[anewbie]

holding a specialist position in a niche industry. For about one decade, the trend in this industry was to outsource the position to overseas and fire the local people, but recently the industry realized cheap foreign labour cannot produce the quality they demanded, so started to source for home-grown talents or expats.

one month ago, a head hunter approached me and informed me of an opening from a respected player in the industry. My first question was the budget of the hire, and the head hunter was up front with me and let me know the figure, which is 30% higher than my current pay. And so I told him I expect +20% more than enough to me. The head hunter said he is on my side, as his commission based on the pay, and will fight for me for more.

then we proceeded for interview at that company. it all went well and the head hunter said I did the best among all candidates (quite a few there).

Then come the salary negotiation phase, I maintained +20% which should be well within their budget. Then the next day. The head hunter said this is actually not they are expecting and they are considering other candidates (younger and inexperienced) who can also start work immediately compared to me (as I haven't tendered and they need to fill the position fast), unless I am willing to lower my expected pay, and that I "only look at money" and does not consider the job as a long term career. I got infuriated by this and said a few nasty things which I later regretted.

Anyway, how to make sense of this? and what is the best next step?