"What are your salary expectations?" is the most-feared question in early-stage interviews. The wrong answer can cost you 10-20% of your eventual offer. The good news is that the right answer is a short, repeatable sentence — once you decide what your target range is, the question becomes mechanical.

This post is the working script: what to say in each common variant, what to avoid, and how to handle the recruiter who pushes for a single number.

Why the recruiter is asking

The honest reason is the recruiter has a band, and they want to know if you're inside it before they invest hiring-manager time. A candidate whose target is 40% above the band wastes everyone's day. A candidate whose target is 20% below the band gets the lower offer. The recruiter is doing both filtering and anchoring at the same time.

The dishonest reason — and it's not universal, but it's common — is that some companies still treat salary discussions as a wage-discovery exercise. They want the lowest number you'll accept, and the question is structured to extract it. That's the trap candidates have to avoid.

The three variants and how to answer each

The question shows up in three common shapes. Recognize which one you're being asked and answer accordingly.

"What are you currently making?" is increasingly illegal — California, New York, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, and a growing list of other US jurisdictions prohibit asking about salary history. Even where it's legal, the answer anchors you to your past. The deflection: "I'd rather discuss the comp for this role specifically — what's the range you have approved?" This is professional, expected, and immediately repositions the conversation.

"What are your salary expectations?" is the legal version and the one to actually answer. Give a range, not a point. The lower bound is what you'd accept; the upper bound is your stretch. "Based on the market for this role and my experience, I'm targeting $X to $Y base, with flex on the total package." The phrasing matters: "targeting" is forward-looking; "flex on the total package" tells the recruiter that base isn't the only conversation.

"What's the lowest you'd accept?" is a trap. Don't answer it literally. "I'd rather frame it as a target range than a floor — my target is $X to $Y." A floor shared in the screening call becomes the offer. Reserve the floor for after you have an offer on the table.

What lands and what doesn't

The common traps share a pattern: they hand the recruiter the lowest acceptable number too early in the process. "I'm open" reads as no anchor at all, which gives the recruiter free reign to anchor low. "Whatever's fair" reads as the same. Naming a current salary anchors to your past compensation rather than the role's market value.

The working responses share a different pattern: they assert a number and a basis. "Based on market data and my experience" is the most important phrase in the response — it tells the recruiter you've done research, which puts the conversation on professional ground.

For the broader question of how to read posted salary ranges, see salary-ranges-in-job-postings. For the negotiation itself once you have an offer, see negotiating-the-first-offer-script.

The anchoring math

The reason this question matters so much is anchoring. Across negotiation studies going back to Galinsky and Mussweiler's 2001 work, the side that names the first specific number sets the range around which the final agreement clusters. If you name $90K when the band is $95-115K, you've capped your own offer near $95K. If you name $115K when the band is $95-115K, the offer arrives near the top of the band.

The implication: your range should reflect your target, not your floor. A common candidate mistake is to range "low because I really want this job" — which usually means anchoring at a number 10-15% below what they'd actually have been offered.

How to research your number before the call

If you don't have a number ready when the question lands, you've already lost the round. The research is mechanical and takes about an hour:

• Levels.fyi for tech, by company and level. Best for cash + equity comp at large companies.
• Glassdoor and Indeed for general salary data — useful as a sanity check, less precise than role-specific sites.
• LinkedIn Salary Insights for role + location, which catches geography effects.
• State-mandated posted ranges. California, New York, Colorado, Washington require ranges on most postings. Check three to five postings for similar roles and you have a real range.

For your number, take the median of comparable roles at your level, then add 5-15% for a stretch target. The bottom of your range should be the median; the top should be the stretch.

What to do if you're asked early in the phone screen

Some recruiters open the phone screen with the question, before you know anything about the role. The honest answer is to ask back: "I'd want to understand the role and scope first — could we discuss the work for a few minutes and then come back to comp?" Most recruiters will agree. The minority who push for a number now have a band they're trying to filter against; in that case, the range answer above is the right one.

What this isn't

A few clarifications:

• It's not the offer negotiation. This is the screening conversation. The real negotiation happens after the offer arrives — see the dedicated script for that.
• It's not a place to invent a number. The range needs to be defensible. If pressed, you should be able to explain "based on Levels.fyi data for this role at this level, the median is X."
• It's not always answerable. Sometimes you genuinely don't know what to target — particularly in career changes or in roles with little public data. In those cases, ask first: "I want to be respectful of your time — what range has been approved for this level?" About half of recruiters will share.

The short version: name a range, anchor on your target rather than your floor, base it on real data, and never volunteer your current salary first. The 30 seconds it takes to answer this question well is worth more than the rest of the screening call combined.