A little while ago I was looking for a job and company X offered me one of the most competitive offers I had received. I ultimately took a different position, but due to some unrelated issues I'm leaving the company I accepted the position with sooner then I had intended. I know it's less then ideal to be leaving a company after only 7-8 months but my resume shows a history of more reliable lengths of time working for companies so I don't think one early 'jump' should look too terrible.
Anyways a third party recruiter contacted me about a position with company X. I told her I was already considering contacting the company directly since they had offered me a competitive rate not too long ago and she said something about how I would have to go through her to speak with them anyways. She then came back with an offer that was notable less competitive then the offer I had received previously despite my having more years of experience now. When I turned it down she didn't appear to even try relaying that to the company or seeing if she could haggle a more competitive price. I'm kind of feeling she gave me their low ball intro offer and isn't bothering to haggle up to a more reasonable middle ground.
I'm suspicious of her claim that I 'have to go through her' to speak with a company, I presume she just saying that since she wants to earn her commission. She has also been giving me a mildly condescending attitude since I told her I, knowingly, was requesting a salary at the upper bound of my pay grade. Yes I know not everyone will hit that salary and am fine with that, but rather then accepting I've knowingly set a high standard she proceeded to act as if I was simple incapable of understanding what a valid salary was and continued to insist that the salary offer I had received was great and imply I was an idiot for turning it down even after I stated clearly I was not interested at that level, even going so far as to contact me a month later and imply I should come back and accept the salary offer from before since I hadn't accepted a new position yet, ignoring the fact I had clearly told her I planed to take a long time feeling out my options.
So I have two questions. First, was she being at all honest in her claim that I had to go 'through her' to speak with company X? I suspect not, but is there any grain of truth in that claim?
Second, How would I, and should I bother, to contact company X directly? I can apply to positions on their website, but they have very few listed and it didn't seem any of them required anywhere close to my years of experience. It seemed like they must have more openings then the few listed on the website, including some requiring more experience. It feels pointless to put in an online application for a position I'm drastically over qualified for if I'm going to demand a high salary. I'm not sure if I should be bothering to follow up with company X directly at all?
Update:
I ended up sending an e-mail to their general contact e-mail address asking they forward it to whoever handles recruiting and explaining my situation. I told them I wasn't interested at the salary offered but did believe there was a point we could meet at given their past offer; but that at this point I wouldn't want to work through the recruiter as an intermediary any more due to my dissatisfaction with her. They replied back saying that their deal with third party recruiters meant they generally weren't suppose to talk directly to someone originally submitted by a third party, but they would contact the agency the recruiter worked for and get back to me. A few days later I got a request to schedule a meeting with their recruiter.
I presume the third party recruiters heard that there was no chance that I was going to accept a position through them at this point and decided they had nothing to lose by waiving the rule on me talking directly with X at this point and so waived it to keep from upsetting X by driving away a potential hire. I feel a tiny bit bad that I had to name the original recruiter and I suspect this will all result in a rather negative mark on her record, but I still think it was the best option for me. Hopefully something will come out of my meeting with X's recruiters directly.