How to Answer "What Are Your Salary Expectations?"

It shows up in minute four of the recruiter screen, phrased like small talk: "So, what are you looking for salary-wise?"

Nothing else in the job search combines this much money with this little preparation. People rehearse their weaknesses answer for hours and then improvise the question that decides tens of thousands of dollars, usually by naming a number picked to sound modest.

Here's the whole conversation, stage by stage, with scripts. None of it requires being a shark. It mostly requires knowing three things before someone asks.

The one dynamic that explains everything

Whoever names a number first sets the anchor, and every later number gets measured against it. That's the entire game. Recruiters ask early not because they're evil but because it's their job to check you're within budget, and because an early low anchor makes the rest of their job easier.

Your job is the mirror image: don't hand over an anchor before you know what the role pays and how much they want you specifically — which you can't know in a first screen, because they don't know it yet either. Everything below is a polite version of that principle applied to each moment the question appears.

One more piece of context that changed this conversation: a growing list of states and cities now require salary ranges on job postings — California, New York, Colorado, Washington among them. If the posting has a range, most of the dance below collapses into one question: where in the range do you land? That's a better conversation, and you should use the posted range openly.

Stage 1: the application form

Some forms demand a desired-salary number and won't submit without one. Options, in order of preference:

• If it accepts text, write "negotiable" or "market rate."
• If it forces digits, some people enter 0 or 999999 to signal "this is a placeholder." That's fine and recruiters understand it.
• If it genuinely requires a plausible number, give the top of your researched range (more on the research below). A forced anchor should at least be a high one.

Nobody has ever lost an offer for putting "negotiable" in a web form.

Stage 2: the recruiter screen — the first ask

The first ask deserves a polite deflection, because you have the least information you will ever have:

"I'd rather learn more about the role before anchoring on a number. Can you share the budgeted range for this position?"

Two things about this script. First, it's not a dodge — it's the honest truth, and it reads as senior rather than evasive because you're treating compensation as something to evaluate, not something to hope about. Second, the follow-up question matters more than the deflection: most recruiters will share the range if you ask directly. Their job gets easier when you're both talking about the same band. You'll be surprised how often "can you share the range" just... works.

If they share the range, respond to it honestly: "That works as a starting point" or, if it's low, "That's below where I'm landing in this search — is there flexibility for the right candidate, or should we save each other the time?" Saying the second one early is not rude. It's the most mutually respectful sentence in recruiting.

Stage 3: the second push

Some recruiters are required to get a number and will ask again. Refusing twice starts to cost you goodwill, so the second ask gets a researched range:

"Based on postings and levels data for this role in this market, I'm seeing $X to $Y for someone with my experience. Is that consistent with your band?"

The construction is doing several jobs at once. "Based on postings and levels data" says the number came from research, not hope. The range, not a point, keeps room to move. And ending on a question hands the conversational ball straight back, which turns a confession into a comparison of notes.

Two rules for the range itself:

Anchor with the top. Make $X a number you'd be genuinely content with, because the negotiation will orbit the bottom of whatever range you give. If you'd be happy at $110k, say "$110k to $125k," not "$95k to $110k."

Keep it defensible. The range has to survive "where does that come from?" Which brings us to the research.

The 30 minutes of research that pays for itself

Before any screen, know three numbers for the role and market:

1. Posted ranges for comparable roles. Thanks to the transparency laws, postings in California, New York, Colorado, and Washington carry real ranges even if your target company is elsewhere. Ten postings for your title and level is a data set.
2. Levels and salary aggregation sites. For tech, levels.fyi is the standard; elsewhere, Glassdoor and Payscale are rougher but directionally useful. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a median for nearly every occupation, useful as a floor check.
3. Your walk-away number. Not what you want — the number below which you'd decline and mean it. Deciding this before anyone asks is what makes every later conversation calm. People negotiate badly when they're discovering their own limits mid-call.

Half an hour, once per job search, reused in every screen. Per hour, it's plausibly the best-paid work you'll do all year.

A note on what you're actually negotiating with

Here's the part most salary advice skips: the range they'll consider for you was largely set before the negotiation started, by the level they pegged you at while reading your resume. Recruiters negotiate from the level they perceived, not the level you are. If your resume reads a level below your experience, every band you're quoted will be one band low, and no amount of script can negotiate you out of the wrong bracket.

That's a resume problem wearing a negotiation costume. Our free Level Check reads your resume the way a screener does and tells you what level it projects — worth running before a search, because it's the cheapest raise available: the difference between bands is usually far larger than the difference negotiable within one.

Stage 4: the offer arrives

Three rules that cover nearly everything:

Never accept on the call. Enthusiasm, gratitude, and a day to review: "This is exciting — thank you. I'd like to look everything over and get back to you tomorrow." No competent employer flinches at this sentence. An offer that evaporates because you slept on it was a warning label, not an offer.

Counter once, with a reason attached. A good counter is short, warm, and specific:

"I'm excited about this and ready to move forward. On compensation — given [the level of ownership in the role / my experience with X / the data I'm seeing for this market], I was hoping for $Z. If you can get there, I'm ready to sign."

That last sentence is the strongest thing in the script. "If you can get there, I'm ready to sign" turns your counter from a demand into a closing offer, and it's exactly what the recruiter wants to carry to the hiring manager.

Remember that base isn't the only lever. If the base is capped, signing bonus, extra PTO, equity, a locked-in review at six months, title, and remote flexibility are all in play — and signing bonuses in particular come out of a different budget than salary at many companies. "Is there flexibility on signing bonus?" has produced a lot of five-figure yeses immediately after a base-salary no.

Then get whatever was agreed in writing before you resign anywhere. Not because anyone is lying, but because the person who promised it and the person who processes it are rarely the same person.

What not to do

• Don't invent a competing offer. It's the most tempting lie in negotiating and the one most likely to be called: "we understand, good luck with the other role" ends the conversation immediately.
• Don't negotiate before there's an offer. Pushing on money mid-process spends leverage you don't have yet. The moment of maximum leverage is the window between "we want you" and "you said yes" — that's when the whole company has already decided, and the only remaining variable is the number.
• Don't apologize your way through it. "Sorry to ask, I know this is awkward, feel free to say no" pre-concedes the whole exchange. Negotiating politely and confidently is expected behavior; hiring managers do it themselves every cycle, and nobody rescinds offers over one professional counter.

The short version

Know your range before anyone asks, deflect the first ask with "can you share the budgeted range," give a researched top-anchored range on the second, never accept on the call, counter once with "if you can get there, I'm ready to sign," and get it in writing.

The rest of the interview is covered in the cluster: the twelve questions you'll almost certainly get, the opener, the STAR method, and what to do with 24 hours' notice. And if the interview that leads to that offer is already on your calendar, the Interview Dossier preps you for that specific role — including a read on the level they're hiring for versus the level your resume projects, which is exactly the number this whole article orbits.