I Offered to Take Less Money to Get Hired. It Still Didn’t Work.
In a rough hiring market, a growing number of younger, female job seekers have begun “lowballing” their salary expectations. I know this because I did it myself.
The Desperate Job Market: Why Workers Are Lowballing Their Worth
Getting hired today feels nearly impossible—and the numbers prove it. According to hiring software firm Greenhouse, job applicants now face a mere 0.4 percent chance of landing a position. To put that in perspective, you're more likely to get into Harvard than to secure employment.
For Gen Z workers, the situation is even bleaker. Research from Intelligent.com reveals that 38 percent of employers actively avoid hiring recent graduates, even for positions they're qualified to fill. Add in algorithmic bias—where AI hiring tools demonstrably favor male candidates and select white-sounding names 85 percent of the time—and the barriers become nearly insurmountable.
The Modern Hiring Gauntlet
Those lucky enough to make it past the initial screening face a grueling process: multiple interview rounds, chatbot screenings, and unpaid assignments that effectively transfer hiring costs onto candidates. Meanwhile, union membership continues to decline, eliminating one of the traditional anchors for fair wages. Companies increasingly turn to AI instead of entry-level workers, implementing hiring freezes or cutting staff entirely in pursuit of leaner operations.
Faced with this hostile landscape, a troubling trend has emerged: job seekers, particularly younger women, are voluntarily offering to work for less than posted salaries.
When Desperation Meets Strategy
I know this phenomenon intimately because I've lived it. Despite degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford, plus relevant professional experience, I sent nearly 1,000 applications without success. When I finally made it through to the final stages for a writer-editor position, I was initially praised for going "above and beyond." Then I was abruptly cut from consideration for bringing "too many ideas" and seeming interested in more than the basic job description.
Convinced that my expectations were the problem, I wrote back offering to accept $10,000 less than the posted $60,000 salary—just enough to survive in my rent-stabilized New York apartment. I rationalized that the small company had budget constraints, that AI could handle much of the technical writing, and that as a younger candidate, I needed to prove my eagerness.
The tactic worked, at least temporarily. I endured three more interview rounds, multiple writing tests, and a monthlong unpaid trial period. After nearly three months of effort, I was rejected anyway. I hadn't met output expectations, and there was no budget to train me.
A Rational Response to an Irrational Market
When I shared this experience anonymously on Reddit, responses were mixed. Many criticized undercutting as self-sabotage. But others admitted they'd started doing the same thing. One commenter, unemployed for eight months, confessed to recently beginning the practice.
It's easy to dismiss this behavior as a confidence problem among young workers. But lowballing is actually a rational response to observable market conditions. When we watch employers slash costs through layoffs, hiring freezes, and AI adoption, we understand that wages are one of the few variables we can control.
Andrew Lokenauth, a former Wall Street executive and financial educator, confirms he's seeing more young women offer below-range salaries. "They've internalized this scarcity mindset that any job is better than no job," he explains. Survival now depends on appearing cheaper than the competition.
The Hidden Costs
This trend appears most frequently in creative and nonprofit sectors—fields where passion has long justified undervaluation. Lucy Rowan, a 29-year-old journalist, offered to take $12,000 less than listed salaries to offset visa costs when trying to relocate from London to New York. She didn't get a single interview. When she applied locally, she found positions paying significantly less than her previous roles. "Maybe that last salary was a fluke," she told me. "I've started doubting if I'm really worth that much."
Rupal Rao, 24, offers lower figures when she feels underqualified. "If the base is already high, I'll offer lower and hope they give me a shot," she explains. But hiring managers often interpret these offers as red flags, assuming candidates either misunderstand the role or lack confidence—neither interpretation helping their case.
The problem compounds when companies list pay ranges at the lower end of what they'll actually pay. Applicants who lowball may price themselves far below the actual budget, and research from job board Handshake shows that when individual salary expectations fall, market benchmarks follow. Gen Z women already expect to earn $6,200 less than male peers on average—an assumption that will compound over their careers.
Who's Really to Blame?
Some view lowballing as ethically problematic. Gem Murray, a 27-year-old creative director, compares it to bidding wars on apartments: "Maybe people do it out of desperation, but it's spineless and demoralizing." She worries the practice depresses wages for everyone.
That concern is valid, but it directs anger at the wrong target. A labor market structured around scarcity virtually guarantees that desperate people will bid themselves down. Blaming job seekers ignores that the system—particularly for young women and women of color—pushes them there. Employers exploit the situation, knowing thousands compete for each position.
What Needs to Change
The solution isn't simply to "lean in" and ask for more. Real change requires restoring genuine entry-level pathways, enforcing transparency standards that reflect actual pay practices, limiting unpaid trial labor, and eliminating hiring bias.
Looking back at my rejection after offering to work for less, I feel angry at how desperate unemployment made me. After sending over 1,000 applications—most without even automated rejections—I've stopped applying for now.
Many in "the most rejected generation" are cobbling together income through gig work or working multiple jobs that don't require their education—nannying, dog-sitting, or retraining into vocational fields with more openings but lower pay. As traditional pathways close, this patchwork employment becomes the norm. Lowballing isn't a strategy; it's a symptom of bargaining power shifting entirely away from workers.
A Glimmer of Hope?
There may be a silver lining. Small business openings hit record highs in 2023 and remained elevated through 2024. More unemployed workers are launching Substacks and similar ventures, potentially reviving certain industries through necessity-driven innovation.
But the risk is real: under such precarity, people may stop negotiating for better futures entirely. The cost isn't just in wages—it's in careers that never truly begin.