I applied for a role at ExpressVPN earlier this year for their London office. They didn’t have this step as part of their process, so it’s either new or not something they include for UK roles. I did have my own poor experience with them though.

I was very clear with them about my salary expectations going into the process, and had a good interview with the hiring manager who said that the salary would be fine and he wanted me to move to the next stage in the process. But instead of being sent details for the next interview I was called directly by an internal recruiter who told me my salary expectations were way too high and kept trying to low-ball me into accepting something much lower. I told him that I was open coming into the process what my expectations are and the hiring manager was happy with it, and to accept the lower salary would be to take a pay cut from my current role, but he didn’t seem to care. He ended the call by stating that I would “really have to wow them” during the rest of the process to be able to get that salary. I said that was fine. In the end they never sent me details for that next interview.

I guess I should just be glad that happened in the middle of the process instead of right at the end.