I find the “I won’t take less than $X or else I’ll stay unemployed” to be kind of weird as a career planning strategy. If there is an under-supply of senior talent, everyone accepts and expects that the clearing salary for those roles will go up. Yet, if there’s an over-supply, many people seem unable to extrapolate from the previous.
Many hiring teams will look at an experienced person as “too experienced” and won’t even offer the job to an otherwise good candidate. They justify it by saying things like “this position is too junior for them and they’ll just leave when they get bored/find a better position”, etc.
That’s another apparent sub-optimization. “We’ve been looking for a while and we’d rather keep looking than make a level-Y offer to this good candidate.”
If the candidate says “I’m only taking this to avoid starving but will quit as soon as I find any other job”, then sure, don’t make the offer. If they don’t give any signs either way, assume they’ll stay for 18-48 months as is common and decide accordingly.
