The interviewer leans back. "So before we go any further — what are your salary expectations for this role?"
You feel the floor shift. Say a number too high, they'll think you're out of their budget and politely end the conversation. Say a number too low, you'll spend the next two years underpaid because of one sentence in one phone screen. Say nothing, you'll seem evasive and lose the thread of the interview.
There is a right way to handle this question. It isn't the dance most people do. And the difference between answering it well and answering it poorly, averaged out over a career, is somewhere around $200,000 in lifetime earnings.
Understanding what the interviewer is actually trying to accomplish changes how you answer. They're not malicious — they have legitimate reasons for asking. But their reasons are not the same as your reasons.
They want to screen out candidates whose expectations exceed their budget so they don't waste hours of interviewing on someone they can't afford. Reasonable goal. The problem for you: their budget is often much higher than they let on, and naming a number that fits comfortably inside their range tells them you'd accept less.
They want to anchor the negotiation — to set a number in the conversation early so that the offer they eventually make sits inside that anchor. If you say $90K and their range is $95K-$130K, they'll come in at $95K and you'll feel like you got fair value, even though you left $35K on the table.
They want to gauge your seniority signal. Some interviewers use salary expectations as a proxy for how senior you actually are. Asking for too little can read as "this person doesn't know their own market value, which means they probably aren't who they say they are."
Notice that none of these reasons require you to volunteer a precise number right now. The interviewer can satisfy all three with a much less specific answer — and that's the answer you should give.
The mistake is anchoring first.
Whoever names a number first sets the ceiling. In negotiation research this is called the anchoring effect, and it's one of the most consistently replicated findings in behavioral economics. The number you say first becomes the gravitational center of the conversation, and even sophisticated negotiators have difficulty moving the final outcome more than 30% away from it.
The employer knows this. That's why they ask. The standard interview script trains hiring managers to extract the candidate's number first because it dramatically improves the company's negotiating position.
Your goal in answering the salary expectations question is to not be the one who anchors. If they insist, you anchor with a research-based range that's defensible and starts higher than you actually need. If they don't insist, you defer until the offer.
The principle: Talk about money as late in the process as you can. The longer you wait, the more the employer has invested in you, and the more leverage you have when the number conversation finally happens. Companies don't withdraw "we're interested" after four rounds of interviews because a candidate wanted to delay the salary conversation. They withdraw because the candidate named a number that scared them.
The salary expectations question comes in roughly four flavors. Here's the script that works for each.
A recruiter or HR coordinator asks in the first 20 minutes of the very first call, before you've talked to anyone who actually does the work.
A specific question about salary history. In 11 US states and many cities, this question is illegal for employers to ask. Even where it's legal, you don't have to answer.
The interviewer names a number and waits. This is actually the best scenario — they anchored first, which means you now know their floor.
They're pushing. The conversation can't continue without you naming something. At this point you have to give a range — but the range should be researched, defensible, and pegged to your walk-away point on the low end, not your wish on the high end.
Your range should not be a guess. It should be triangulated from three or four data sources so you can defend it if pushed. Here's the cheapest, fastest way to get a defensible number for nearly any role.
The most reliable source for tech compensation data because it's self-reported by people who can verify their offers. Filter by company, level, and location. Gives you base, bonus, and equity broken out separately.
Broader coverage across industries but the data is noisier. Use the median rather than the average, and look at the salary range for the specific company you're interviewing with, not just the role title in general.
Free, government-sourced wage data by occupation and metro area. Lower precision than Levels or Glassdoor but useful as a sanity check — if BLS says the 75th percentile for your role in your city is $95K and Glassdoor says $180K, something is off and you should dig deeper.
The most underrated source. Reach out to three people who hold (or recently held) roles similar to the one you're interviewing for, ideally at companies with similar size and stage. Ask them directly: "If you're open to sharing, what range was your offer at?" Most people will share. You learn more in three conversations than in three hours of reading aggregator data.
Triangulate across these four sources and you'll arrive at a defensible range. The low end of your range is your walk-away point. The high end is your "would be thrilled" number. The number you actually expect to land sits in the middle.
Get five AI-predicted questions tailored to your resume and the job description — including the salary expectations question — each with a STAR-formatted ideal answer you can adapt to your situation. Part of the Premium package.
See Mock Interview Prep →If the company's base salary budget is genuinely fixed — and sometimes it is — there's still substantial money on the table in non-salary compensation. Knowing what's negotiable means you don't walk away from a great role because the base number is $5K under what you wanted.
The salary expectations question is one of the few moments in an interview where the standard advice — be direct, be confident, give a clear answer — is wrong. Direct candor about a specific number hurts you. Strategic vagueness, anchored to good research, helps you.
Talk about money as late as possible. When you can't defer any longer, give a researched range with your walk-away point at the bottom. Always pivot to total compensation, not just base. And remember that the person across the table is trained to ask this question early specifically because they know the candidate who anchors first usually leaves money behind.
You've already done the work to get in the room. Don't give back $7,500 a year because of one sentence in one phone screen.