Negotiations suck, nobody likes doing them. Due to the combination of lack of information on your end, this is generally a nerve wracking experience.
One of the most common traps people fall into is the old “what are your salary expectations?” question trap.

Don’t be fooled, this is a trap to gather more information from you. Otherwise people wouldn’t lead with this, they would instead tell you what the expected pay is, or at least the pay range.


If a recruiter knows that the range of a role is between 100-200k for your experience, they have no incentive to pay you close to the upper end of that range.
So what do you do when asked this dreaded question?

  1. Be aware of your state laws. If this is California (for instance) the question about salary history is banned (See here).
  2. Do not answer this question (ie say that you don’t have a figure in mind), be adamant about this / say that you want to be paid fairly for your role and experience, but never ever give a number
  3. Be well aware of the market rate of your position (even better if you can get exact figures by level and YOE)
  4. If you cannot avoid giving an answer you could answer in the following way:
  • First as mentioned above you MUST know the range for the position and level in question (say it is 100k-200k)
  • Say something like “I know this position generally pays 100k on the low end and 200k on the high end for a candidate like myself based on <a, b, c> data I’ve found. I want to be paid as close to the high end as possible based on <x, y, z information + internships etc>. What can we do to get me there?”.

Also watch this video to learn how NOT to negotiate: