Was I wrong for walking out of an interview after they dodged the salary question?
I've gotten completely mixed reactions to this, so I'd like to know what people think.
At the start of this year, I finished my degree in computer science. Since then I've been doing contract work with a fairly decent company, but it's not somewhere I see myself staying long term. My contract ends in about another six weeks, so I started looking for a full-time role.
The annoying part is trying to fit all these interviews into my schedule. Almost every application I send gets a response, and recruiters keep filling up my LinkedIn inbox too. So I made a rule for myself: if they don't bring up pay within the first 20 minutes, I ask. If they can't give me a clear answer, like a real range or an actual number, I politely thank them and leave.
Most places have been normal about it and just answer. But some of them go into the same dance of saying things like "compensation depends on the right fit," or "salary shouldn't be your main focus," or the classic nonsense of "we're like a family here." Out of about 14 interviews, I've walked out of 5 because of this. And I don't feel too bad about it, because I'm already in late-stage talks with another company and waiting on an offer from them, so if a place can't even tell me what ballpark they're in, I don't see why I should keep wasting my time with them.
A few nights ago, I met with a small local tech company. A recruiter had contacted me because I was apparently a match for almost everything they wanted, and I had also built a parser for the language they use a lot, which is Go. From what the recruiter said, I was one of their strongest candidates.
After about 20 minutes, compensation still hadn't come up, so I asked. The interviewer told me it was "poor etiquette to talk about salary at this stage." I smiled and told him I disagreed, and that I wasn't interested in continuing if they couldn't even tell me whether they were competitive or not. He started talking about how they're an early-stage company and that I should care about the mission and all that stuff, so I did what I'd done before: I got up, thanked him for his time, and left.
After that, the recruiter started blowing up my phone with calls, asking what I had done and who I thought I was. Apparently the guy interviewing me was the owner, which I didn't know because he hadn't introduced himself that way. It seems he got angry at the recruiter because of my attitude. Then the recruiter made a vague post on LinkedIn that was clearly aimed at me, even though he didn't use my name.
So now I'm wondering: was I out of line here, or is refusing to sit through interviews without a basic salary range normal and within my rights?
Edit: Thank you all for reading and sharing your thoughts. I'm glad I didn't waste any more time on companies that hide basic pay, and I also found some useful information about salary negotiation strategies in this post, which I wanted to share so you can benefit.