How to answer "What are your salary expectations?"
The Question That Costs People Thousands
A recruiter at a fintech company in Austin asked a software engineer named Marcus the salary question twenty minutes into a first-round call. Marcus, who had three years of experience and a competing offer, said "I'm pretty flexible, whatever you think is fair." The recruiter anchored the package at $112,000. The posted band went to $145,000. Marcus never knew.
That gap is not unusual. It is, however, entirely preventable.
The salary expectations question feels like a trap because it is one. Not a malicious one. Interviewers are reading two things simultaneously: whether the number fits the budget, and whether you understand your own market value well enough to negotiate professionally. A candidate who fumbles the salary expectations question signals something beyond the dollar figure. It signals they may not advocate well for themselves on the job either.
Most people freeze because they are afraid of saying too much. So they say nothing useful.
The short version
- They want to know if you understand your own market value, not just whether the number fits the budget.
- Give a tight range of $10,000 to $15,000, anchored to real market data for your role, level, and city.
- Put the bottom of the range at a number you would genuinely accept. Employers anchor to the low end.
Forty-five minutes of research is all it takes. Try answering it right now and see where your instincts land.
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Try it: What are your salary expectations?
What are your salary expectations for this role?
This is the question that quietly costs people thousands. Give a confident, researched range and see how it lands. You have about a minute.
Do the Research Before You Walk In
Knowing how to answer salary expectations is mostly a research problem. You cannot give a credible range without data, and data is not hard to find.
Levels.fyi gives verified compensation data for tech roles broken down by company, level, and location. Glassdoor surfaces reported salaries with enough volume to be directional. LinkedIn's salary tool and the Bureau of Labor Statistics both add outside context. If the job posting lists a pay band (California and Colorado now legally require this for many roles), that band is your floor and your ceiling in one sentence.
Stack those sources against your specific years of experience and the city. A mid-level product manager in San Francisco carries different market rates than the same title in Columbus. The number you arrive at has to be yours, not a generic average you pulled from the first search result.
This part takes forty-five minutes. Most people skip it. The people who skip it are the ones who end up like Marcus.
The Range Framework
Give a range, not a single number. Keep the spread tight: $10,000 to $15,000 is the right width. A $40,000 spread says you have no idea. A single number is a ceiling you set on yourself.
The critical mechanic: put the bottom of your range at a number you would genuinely accept. Employers anchor to the low end. If you say $120,000 to $135,000 because you actually want $130,000, you may end up at $120,000 and own that outcome. Put your real floor at the bottom, and put it there deliberately.
Here is what this sounds like with real numbers. Say you are a data analyst with four years of experience, interviewing in Chicago. Your research on Glassdoor and Levels.fyi shows the market rate is $95,000 to $115,000 for your level. You would be satisfied at $105,000. Your range: "Based on my research and the scope of this role, I am targeting $105,000 to $118,000."
That sentence does three things. It signals you researched. It sets a credible anchor. It leaves room to negotiate without leaving the table.
Weak Answer vs. Strong Answer
The contrast is stark enough to show directly.
Weak: "I'm pretty open. I've been making $88,000 so anything above that would be a step up."
This answer names your current salary (now they know your floor), anchors to your personal circumstance instead of the market, and broadcasts that you will accept almost anything. The recruiter just saved the company $20,000 without trying.
Strong: "Based on what I've seen for this level in this market, I'm targeting $105,000 to $118,000. That said, I'm interested in the full picture, including equity and benefits, and I have some flexibility depending on how the role is structured."
The strong answer anchors to the market, not your mortgage. It gives a tight range. It does not mention your current employer's number. The last clause is true flexibility, offered after you have already planted a credible stake in the ground.
How to Defer Without Dodging
Early in a first conversation, before scope and level are clear, deferring once is legitimate. One time.
A clean version: "I want to make sure I understand the scope and responsibilities a bit more before giving you a number I can stand behind. Can we come back to this once we've covered the role?"
Most interviewers will respect that. Have your range ready for the second ask, because there will be a second ask. If you deflect the salary question twice in the same conversation, you read as evasive. Evasive candidates rarely get offers, and when they do, the offer reflects the company's guess about what they will accept.
The deflection is a pause, not an exit. Treat it as one.
The Mistakes That Sink It
Giving a single number is the most common error. You set a ceiling, and the company parks right at it.
Lowballing out of fear is the second. People think a lower number makes them more competitive. In most professional hiring contexts, it does the opposite. It signals low self-assessment, which interviewers read as low performance expectation.
Naming your current salary is the third. In many states you cannot legally be asked for it, and in none of them are you required to volunteer it. Your current salary is not the market rate. It is what one company decided to pay you based on a negotiation you did (or did not do) years ago. It is not relevant data for a new employer, and offering it gives away your negotiating position for free.
The fourth mistake is the one that sank Marcus: "I'm flexible" or "whatever's fair." These phrases feel polite. They are expensive. "Fair" means nothing without a reference point. If you do not provide the reference point, the company will.
One More Thing About the Research
The forty-five minutes you spend on Glassdoor and Levels.fyi before an interview is not preparation for a salary question. It is preparation for a negotiation that starts the moment the recruiter introduces herself. By the time the explicit salary expectations question arrives, you should already know the number. You should already have decided what you will accept. The words come out easily when the thinking is already done.
Marcus found out about the band six months later, from a colleague who joined at $138,000. He had stayed. The company was good. But he carries that $33,000 gap around now, in the way that preventable things tend to stick.
Knowing the market does not guarantee a great offer. It makes a bad one much harder to accept by accident.
Money is one question in a longer conversation. If you want to rehearse the parts around it, work through why you want to work here and where you see yourself in five years the same way, out loud, before anyone asks.