How to Answer "What Are Your Salary Expectations?" (Without Underselling)

You’re twenty minutes into the interview, it’s going well, and then the recruiter leans back and asks it: “So — what are your salary expectations?” Something in your chest tightens. Say a number too high and you worry you’ve priced yourself out before they’ve even decided they want you. Say one too low and you’ve just quietly capped what this job will ever pay you. And the silence after the question is doing its job: it’s pulling a figure out of you before you’ve had a second to think. Most people, caught flat, blurt out something safe — which almost always means something low.

Here’s the good news: this is the most predictable question in the whole hiring process, which means it’s the most rehearsable. There’s a clean formula for answering it — research the market rate, deflect if it’s early, then give a range that anchors high. This guide walks through all three, and then through the part the formula can’t fix: actually saying your number, steadily, when the recruiter pushes back. The salary-expectations question is really the opening move in how to negotiate a salary offer, and the number you name here sets the ceiling for everything that follows. For the broader question of when in the process to raise pay at all — before this question ever comes up — see our guide on negotiating salary during the interview.

Why this question is a trap (and who it’s a trap for)

The salary-expectations question isn’t small talk. It’s the first anchor of the negotiation, and whoever sets it shapes everything after.

The Harvard Program on Negotiation describes the mechanism plainly: the first offer “sets a psychological reference point,” and every counter that follows “gravitate[s] toward that anchor.” So when you name a number early, you’re not just answering a question — you’re setting the reference point the whole offer will orbit. Name it low and you’ve anchored the company to a low band; there’s rarely a graceful way to climb back up from a figure you volunteered yourself.

That’s why the reflex answer — a quick, safe, slightly-too-low number to avoid seeming greedy — is the expensive one. The recruiter isn’t being adversarial by asking; naming the range is just their job. But the pause after the question is engineered to make you go first, and going first while unprepared is how people talk themselves down before the offer even exists.

The three-step answer that holds your number

You don’t beat an anchoring question by refusing to answer. You beat it by walking in with the answer already built. Three steps.

1. Research the market rate — before the interview, not during it

You can’t anchor high if you don’t know what “high” is for your role. So the work starts before anyone asks. Look up the going rate for your title, level, and location, and treat that as the floor of your thinking.

Indeed’s guidance is direct: “Start by researching the market rate for your job title. Websites like Glassdoor and Indeed’s salary search tool can offer industry-standard data.” The Muse adds the dimensions that matter — look up your desired title “by name, geographic location, and years of experience.” Tools like Payscale exist specifically to tell you “what you should be paid” by assessing your skills against the open market. Do this once, write the number down, and you walk into every interview with a fact instead of a guess.

2. Deflect early — if you still don’t know the scope

If the question comes early and you genuinely don’t yet understand what the role involves, you don’t have to name a figure on the spot. Indeed frames deflecting as a legitimate move when “you’re early in the interview process and still unclear on the job’s scope” — it “lets you gather more info before committing.” A clean line: “Before I answer, I’d like to ask a few more questions about the responsibilities.”

You can also turn the question around. The Muse suggests flipping it: “it would be helpful if you could share what the range is for this role?” If they name their band first, they’ve handed you the anchor instead of taking it. But don’t deflect forever — dodge twice and it reads as evasive. Deflect to buy information, then answer.

3. Give a range — with the bottom skewed to your target

When it’s time to name a figure, give a range, not a single number — and build the range so its floor is the number you actually want.

Indeed puts the range point bluntly: “Don’t give one figure. A single number can limit your flexibility,” because “providing a range rather than a specific salary gives you wiggle room.” But a naïve range — your target sitting in the middle — quietly invites the company to land at the bottom. The fix is what negotiation researchers call a bolstering range. Per Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, a bolstering range puts your target at the lower bound and extends upward; in their research, people who received bolstering-range offers “made larger concessions” and “assumed sellers had higher reservation prices.” The Muse says the same thing in plain terms: “try to keep the bottom of your range toward the mid-to-high point of what you’re looking for.”

So if the market says your role pays around $100k and that’s your target, you don’t say “$90k–$110k.” You say “$100k–$115k.” The bottom of your range is your goal, and everything you’ve said anchors the conversation above it — while a range still signals you’re flexible and easy to work with.

Can you go above the posted range? Yes — a posted band is an anchor, not a hard ceiling, and companies flex above it for the right candidate. Just bring a reason: your market research, the scope you’ll own, or a competing offer. The exact figure — and how far above the range you can credibly reach — is the same math you’d use to pick a counter after an offer lands. Our guide on how much to counter walks through choosing that number in detail.

Where the plan falls apart: the live moment

Here’s what no formula covers. You can research the market, prepare the perfect bolstering range, and rehearse the line in your head on the drive over — and still watch it fall apart in the four seconds after the recruiter tilts their head and says, “Hm, that’s a little higher than we had in mind.”

Because knowing your number and being able to say it — out loud, steadily, without immediately discounting yourself to fill the silence — are two different skills. The first is reading. The second is a rep. And most well-prepared people leak money not on their research but in that live beat: the calm “$100k–$115k” they’d planned comes out as “well, $100k-ish, but I’m flexible, so…” and the top of the range is gone before the negotiation even started. The recruiter’s small pause and gentle “that’s high” aren’t cruelty — they’re the job. But if that live moment is the first time you’ve ever heard yourself say your number against resistance, you’re improvising the most expensive sentence of your year.

Say it out loud until it’s boring

The answer isn’t more research. It’s reps. Rehearse the salary-expectations question the way you’d rehearse anything that matters under pressure — out loud, against pushback, until naming your range feels routine instead of terrifying.

That’s the whole idea behind Voiced. You load the actual role and number you’re interviewing for, and you practice answering “what are your salary expectations?” against an AI recruiter that pushes back the way a real one does — the silence, the “that’s above our band,” the request to “just give one number.” Then it shows you the exact phrase where you flinched and undersold, and hands you a stronger one to say instead. By the time you’re in the real interview, you’ve already heard your number in your own voice — and held it — once.

Do the three steps in order — research the rate, deflect if you must, name a bolstered range — and the salary question stops being an ambush and becomes a move you’ve already made. The only thing left is to say your number like it’s a fact, because by then it is one.