This actually happened. Names changed to protect the mortified.

Marcus is a senior recruiter at a mid-sized tech company. He's good at his job—smooth talker, knows his talent pools, can spot a culture fit from a mile away. He's about to have a preliminary phone screen with Jamie, a promising product manager candidate.

Marcus does what every recruiter does: a little pre-call LinkedIn reconnaissance. He opens Jamie's profile, clicks through to their current company, checks out what their competitors are paying for similar roles on Glassdoor, and jots down some notes in a document titled "Jamie_Interview_Strategy.docx."

The notes include gems like: "Start at $95K, willing to go to $110K max," "Seems desperate based on LinkedIn activity," and the absolute masterpiece: "Lowball first—they haven't updated LinkedIn in 2 years, probably not getting other offers."

The Oops Heard Round the Zoom

The call begins. Marcus is confident, charming even. "Let me just share my screen so we can walk through the role description together," he says, clicking the fateful button.

What appears on Jamie's screen is not the job description.

It's Marcus's desktop. With Jamie's LinkedIn profile open in one tab, Glassdoor salary comparisons in another, and—the pièce de résistance—that Word document with the heading "INTERVIEW STRATEGY" visible in the taskbar.

Jamie, being a sharp product manager, immediately takes a screenshot. "Oh, is that the JD in that Word doc?" they ask innocently.

Marcus, bless his heart, doesn't realize what he's sharing yet. "Oh, no, let me just—" and he CLICKS ON THE DOCUMENT. Now Jamie gets to see their entire file, including the phrase "lowball first" in beautiful 12-point Calibri.

The Aftermath

There's a silence. Marcus finally notices. His face goes through more color changes than a mood ring in a sauna.

"I can explain—" he starts.

"Can you though?" Jamie interrupts, suddenly sounding a lot less desperate than Marcus's notes suggested. "Because I'm seeing '$110K max' here, and I'm currently making $125K. So this should be interesting."

The call lasted another three minutes, mostly Marcus apologizing while Jamie practiced their negotiation skills in real-time. The final offer? $135K. Funny how transparency works.

The Recruiting Wisdom: Do your research, absolutely. But maybe keep the "lowball first" strategies in your head, not in documents you might accidentally share. Also, learn which button shares your whole screen versus just one window. It matters.

Marcus now uses a separate laptop for candidate research. Jamie accepted a different offer, but posts about this story at parties. We all learned something.