Does it really happen so often that there&#x27;s someone you&#x27;d hire, but they want more than your absolute max?  In my experience, just FINDING good people is 95% of the challenge -- compensation is not a common-blocker to make it a first-round filter.<p>By having your recruiter filter resumes by comp, it may be that they&#x27;re accidentally throwing out just those few resumes that were actually the strongest!  Maybe you could have negotiated to a good number for both of you.