I interviewed with an agency (for an examiner position). I went through three rounds of panel interviews, with a total of about 14 people. I was well prepared for the interviews, met or exceeded all the qualifications/education requirements, did lots of research on the agency, and all the interviewers thought I was awesome, and said so! So after the interviews I sent a thank you, and two weeks later called to follow up.

Their reject reason? My salary at my current company was too low relative to what the starting salary was at the agency.

I had never heard of that reason before (in hindsight, I should have never disclosed my current salary -which is about 60k, their staring salary was around 95k). I was floored... so I kept quiet on the phone. The interviewer I guess got nervous and said more than he probably should have. Said that I was one of the top candidates but they couldn't justify giving me that type of salary boost and gave it to someone else who was already paid closer to their salary. Has anyone experienced this?

A friend of mine who works for the fed. govt says I should fight about this, but i'm not sure if that's a good idea either. Your thoughts?