It arrives in the first fifteen minutes of the first phone screen, delivered in the recruiter’s friendliest voice: “So — what are your salary expectations?” And in the four seconds you take to answer, you can lose more money than you’ll recover in the next three years of raises.
That’s not drama; it’s anchoring. The first number spoken in a negotiation exerts gravity on every number that follows, and this question is a polite request that you set the anchor — before you’ve seen the team, the scope, or their budget. Recruiters aren’t villains for asking; screening out mismatches is their job. But their job isn’t to maximize your offer. That one’s yours.
Here are seven answers, ranked from worst to best. I’ve given some version of all seven across my career — including, regrettably, numbers one and two.
“I'm currently at $68K, but honestly I'm flexible — I just really want this role.”
Three self-inflicted wounds in one sentence: it discloses current pay (which the employer will anchor to), waives negotiation before it starts, and signals you'll accept the floor. I said essentially this at 26 and can trace about $9K of first-year underpayment directly to it.
The current-salary disclosure deserves its own warning. More than 20 states and many cities now ban employers from asking about your salary history — laws passed precisely because anchoring new pay to old pay carries forward every past underpayment. Even where asking is legal, volunteering it is negotiating against yourself. Your past paycheck is not evidence about the job’s value; the market data is.
“Somewhere around $70K?” (said as a question, having done no research)
If their band was $85–105K, you just handed back $15K minimum — and worse, priced yourself as junior for the entire process. Recruiters rarely correct an undershoot; some will even read it as a scope mismatch and pass. Guessing low doesn't read as humble. It reads as uninformed.
“I never discuss compensation before an offer is on the table.”
Directionally sensible, delivered like a hostage negotiation. Recruiters have a legitimate screening need; stonewalling it can end the process at hello. Every later answer on this list protects the same interest without the combat posture.
“I'd love to learn more about the scope before naming numbers — I'm confident we can align if there's a fit. Could you share the budgeted range for the role?”
The classic. Warm, professional, flips the anchor request back across the table. Its weakness: a trained recruiter simply asks again, and if you deflect twice you're back at answer 5. Use it once, then be ready with a real number.
“Based on the market data I've pulled for this kind of role at this level — BLS figures and posted ranges at comparable companies — I'm targeting $95K to $105K on base. Does that fit the band for this position?”
Honest, evidence-backed, and it makes you sound like someone who does homework — which is itself a hiring signal. Two rules: your bottom number must be one you'd actually accept, because that's what they'll hear; and the range should be wide enough to be a range, narrow enough to be a position — about 10%.
This is where preparation pays its dividend. A range plucked from wishes gets probed and collapses; a range built the way I lay out in the market-rate walkthrough — government wage data, live posted ranges, one structured source — survives follow-up questions, because there’s something under it. For scale: the median full-time working woman in the U.S. earned about $1,098 a week in the first quarter of 2026 (BLS data) — but your occupation and metro can sit multiples away from any national figure, which is exactly why generic numbers lose to researched ones.
“Happy to talk numbers. Since many companies have approved bands for a role like this — could you share yours? I can tell you right away whether we're in the same neighborhood, and I'm ready to share my researched target too.”
This gets their number first without stonewalling, because you've offered reciprocity: tell me the band and I'll respond substantively, now. Most recruiters — who mostly just need to avoid wasting everyone's time — will share. If they genuinely can't, you fall back to answer 3 with no damage done.
In a growing share of the country, this “ask” is actually a legal entitlement. Eleven states plus D.C. require the range in the posting itself, and Connecticut, Nevada, and Rhode Island require disclosure on request or after an interview — the full map is in my state-by-state pay transparency guide. In a posting state, check the ad before the call; the number may already be public, which converts this entire question from “name your price blind” into answer number one.
“I saw the posted range of $90K to $110K. Given that I've done [specific matching scope] for the last three years, I'd expect to land in the upper half — and if we get to that stage, I'm happy to walk through the results behind that.”
Every gram of anchoring risk is gone — their number is the anchor, and you've positioned inside it with evidence. It also quietly pre-frames the eventual offer negotiation: you've stated a claim on the 75th percentile before anyone drafted the offer letter at the 40th.
Notice what separates the top three answers from the bottom four. It isn’t cleverness or nerve. It’s that the good answers all arrive carrying information — their range, your research, or both — while the bad ones arrive carrying only anxiety.
The question increasingly arrives in writing before any human does — a required field on the application (“desired salary”) or a recruiter email asking for expectations before scheduling. The written variants of the playbook:
Application form, free-text field: write “Negotiable based on total compensation” or, if you’ve researched, your range with a source cue: “$95K–$105K based on current market data for this role.” Never your current salary.
Application form, numbers-only field that won’t submit without a figure: enter the top of your researched range. A number in a database field anchors just as hard as one said aloud, and nobody negotiates up from their own typed number.
Recruiter email before a call: reply with the range-first reversal in written form — “Happy to make sure we’re aligned before we book time. Could you share the approved band for the role? For my part, I’m targeting the [range] area based on the market data I’ve gathered, with flexibility on the full package.” You’ve answered, reciprocated, and put your evidence posture on record in two sentences.
The written medium has one advantage worth exploiting: you can check the state’s law and the company’s other postings before replying. Two minutes of searching often surfaces the same role posted with a range in Colorado or New York — at which point you’re writing answer number one, not answer number four.
“We really need a specific number for the system.” Give the top of your researched range, as a single confident figure, and add: “with flexibility depending on the total package.” The system-needs-a-number claim is often true and occasionally a pressure tactic; this answer works either way.
“That’s above our range.” Ask what the range is (in several states they must tell you), then decide honestly whether the ceiling works with everything else — remember that PTO, remote days, title, and bonus can close a real gap, and that a below-market band this early is information, not an insult. Thank them either way; bands change and recruiters remember graceful people.
“What are you making now?” In a salary-history-ban state, they generally shouldn’t be asking. Anywhere, the answer is the same redirect, said pleasantly: “I keep current comp confidential, same as I would for a future employer — but I can tell you exactly what I’m targeting and why.”
And the trade-off nobody admits: sometimes naming a researched, upper-half number does end a process early, because the budget truly was $30K lower. That stings — and it’s the system working. Most workers never test the question at all: in a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, most U.S. workers said they didn’t ask for higher pay when last hired, while about two-thirds of those who did ask got more than the first offer. Screening out a company that can’t pay your researched rate isn’t a failed interview. It’s the fastest “no” you’ll ever be glad to receive — and it frees your energy for the process that ends with the offer worth negotiating.