If you're in a position where you can not answer, you're in a position there's no reason not to give them your desired salary up front and let them tell you why they can't do it. Pick a high number of course!

If you're in a position where you can't afford not to answer, you should pick a reasonable number, and take whatever they give you, because you completely lack agency. This is the case where you might screw yourself out of money, but if you need the job that badly, do you really care?

A better way to frame this, and this is always what I do if I have the agency to not answer, is to give them the number I'd like or remain mum, but either way when they make the final offer just ask them a simple question: "Is there any way you can come up a little bit from that?". If they say no, you decide based on that first number. But they'll almost always say yes, and you'll get a small effortless raise.

I've done this about 10 times across my career and about 70-80% of the time I've gotten a bump in the 5-10% range. Which means that, collectively, about 30-40% of my current salary level is a result of that one question, applied consistently over time.

You won't get a raise outside the salary band, but you might move from the median for that band up a notch or two within it, and that absolutely matters in the long run.

So you exploit the flipside of the information symmetry. The company is obviously not telling me all their employee salaries, so I am not telling them mine. I just need enough of a sense of what the range is to figure out if a number I like is in there.

The company is not planning to blow you away with some big salary number, but I’ve gotten some pretty good offers. This happens sometimes because you’re stepping up to a higher role at the other company, or sometimes because you’re going to a company which just has higher compensation bands to begin with. Or maybe you just look really good to that company. I’ve gotten offers which were +50% above the number I had in my head, or well above that.

It feels like a waste of time and such a song and dance to some people, but the time spent is not wasted, it’s turned into salary dollars.

I've applied these guidelines in my own negotiations and it worked very well for me. I would've undersold myself by at least 15% if I went ahead and answered the salary question first. I declined politely to give a number first—even saying "it's not in my interest to answer that first, as you most likely understand".

Those guidelines work for all jobs that have high added value, I would say.

[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Now, imagine that I don’t ask for a number nor share my expectations. With 3-4 rounds of interviews, even if we assume 1/10 is in my range, I’d have to SUCCESSFULLY do maybe 30-40 interviews on average to find a job that matches my expectations. Another thing is that benefits in Poland are pretty standard almost nearly everywhere: private medical care, gym card, 20 vacation days, 10 sick days… unless you’re willing to work in the big few companies that just have unlimited money.

(If someone in Poland has different experience, please share - would love to hear more.)

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A weird thing I'm seeing is early AI startups lowballing both salary and equity for AI startup jobs, compared to a few years ago for generic Web/app developer jobs.

You're in a narrow opportunity window of a massive investment gold rush. You probably got funding with a weak/nonexistent business model, and some mostly vibe-coded demo and handwavey partnership.

Now you need to hire a few good founding engineer types who can help get the startup through a series of harder milestones, with skillsets less clear than for generic Web/app development. If you can hire people as smart and dedicated as yourself, they'll probably do things that make a big positive difference, relative to what bottom of the barrel hires will do.

So why would you lowball these key early hires, at less than a new-grad starting salary, plus a pittance of ISOs that will be near-worthless even if you have a good exit.

Is it so that the founders and investors can have the maximum percentage of... something probably less valuable than what they'd get by attracting and aligning the right early hires? (Unless it's completely an investment scam, in which genuine execution doesn't affect the exit value.)

Case in point, once when I was asked it I was "I read in an study that one gets happier with more salary up until 85K€, so my aim is to go towards that range". In the end I ended up halfway between that and my then salary. BTW, the study was then superseded by another that happiness keeps increasing, just not as fast.

Of course your situation might be different, and you could take inspiration for 6 digits, $500K or any other amount that would be perfect for you if accepted because it's higher than what you would have accepted, and you can get something below that that would be a stepping stone.

In Spain, at least, salary needs discussing early, too many divergences between some companies and some people expectations on that. So I disagree leaving it for later.

"A million an hour, obviously (haha). But in all seriousness, I'd expect to be compensated commensurate with the responsibilities of the role, keeping in mind that the salary number is just one aspect of a compensation package as health insurance and other benefits are important to me."

There are only two reasons HR asks this:

1. possible leverage later in the process.

2. attempting to not waste time if the candidate's expectations are way out of line with the amount the company is willing to pay.

Either way, there is no good reason to name numbers prior to the company making an offer with compensation package details.

That said, what you say isn't as important as what you do. If you're interviewing, you should be interviewing at at least a few places to get comps. You will get lowballed if you don't have comps. Once you have a few offers, do one round of playing them off each other, decide which company you want to work for, and then say you'll sign today if they can beat the current best offer.

Site was hugged to death

I am also fortunate enough to live in a state where job postings are required by law to include a salary range of actual or target salaries for the position (meaning, it must include both the salary range the company is willing to pay and also capture the salaries of anyone at the company who has substantially the same title or job responsibilities). Most companies make a good faith effort to comply. Tech companies generally don't bother, even when they're located in California. They usually slap a "remote" somewhere in the description even as the text elsewhere indicates that the position is hybrid or full-time on-site.

You have to be careful to not be led into this, as if you can follow OP's self-help advice and skip the failures. You will, in fact, fail in a different way.

Is this cynical? Yes. But it's how self-help advice works.

The question is baked and mandatory in most forms, and there's no "cant say" - only about 20% do not ask it, all else.. have it. And it is the easiest filter for the above 100 candidates, so.

Negotiation phase? hah. You are lucky if you get a rejection e-mail. Most don't bother with even that, regardless the importance of the role. And you never know if the number was too high, or completely irrelevant.

In job listings, I’ve seen salaries for Senior or Staff remain about the same as they were (thought usually edging a little lower), but adjusted for inflation, they are way lower.

If I were to insist on my 2021 salary with inflation adjustment, I’m often blowing past the listed range by anything from 15k to 30k.

With the market the way it is, how are y’all handling that?

Find out the range up front by reading the job posting, making the recruiter tell you, asking a friend who works there, or asking after applying if you have no other connections.

No company is going to refuse to share the information because they are secretly planning to blow a qualified applicant away with a top of market offer.

"I like this job and would do it for free if I was rich. But I'm not: I'll need to live with this salary. The absolute minimum I require is food and shelter for my family (single dad of 3). Look at the rent of a comfortable 4 bedroom apartment within 10 minutes on foot to the lab, and multiply it by three. That number is the least that I'm able to take. But of course if you pay me more I'll be happier."

I played exactly this script during my first interviews, never giving the first number, etc. It worked well for me exactly one time: the very first job I had out of academia where I did actually have to negotiate a salary. All the other times it resulted in waste of time and loss of sanity.

I am now very upfront with my expectations, or at least my non-expectations: "My current salary is X and I have Y perks, and I am in a good team; I wouldn't even consider moving for less than this, regardless of how cool your team is, and if you don't beat these numbers substantially I already know that my current employer will make me a counteroffer, and then you lose time but I win regardless." (of course not literally, but the message is this).

Less interviews, less time wasted.

RIP, looks like the site got hugged.