At home code project after 2 initial rounds of interviews. Interview to go over project after submission. The project took a couple hours of preparation and a considerable amount of my weekend. BNR promotes an image of 'Kind and Authentic' and once the interview was over sent a generic, boilerplate rejection.

I had a phone call with a recruiter to talk about my experience and the position. Recruiter seemed genuinely surprised that I wanted to work for BNR (which I genuinely did). She says that she'll set up a phone interview with the hiring manager and get back to me in the next few days. A week goes by and I don't hear anything, so I email the recruiter. I send her an email asking what's the status. She replies a week later saying that she doesn't think they can pay me enough and doesn't want to waste my time or her time in continuing with the interview process. Not once did she ask for my salary or salary exceptions in any conversation leading up to this point. I asked her what the compensation range was and she gave my an answer to which I replied that the compensation could be okay depending on other benefits and that I was still interested in interviewing. She did not respond.