I applied for the Full Stack Web Developer position in mid July 2018, on July 27th, 2018, an internal recruiter from Herff Jones spoke with me on the phone about the position and my salary expectations. I told the recruiter that my salary range was between 95K-100k, he told me that was the exact range that Herff Jones has in mind as well, and it was "definitely doable". So with that understanding, I proceeded with the initial telephone technical screening with the hiring manager on August 2nd, 2018. Which lead to an in-person interview on August 10, 2018. The technical interviews weren't very hard, just canned Java and general software engineering questions.
On August 15th, 2018, after having no communications whatsoever, I contacted Herff Jones' recruiter to ask for an update, but there was no reply. Naturally, I presumed that they weren't interested.
However, on September 26th, 2018, their recruiter emailed me, stating that he had emailed me on behalf of the hiring manager to see if I was "still in the job market". I replied to the recruiter's email stating that I was, but I didn't hear anything for about a week. After which time, I decided to email the hiring manager directly to check on the status of the position that I had interviewed for months ago. On October 3rd, 2018, I got a call from the hiring manager, he offered me the job at 85K per year, I told him that wasn't the salary range that the recruiter and myself had discussed in July. The hiring manager dodged the issue and then proceeded to talk about the great vacation plan that they can offer: 2 weeks per year, but you can only take it after you've completed 1 year of work. And during their "busy season", you're expected to work 50+ hours per week. (I don't mind working overtime to get work done, but only if I'm fairly compensated for it.) At the time of this offer, I had 10 years of full-stack software engineering experience. Needless to say, I did not accept the offer, not necessarily because of compensation, but because of their shady hiring practices.
I should also point out that the recruiter I worked with was an actual internal Herff Jones employee, not from an external recruiting agency.
