Ask HN: Are all recruiter calls this bad?
I'll cover the basics just to add a bit of context. They're an online retailer of women's products, and the project involves an application for facilitating support calls from their customers. The outreach email mentioned that the VP of Engineering was interested in my skill set given that I've been a Lead Engineer at a couple of startups. On my end, I've been doing contract work for over a year now, and figured that I should be open to new opportunities. So we set up a call, and it's all downhill from here.
The recruiter started off by downgrading the position from a Lead Engineer to a Senior Engineer. This is after telling me that they reached out to me because of my experience as a lead, and after informing me that I would still be leading a team, and that I would be responsible for the architecture of the project. I would have pretty much all of the responsibilities of a Lead Engineer, just not the title (aka the pay).
The recruiter then spent 15 minutes negging my experience, telling me how much smarter their employees are than I am, and informing me that the biggest perk to working there is the fact that I would have the opportunity to be surrounded by their brilliance. The conversation finally ended when I asked for salary ranges for this position and he refused to provide them.
In retrospect, it seems like this recruiter is out there just looking for someone to screw over. So, are recruiter calls typically this bad? Do recruiters always balk at providing numbers? Am I taking crazy pills to think that this behavior was out of line? What has your experience been like?