[meekrohprocess]

Yeah, it's tough when that happens. But that is kind of how things go: part of the d20 system's charm is that it successfully approximates the absurd range and randomness inherent in ordinary life.

Sometimes you get a company that gets offended at the prospect of negotiation - that's a 1, although if you get an offer rescinded like that it's probably good for you in the long run.

Sometimes you throw out a ridiculous number for whatever reason and the other side says, "mmmm...yeah, okay." That's a 20. But it's not exactly uncommon to gain or lose 5+ figures because of a random person's random whims at a random time.

It can be hard to reconcile that with the notion of a meritocratic society, but cognitive dissonance is the spice of life.

[notahacker]

There's a difference between the appearance of randomness across multiple companies from employers and employees having different priorities (and levels of need, and mistakes, and luck) and actual randomness as a selection heuristic. Actual randomness as a policy gives the company the worst of both worlds: the roll of the dice is likely to often give a good recruit an offer they won't possibly accept but also ensures they can follow it up with a significantly higher offer to a worse employee. Lots of companies sacrifice more productive employees to keep salaries to a budget or consciously pay above market to improve their staff pool, but not many firms aim to both keep many promising recruits' salaries below an arbitrary figure and are willing to offer well above that figure to some obviously weaker candidates within the same time frame.