I recently lost my job as a regional director of sales and marketing due to company restructuring– they dissolved the entire office and sales team I managed and I have since been looking in for a similar sales and marketing role in healthcare. I relocated to a different state due to not being able to afford where I was currently living; and this state has significantly lower COL (for now). I got 2 calls today for 2 different positions (1 account executive role and 1 sales director role) was basically told that they'd welcome me into an interview but they'd struggle to justify hiring me due to not having an existing network of accounts and relationships AND they'd be unable to justify moving the payscale forward from 50-55k. I knew I was going to have to take a paycut due to the relocation factor, but I was making close to 25k more before bonuses in my prior positions. I was quite literally laughed at when they asked my salary expectations and I said depending on the entire benefits package I'd be looking to START at 60k-65k.
Additionally I have significant experience growing relationships, developing networks and referral bases and ability to close sales and grow census in a long term care/skilled nursing setting. I've done this in a setting in which I managed a sales team of 10, for a region that spanned 3 different states and 8 facilities and have managed and fostered relationships with key partners in states I never even lived in as a regional director. I've explained this all to the hiring managers I've spoken with; and the feedback I've gotten has been null or they're actively trying to dissuade me from the position. However both hiring managers offered an interview with “we'll see how it goes; you can tour our facilty, etc” type of approach
I'm looking for feedback as to a) how to message this or navigate this consistent feedback that they're looking for someone with existing relationships ( i was outright told its all who you know from highschool). and b) should I even attend these “interviews” when the conversations with the hiring managers did not seem like they were invested in learning more about
me as the right fit for the position.