How to Answer "What Are Your Salary Expectations?"

"What are your salary expectations?" is not small talk. It usually arrives in the first screen — sometimes in the application form itself — and the number you give (or decline to give) anchors every conversation that follows. Handled carelessly, it can cost more money in thirty seconds than most people negotiate back in a year.

Here is the question stage by stage, with the words to use.

First: Do the Research That Makes Any Answer Possible

You cannot answer well without a defensible range. Build one from at least three sources: salary aggregation sites for the role and metro, posted ranges in comparable listings (pay-transparency laws now make many public), and — most reliable — one or two humans doing similar work who will trade honest numbers. Note the spread:

Point	Meaning	How You Use It
Market floor	What the role pays at unremarkable companies	Your walk-away reference
Market middle	The healthy center of the range	The bottom of the range you state
Market top	Strong companies, strong candidates	The top of your stated range, if you can support it

The range you say out loud should start at or above the market middle — because employers hear your bottom number as your number.

Stage 1: The Application Form

If the field is optional, leave it blank. If it demands a number, give the top of your researched range or, where the form allows text, "negotiable based on total compensation." A premature number in a database follows you through the whole process.

Stage 2: The Recruiter Screen

Your first move is a polite deflection that redirects to their range — which, increasingly, they are required or willing to share:

"I'm sure we can find a number that works if we're a good
mutual fit. Do you have a budgeted range for the role I can
react to?"

Many recruiters will simply tell you. If they push back — "we really need your expectations" — give a researched range, framed as such:

"Based on my research for [role] positions in [market] at
companies of this size, I'm targeting [X to X+15%], depending
on the total package — but compensation is one factor for me,
not the only one."

Two details matter: the range is anchored in research (not need or history), and the spread is meaningful but not absurd — a 10–20% band reads as informed; "anywhere from 60 to 120" reads as unprepared.

Note: In a growing number of places, asking for your salary history is illegal, and you are never obligated to share it anywhere. If asked what you currently make, redirect: "I'd rather focus on the value of this role — my researched target is [range]."

Stage 3: When They Insist on One Number

Give the top of your range, stated calmly, with one line of support:

"Given the scope described — [one specific: team size, the
system you'd own, the target you'd carry] — [top of range]
is where I'd expect to land."

Then stop talking. Silence after a number is negotiation's oldest tool, and it works in both directions — do not fill it by negotiating against yourself.

Stage 4: The Offer

The expectations question ends when an offer starts — and a first offer is a starting position, not a verdict. Respond with enthusiasm, then a pause: "I'm excited about this. I'd like a day or two to review the full package." Counter once, specifically, with reasoning attached — and remember that base salary is one lever among several: signing bonus, equity, review timing, title, and flexibility are all negotiable, and often more movable than base.

The Three Errors That Cost the Most

1. Answering from your current salary. Your last employer's compensation choices are not market data. Price the role, not your history.
2. Naming a single low number to seem agreeable. Agreeable is not a compensation strategy; you cannot negotiate up from an anchor you set yourself.
3. Treating the question as confrontation. Delivered warmly, a researched range signals professionalism. Companies do not rescind offers because a candidate knew the market.

Pro Tip: Practice your range sentence out loud until it sounds like a fact you're reporting rather than a favor you're asking. The content of your answer matters less than the calm with which you deliver it.

Salary conversations go better when you're interviewing from strength across the board. For the full interview preparation system — story banks, frameworks, and a self-scoring rubric — see The CareerKraft Resource Center, and use CareerKraft's Interview Insights to pressure-test your answers before the conversation that decides your paycheck.