Company lowballed me by 20% below their posted salary range on the final offer letter. How should I counter without losing the offer?
I just spent four weeks going through a rigorous five-round interview loop for a Senior Operations Specialist role at a mid-sized tech firm. The job posting explicitly listed the salary band as $110,000 to $125,000. During the initial recruiter screen, I gave my target number as $115,000, and the recruiter literally confirmed on the call that my number fell squarely within their budget. The rest of the interviews went amazing, the VP of Ops told me during the final round that my case study presentation was top tier, and yesterday HR finally sent over the official written offer.
I opened the PDF and the base salary is listed at $92,000. When I immediately hopped on a quick call with the recruiter to clarify what happened, she gave me a rambling explanation about internal equity and said that because my background is slightly shy of their arbitrary "7-year benchmark" for this title, compensation committee capped me at the low end of their internal grade band. She kept emphasizing that the benefits and 401k match are great, and hinted that there is "plenty of room for promotion after six months", which we all know usually means absolutely nothing once you sign.
I feel pretty insulted considering they knew my exact years of experience from my resume on day one, and they waited until round five to pull this bait and switch. The tricky part is that I am currently employed but very eager to leave my current role due to endless leadership churn. Do I stand firm and counter at the original $115,000 and risk them rescinding, or do I try to meet them in the middle at $105,000 with a written 6-month review clause? Anyone who has successfully negotiated after a heavy lowball like this, I could really use your advice on how to phrase the counter without sounding combative.