Salary expectations: when to name a number, and which one
The Cvizo team3 min read
Name a number when the form asks for one, and give it as a range whose bottom figure is one you would genuinely accept. The question comes early because the recruiter has an approved budget and is checking whether you are in the same bracket.
In short
- A range is read as its bottom figure. Set the bottom at the number you would actually take.
- Negotiable is not a strategy. At the filtering stage it behaves like missing data.
- They have a signed-off band before they ask, and usually know what the existing team is paid.
- Many US states and cities ban salary-history questions, and the EU pay transparency directive pushes the same way.
Name a number when the form asks for one, and give it as a range whose bottom figure is one you would genuinely accept. Do not dodge. The question comes early because the recruiter has an approved budget and is checking whether the two of you are in the same bracket, not because they are setting up a negotiation.
What they know before they ask
They have a band signed off for the role. Usually they also know what people in comparable jobs inside the company are paid, because a new hire cannot land well above the existing team without a separate approval. Those constraints exist before your answer does.
Which is why “negotiable” is not a strategy. To somebody screening thirty applications against a budget it reads as missing data, and missing data at the filtering stage behaves like a disqualifying answer. Some processes drop you there without a conversation.
Two rules you may be able to use
They may not be allowed to ask what you earn now. A large number of US states and cities ban salary-history questions outright, and the EU pay transparency directive pushes the same way across the Union, though how far it has landed depends on which member state you are applying in. Where the ban applies, you can decline the question without it counting against you, and answer with your expectation instead.
The range may already be published. Colorado, New York City, California, Washington and a growing list of others require a pay range in the posting itself, and Polish job ads increasingly carry one voluntarily. Read the ad before you guess. If the band is printed there, your job is to place yourself inside it, not to invent a figure.
Why a range works against you
When you give a range, you have in practice given its lower bound. That is how it is read and that is what the offer will be built on. The top figure does no harm and does no work either.
The bottom of your range is the lowest figure you would say yes to without regret. Not the lowest you would accept under pressure. Write a number you do not actually want and you will get exactly that number, and be looking again in six months.
Keep the range tight. A spread of two to one tells the recruiter you do not know what you are worth and hands them the decision.
Setting the floor
Start from what you earn now, but do not finish there. Your current salary describes your last negotiation, not this market.
Then find what the role pays here: published bands in competing ads, salary surveys for your field, and what people in it tell you. Finally, add what the move itself costs you. A relocation, a forfeited bonus, a longer commute, giving up remote work. If the move comes out even, you have no financial reason to make it.
The one-sentence test
Imagine the offer arrives at exactly the bottom of the range you wrote, and there is no negotiation.
If your first reaction is relief, the number is right. If it is “fine, I suppose”, it is too low. Raise it now, because in two weeks it will be the anchor and you will not get it back.
