Company Accidentally Posts Intern Salary Range as CEO Compensation - $22K vs $2.2M
Salary transparency laws were supposed to make compensation clearer for candidates. Nobody anticipated they'd also make typos spectacularly more visible. A mid-size marketing agency accidentally posted a summer internship position with a salary range of "$2.2M - $2.5M annually" when they meant to write "$22K - $25K"—a small decimal point error with massive consequences.
The posting went live on a Friday afternoon. By Monday morning, the company had received over 3,400 applications, including from senior executives, veteran marketers, and one former Fortune 500 CMO who wrote in their cover letter, "I'm very interested in this unique compensation structure for an internship role."
How Nobody Noticed for Three Days
According to the recruiter who posted the job (and is now updating their resume), the error happened during copy-paste from a salary template spreadsheet. The spreadsheet listed compensation in thousands ("22-25") but when transferred to the ATS, it was interpreted as millions due to a formatting quirk.
"I copy-pasted the compensation range, the ATS auto-formatted it with commas and decimals, and I clicked publish without double-checking," the recruiter explained in a now-deleted Reddit post. "I was rushing to get postings out before the weekend. In hindsight, maybe I should have questioned why our summer intern was being offered private equity partner money."
The job posting described typical internship responsibilities: "Assist with social media content creation, help coordinate marketing campaigns, support the analytics team with reporting, attend client meetings as note-taker." The disconnect between "take notes in meetings" and "$2.2 million annually" apparently wasn't obvious to anyone reviewing the posting.
The listing stayed live through the weekend while applications poured in. Nobody on the recruiting team noticed until Monday morning when the head of HR asked, "Why do we have 3,400 applications for a single intern position?"
The Applications Were Amazing
A former Coca-Cola VP of Marketing applied with a cover letter explaining she was "exploring new challenges and opportunities to mentor the next generation—though I admit the compensation structure caught my attention."
Three CMOs from mid-size companies submitted applications. One wrote: "While I'm currently employed, I'm always open to unique opportunities. A $2.2M internship suggests your company has innovative approaches to talent development."
A Harvard MBA graduate who had previously turned down offers from McKinsey and Goldman Sachs applied, noting: "I appreciate your commitment to competitive intern compensation. This aligns with my belief that entry-level talent deserves premium recognition."
Dozens of senior marketing directors submitted resumes highlighting 15-20 years of experience, campaign portfolios worth millions in revenue impact, and awards from industry organizations. For an internship asking them to "assist with content creation."
The Moment of Realization
"I opened the ATS Monday morning, saw 3,400+ applications, and thought 'That's weird for an intern role,'" they recalled. "Then I opened the first application and saw it was from someone with 'Chief Marketing Officer' in their current title. That's when I looked back at the posting and my stomach dropped."
The salary range displayed as "$2,200,000 - $2,500,000 annually" in bold text at the top of the posting. The intern was accidentally being offered more than the company's actual CEO made.
The recruiter immediately pulled the posting down, but by then it had been live for 72 hours and circulated widely on LinkedIn, Twitter, and job search platforms.
"I ran to my manager's office, explained what happened, and waited to be fired," the recruiter wrote. "Instead, she just laughed until she cried, then asked how many applications we got. When I said over 3,400, she laughed even harder."
The Company's Response
To their credit, the company responded to the error with transparency and humor.
They posted a correction on LinkedIn: "We recently advertised a summer marketing internship with a slight compensation error. The role offers $22K-$25K, not $2.2M-$2.5M. We apologize for any confusion and for the brief moment of excitement we caused among senior marketing executives. To the 3,400+ applicants: we appreciate your interest but suspect many of you may be overqualified for note-taking duties."
The post went viral, receiving 47,000 likes and 8,200 shares. Comments ranged from supportive ("This is hilarious and we've all made typos") to sarcastic ("I was really looking forward to that $2.2M internship, thanks for crushing my dreams").
The company also sent personalized rejection emails to the most overqualified applicants, acknowledging the error: "Thank you for your interest in our summer internship. While your experience as a Fortune 500 CMO is impressive, we're seeking candidates earlier in their careers—and we apologize for the compensation confusion that may have attracted your application."
One rejected CMO replied: "I appreciate the humor in this situation. For what it's worth, I would have killed that internship."
The Aftermath
The corrected internship posting went back up with the accurate salary range of $22,000-$25,000. It received 87 applications from actual students and recent graduates—a much more reasonable volume.
The recruiter who made the error kept their job. "We've all made mistakes," the HR director said in an internal email. "This one was just more publicly visible than most. Going forward, we're implementing a second-review process for all job postings before they publish."
The company did hire one of the 3,400 original applicants—not for the internship, but for a senior marketing role that opened up coincidentally the same week. A marketing director who applied to the "intern" position turned out to be an excellent fit for the senior role and joined the team six weeks later.
"At least something good came from my typo," the recruiter noted. "Though I'm never copy-pasting salary information again without triple-checking it."
What Other Recruiters Learned
Common takeaways shared by recruiters:
Always double-check salary ranges before posting: Typos in compensation are uniquely damaging because they create false expectations, waste candidate time, and damage employer brand. One recruiter commented: "I now have a checklist I review before every posting goes live. Salary accuracy is line item #1."
Salary transparency makes errors more visible: Before salary transparency laws, this error might have been caught during screening calls before anyone noticed. Now, compensation errors are immediately visible to thousands of candidates and can go viral on social media.
Implement peer review for job postings: Many recruiting teams now require a second person to review every job posting before it publishes, specifically to catch errors like this. "It takes 30 seconds for someone else to review a posting and catch obvious mistakes."
Use humor when you mess up: The company's response—acknowledging the error with transparency and self-deprecating humor—generated mostly positive reactions. Trying to hide the mistake or getting defensive would have been worse.
The Comments Section Was Pure Gold
The LinkedIn post announcing the correction generated hundreds of entertaining comments:
"I was already planning how to spend my $2.2M intern salary. This is devastating." - Senior Marketing Director
"I mean, for $2.2M I would have been the best coffee-fetching, note-taking intern you'd ever seen." - Former VP of Marketing
"Plot twist: The intern who gets hired negotiates to $2.2M anyway because the original posting constitutes a binding offer." - Employment Lawyer (joking, probably)
"This is why I have trust issues with salary ranges in job postings now." - Job Seeker
The Final Word
Salary transparency is valuable for candidates and creates accountability for employers, but it also makes errors spectacularly more visible. A typo that once might have been caught quietly during a phone screen can now go viral and attract thousands of overqualified applications.
The lesson: double-check your salary ranges before posting, implement quality control processes, and if you do make a mistake, own it with grace and humor.
And maybe, just maybe, triple-check before offering interns CEO-level compensation.
Though honestly, at $2.2 million annually, that would have been one hell of an internship.
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