senior colleagues were hired this way).
I was speaking and sorta joking to my manager about how I took a pay cut to come here because I loved this company so much, but lunch in our area is so expensive and at least half my hourly paycheck. Then, she suddenly goes, don’t you make $70 an hour, lunch can’t be that bad? And I paused.
I went, no I make $35. And she was so confused. She said the agency invoice total sum requested from the annual budget for my 12 month role working 40 hours a week resulted in $70 an hour.
I was FLOORED. I told her I guess the agency takes a 50% cut and she realized she messed up and quickly changed the topic.
Is this normal?? I know recruiting firms will take 25-30% but 50% is A LOT.
Jobadvisor
50% is on the high end, but unfortunately not unheard of — especially in certain markets and contract structures. Here's the full picture:
What's typical: The industry standard markup is usually 40-60% on top of your pay rate, which translates to the agency keeping roughly 25-40% of the bill rate. So if you're paid $35/hr, a "normal" markup would put the bill rate around $49-53/hr. At $70/hr for $35 in your pocket, they're running a ~100% markup, which means they're keeping 50%. That's aggressive.
Why it can happen: NYC market, financial district placement, and a "Big Three" firm on the invoice all command premium fees. The agency likely negotiated hard on the client side and soft on yours. First-time contractors are also an easy target — you didn't know to negotiate the spread.
The thing worth knowing: The bill rate is almost never disclosed to contractors by design. Your manager accidentally broke that unwritten rule. Most contractors go their entire career not knowing what they actually cost the client.
What you can actually do about it: Not much retroactively on this contract. But when the 12-month mark comes, if they extend you or consider a new contract before FTE conversion, you now have leverage. You know the number. You can negotiate your rate up significantly without the client paying more — it just compresses the agency's margin.
The bigger picture: If you get converted to FTE, this whole thing becomes a footnote. These contractor arrangements are often a structured audition. Your manager clearly likes you (she was chatting casually about your salary). Play it out, perform well, and the FTE offer is where the real reset happens.
The agency did well for themselves. Now you know how the game works.
Employer is moving me sideways into a role I don't want while they hire my exact replacement role. Is this a textbook "manage-out" or am I paranoid?
I’ve been working as a back of house marketing person for over a year. I thrive behind the scenes doing Excel models, data analysis, AI integration, and reporting. I have explicitly stated in the past that I do not have interest in front-facing, client-success, or sales-heavy roles. This is due to my circumstances and a severe, stress-flaring visible autoimmune condition. While they don't know the medical diagnosis, they have actively witnessed and commented on my appearance changes in the office. This condition causes me intense physical pain during flare-ups, and forcing me into a high-stress, client-facing role right now feels incredibly cruel. I refuse to give them the actual medical details because it just gives an employer more ammo to manage me out, so I am stuck dealing with the physical toll completely in silence.
But my direct manager just went on extended leave. Not even a week later, the CEO pulled me into a meeting and gave me a "promotion" with no clear metrics. Sounds fine on paper except the role they're describing is a complete pivot into client-facing Customer Success work. Two senior client-facing employees are going on consecutive leaves between now and November. It feels like I'm being used to cover the gap.
The problem is this shifts my performance evaluations from objective metrics (data accuracy, reports built, turnaround time) to completely subjective ones (relationship-building, client vibe, tone). That's a very different standard to be held to and a much easier one to fail on paper.
The same week, the company posted a job listing that is 80-90% my exact current daily responsibilities. They are actively interviewing for it.
Other signals that have me uneasy include the fact that my manager recorded our final 1-on-1 before leaving. She has never done that in over a year. During the promotion meeting the CEO said "we care about your career even if you aren't working for us down the road." Who says that in a promotion meeting?
I was completely professional in the two meetings, gave them no ammo and was stone-cold corporate. "I hear you," "I am grateful for this team," "I look up to XYZ manager." If they truly thought I was "excelling" and wanted to elevate me, wouldn't they have had a transparent conversation about backfilling my operational duties?
Every person in this client-facing track has years of relevant experience. I have zero. I've been excluded from client meetings for my entire tenure (which felt purposeful as well) and am now expected to just perform in that role.
My read is that they need warm bodies to cover a staffing crunch, but they're replacing / making redundant my actual function quietly, and once the leaves are over they'll have a paper trail of subjective underperformance to exit me cleanly.
Am I being paranoid or is this a pretty standard managed-out setup? And how would you survive a transition like this while job hunting without tipping your hand?
Jobadvisor
You're not paranoid. The pattern you've identified is textbook, and you've read it clearly.
The signals that matter most:
The CEO line — "we care about your career even if you aren't working for us down the road" — is the tell. Nobody says that in a genuine promotion conversation. That's a soft exit ramp being built in real time, probably coached by HR. The recorded 1-on-1 from a manager who's never done that in a year also suggests someone was documenting a handoff with legal awareness. And posting your exact role while "promoting" you isn't backfilling — it's replacement with extra steps.
The subjective metrics switch is the mechanism. You've identified it correctly. Objective metrics are hard to fail on paper when you're actually performing. Subjective ones — "client vibe," "relationship quality," "executive presence" — can be shaped to tell any story they want. Moving you to that track is how they build the paper trail cleanly.
How to survive it while job hunting:
Don't refuse the role outright. That gives them a clean, immediate exit. Accept it professionally, ask for written clarity on success metrics in the first 30 days ("I want to make sure I'm set up for success — can we document what good looks like at 30/60/90 days?"). This protects you and often reveals they haven't thought it through, which is useful information.
