[cj]

In the current market, there are a lot of people starting out their search looking to make X, and 1-2 months into the search they realize the only immediately available opportunities are "X - 25%".

In those situations, it's not always a waste of everyone's time. Some candidates (not all, to be clear) start out the job search process with salary expectations that are very unlikely to be easily met compared to 2-3 years ago.

The recruiter in the scenario above was probably hoping the candidate's salary expectations would settle down toward the lower end of the spectrum (which clearly didn't work out for anyone in the specific example above, but it works often enough for it to be a not uncommon practice)

Edit: To be clear, I think it's pretty lame to mislead candidates and I don't advocate for this strategy. But it happens. When I personally interview someone who has salary expectations higher than we're willing to pay, I tell them upfront on the first 30 minute screen call and simply tell them to reach out again if their circumstances change. (They often end up reaching out a month later)