We Need Someone Just Like You - Only Cheaper

Yeah, good luck with that, dude. JL

Liz Ryan comments in Forbes:

Resist the urge to be affronted, and tell them, “That sounds great. Let’s stay connected on LinkedIn, because life is long.” They may stumble at hiring the junior version of you they’ve invented in their minds. They could hire you to hire and train that person.
Dear Liz,
I just experienced an extremely frustrating situation on my job search. I had two great interviews for an interesting job opportunity. I thought they were close to making me a job offer.
Then the VP of HR called me and said, “We all really like you, and we want to hire someone just like you but at a more junior level to match our salary range for this job.”
It is a newly created position, and they priced the job way too low. They won’t get anyone with more than five years of experience for the salary level they’ve designated, but their problems are big. They need someone much more experienced to fix their issues.
They want and need all the experience I bring, but they don’t want to pay the very reasonable salary I would need to take on the role. They want to hire someone at a junior level and let them “learn as they go.” Who is going to teach the junior person what they need to know? No one in the company has expertise in my field (supply chain management).
I did a pretty good job of keeping my solutions to myself so I haven’t given them the keys to the kingdom, but I still feel badly used.
It’s very discouraging when they tell you, “Wow, you have a lot of expertise!” and then they say, “But we want to pay thirty thousand dollars a year less than your salary requirement.”
What can I do to avoid this type of situation in the future?
Thanks, Gary

Dear Gary,
Plenty of job-seekers have stood right where you’re standing now! It is definitely a frustrating place to be.
Mother Nature is the best teacher. What lesson is she trying to send you now?
It is likely to be a lesson about making assumptions. These folks wanted to talk to you — they brought you in for two interviews and probably plied you with questions. For a job-seeker, that doesn’t mean anything. Everybody likes to get free advice!
As a job-seeker these days you have to get very clear on the Business Pain your hiring manager is experiencing, and you have to do it early in the interview process.
You have to know badly their problems hurt them — not from your expert perspective, but from theirs. You have to know how significant, expensive and widespread your manager’s pain is, or you won’t know whether that pain is sufficient to warrant hiring a high-priced and experienced person like you.
We can’t force people to feel pain. All we can do is inquire about their pain and remind them what happens when pain is not addressed. It doesn’t usually get better on its own!
We can’t get upset with people who don’t feel pain. Doing so is a waste of your precious mojo. Even if ignorance is bliss, it’s not our job to wake people up to their possible future problems. They have to experience their own learning at their own pace.
What you can do differently in the future is to be more inquisitive about Business Pain earlier in the interview process.
You can use your airtime in every interview to ask probing questions about your hiring manager’s Business Pain. In some situations you will determine for yourself through your questions that your hiring manager isn’t in enough pain yet to hire someone as high-powered as you.
The folks you’ve been talking with tell you that they want to find the junior version of you. Maybe such a person exists and maybe they don’t. Resist the urge to be affronted, and tell them, “That sounds great. Let’s stay connected on LinkedIn, because life is long.”
They may stumble at hiring the junior version of you they’ve invented in their minds.
They could hire you to hire and train that person. They could realize as they move through the recruiting process for a less-expensive version of you that indeed their pain is greater than they initially thought. Anything can happen. Don’t write off this opportunity too quickly!
Keep your options open and keep sending Pain Letters to more and more hiring managers. Get a consulting business card and start networking as a consultant rather than a j0b-seeker. Your recent experience has surely driven home the point that you are a wise consultant now, and not a job-seeker.
You solve big and expensive problems, but only for those managers smart enough to see the problems looming.
The others are free to solve whatever pain they’re experiencing however they want to. You will be standing by to help them at a hefty hourly rate should their efforts fail!
All the  best,
Liz