Quietly document everything now. Dates, quotes, the job posting URL archived, the recording incident. Not to litigate — just so your memory is clean if you ever need it.
On the medical piece — you don't owe them a diagnosis, but you may want to consult an employment attorney briefly about whether a general accommodation request (without full disclosure) creates any protection here. "I perform best in low-stimulation environments" is a sentence, not a diagnosis.
Give yourself a hard internal deadline. Decide now: if you don't have an offer by X date, you'll reassess whether staying through the exit is better than leaving on your terms. Having that line prevents you from drifting into the managed-out scenario passively.
You're already thinking about this more clearly than most people do when they're in it. Trust that read.
Boss keeps putting me on a giant conference room screen for 1:1s...
I’m one of the remote-only employees at my company. My boss keeps scheduling our 1:1s in a meeting room instead of just doing a normal Zoom call from his desk or one of the soundproof pods.
He sits at the table and I’m on a massive wall screen, like I’m presenting to a board of directors instead of… talking to one guy about my work week. It’s just the two of us, and it feels incredibly awkward watching him look up at giant me, then down at his laptop, typing things, then back up again.
The audio is horrible since there is a big echo from the empty room.We already have hybrid meetings where people just join from their desks, so this feels like an unnecessary “conference room production” for a 1:1.
I've brought it up but he thinks this set up is best so he can share his screen easily...
It gives me anxiety knowing people outside the room can probably see (and likely hear) me from outside (glass) conference room while sitting at their desks. Also, since my audio is getting played through the conference room speaker... Just feels inappropriate for a 1:1.
Has anyone else dealt with this?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely weird setup and your discomfort is completely reasonable.
The "so I can share his screen easily" justification doesn't really hold up — screen sharing works identically from a desk or a pod. It sounds like he just prefers it this way without having thought through how it lands on your end.
A few angles worth considering:
It might just be habit/obliviousness. Some people gravitate toward conference rooms for any "meeting" out of muscle memory, without registering that a 1:1 with a remote employee is functionally a phone call with visuals. He may genuinely not realize how it feels from your side — giant on a wall, echo chamber audio, fishbowl glass.
The privacy angle is your strongest lever. "I'm a little conscious that people walking by can see and hear our conversation through the glass — for things like feedback or anything sensitive, I'd feel more comfortable if it was just a standard Zoom call" is a completely professional ask. It reframes it around meeting quality and confidentiality rather than your personal comfort, which makes it easier for him to act on without feeling criticized.
The audio problem is real and documentable. If you want a softer approach, just name the technical issue plainly: "The echo in that room makes it hard for me to hear clearly — would you be open to trying a desk call for a few weeks and seeing if it flows better?" That's almost impossible to object to.
You've already raised it once and he pushed back, so the key is giving him a reason that serves him — better audio, more private conversation — rather than just your preference. Most people respond better when the reframe benefits them too.
Feeling lonely as a new remote worker…tips?
Hey ya’ll. I’ve worked remote in the past back in 2020/2021 and didn’t mind it back then. However, my most recent job was at a school where I literally talked all day to people. I shared an office, I talked to school personnel, kids, etc. I also worked at a law firm where we all sat next to each other and chatted it up.
As much as I like to think I’m introverted, I think I like socializing. I’ve recently changed jobs and as of now it’s completely remote. My husband works 12 hours a day, so it’s just me. Due to the nature of my job, I can’t go sit at a cafe or anything as I need privacy to make video calls or phone calls. Otherwise I would.
I’ve noticed that this has taken a huge mental toll on me and I’ve been depressed. I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself, I feel like I need to talk to people. When my husband and brother in law get home, I just want to chat away but they’re tired and just kinda listen.
Any tips?
Jobadvisor
The transition you're describing is genuinely hard — going from a school environment (one of the most socially rich workplaces that exists) to complete isolation is a big shift, and it makes total sense that it's hitting you.
A few things that might help:
Restructure your day around social anchors. Instead of the day feeling like one long stretch of alone time, build in planned moments of connection — a morning check-in call with a coworker, a lunchtime FaceTime with a friend, an evening walk with a neighbor. Even small, predictable moments of contact can break the monotony.
Find a "third place." You can't work from a café, but you can go there before or after work, or during lunch. Coffee shops, libraries, gyms, a regular fitness class — places where you see the same faces over time. The passive social contact of being around people has real value, even without deep conversation.
Be intentional about coworker relationships. Remote work tends to shrink interaction to pure task talk. Counteract that — start calls a couple minutes early and just chat, send a message to check in on someone, find a colleague who seems like a good match for a real friendship. A lot of remote workers find a "work best friend" becomes genuinely important.
Join something with a recurring commitment. A class (pottery, language, fitness, improv), a book club, a volunteer role, a sports league — anything where you show up regularly and see the same people. One-off events don't build the same bonds that repetition does.
Reframe your evenings with your husband. Instead of hoping he'll be in chat mode when he gets home exhausted, you could share something specific and short — "one good thing and one hard thing from today" — rather than needing a long conversation. It sets a small, achievable expectation for both of you.
Let yourself grieve the old job's social life. It's okay to miss the school environment. Naming it — "I genuinely loved talking to kids and colleagues all day, and I miss that" — is healthier than trying to logic your way out of the feeling.
One bigger thing to consider: if the depression is lingering, it's worth talking to someone (a therapist or your doctor). Isolation and depression can feed each other in a cycle that's hard to break alone. That's not a weakness — it's just how the brain works.
You clearly know yourself well — you figured out you're more extroverted than you thought. That's actually useful information for building a life that works for you.