Salary Negotiation Script: The Exact Words (and How to Say Them Calmly)

The recruiter is friendly right up until the sentence that matters: “So — what are your salary expectations?” There’s a small pause on the line. You had a number in your head an hour ago. Now, with a real person waiting, it feels presumptuous, and you hear yourself say something a little lower than you meant, softened with a “but I’m flexible.” The call ends warmly. You hang up knowing you just left money on the table in a single sentence, and you’re not even sure which sentence it was.

That’s the thing about a salary negotiation script: the words are the easy part. They’re one piece of how to negotiate a salary offer — the piece you can prepare on paper. Below are the actual lines — what to say to the expectations question, how to put your counter, and how to answer the two pushbacks that trip people up (“that’s the top of the band” and “the budget’s fixed”). But the harder, more valuable half of this guide is the part no script covers: how to say those lines steadily when your pulse is up and the recruiter goes quiet. Because knowing the sentence and being able to deliver it under pressure are two different skills — and it’s the second one that pays.

A script only has to cover four moments

Salary conversations feel unpredictable, but almost all the money is won or lost in four short exchanges:

1. The expectations question — “What are you looking for?” Answer this badly and you anchor yourself low before the negotiation even starts.
2. Your counter — the number you send back after the offer lands.
3. The band pushback — “That’s above the range for this level.”
4. The budget pushback — “The budget for this role is fixed.”

Get a line ready for each and the conversation stops being an ambush. Here they are, one at a time.

1. The expectations question: deflect, or anchor high

The trap is answering the expectations question with a bare number, first, off the top of your head. You almost always round down “to be safe,” and that number becomes the ceiling.

You have two clean moves. The first is to turn the question back. As Big Interview’s guide to the expectations question puts it, you can tell them “you are interested to learn what they had in mind when budgeting for this position.” Word it warmly:

“Happy to talk numbers. Before I throw out a figure — what range did you budget for this role? I want to make sure we’re in the same ballpark.”

The second move, if they won’t go first, is to anchor with a researched number, not a hopeful one. Big Interview’s template is a good spine: “Based on the current market, plus my experience and skills with [skill A], [skill B], and [skill C], I’m looking for something around [your number]. Does that seem feasible for you?” Notice the shape — a reason, then one number, then a light question that hands them the next move. Fill it in:

“Based on the market for this role and my experience shipping X and Y, I’m looking for around $118,000. Does that work on your end?”

What you do not say is the version that quietly gives it back before you’ve started: “I was thinking somewhere in the seventies, but honestly I’m flexible.” Two numbers and an apology, and you’ve told them the real number is the bottom one.

2. The counter: one number, in writing, with a reason

When a written offer lands under your target, your counter has a very reliable shape — and your first version of it should be written, not spoken. Fearless Salary Negotiation is blunt about why: send your counter by email so you’re not “negotiating salary in real-time against a professional negotiator,” and so you can carefully construct the request. The same source gives two rules that matter more than any wording:

• Counter with one specific number, not a range. “If you counter offer on a range, then the company will most likely latch onto the lower number.” Say $128,000, not “$125–130k.”
• Aim 10–20% above the offer as your starting counter — the conservative end at 10%, the assertive end at 20%.

Put together, the counter itself is three short beats — thanks, number, reason:

“Thank you — I’m genuinely excited about this role and the team. Based on the scope we discussed and the market rate for this work, I’m looking for a base of $128,000. Everything else in the package looks great.”

That’s it. No five-paragraph defense, no salary history, no hedging. The full written version — subject line, framing, and the lines that leak your ask — is in our companion guide to writing a salary negotiation email; start from that rather than a blank compose window. And if the counter is one move inside a bigger back-and-forth, our overview of how to counter a job offer walks the whole sequence.

3. The band pushback: acknowledge, then hold

Here’s where prepared people leak money. You send the clean counter, and back comes: “That’s above the band for this level.” Then silence. The instinct is to fill that silence by discounting yourself — “oh, okay, well, whatever works…” — and the number’s gone.

The script is short, and most of it is not talking:

“I understand there’s a band for the level. I’m still hoping we can get to $128,000, given the scope we talked about. Is there any flexibility there?”

Then stop. Let the quiet sit with them. Harvard’s Program on Negotiation frames the strongest posture here as anchoring with a fact rather than a plea — a “non-offer offer” like “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard that people like me typically earn $80,000 to $90,000,” which puts a number on the table and hands the other side the job of correcting it. You’re not begging; you’re stating a fact about the market and waiting. And the stakes are real: PON notes that people who negotiate their starting salary raise it by an average of about $5,000 — on a career of 5% raises, a $5,000 head start compounds into hundreds of thousands.

4. The budget pushback: separate the base from the rest

“The budget for this role is fixed” is sometimes true and often a test. Either way, the move is the same: hold on the base, then widen the table.

“I hear you on the base budget. If there’s no room on salary, can we look at a signing bonus, an earlier comp review at six months, or extra equity to close the gap?”

You’ve conceded nothing on your number and given them a way to say yes without breaking their band. What you avoid is the reflexive collapse — “no, no, the base is fine, I understand” — which trains them to treat every future “fixed” as final.

The weak phrases that quietly cost money

Look back at the scripts and notice what’s missing: hedges. The same negotiation goes very differently depending on the small words around your number. These are the ones to catch yourself on:

• “I was hoping, maybe, if it’s possible…” — three softeners before the ask tell the recruiter the number is negotiable downward. State it as a fact: “I’m looking for $128,000.”
• “…but I’m flexible.” — said before they push, this is a discount you volunteered. Flexibility is something you trade for later, not something you announce.
• “Sorry to even ask, but…” — apologizing for negotiating frames a normal business step as an imposition. You don’t owe an apology for the ask.
• Naming a range. — “$120–130k” isn’t friendlier, it’s just a lower number with a decoy attached. One figure.
• Filling the silence. — the most expensive words are the ones you say to end an awkward pause. After you state your number, the next line is theirs.

Every one of these is a delivery problem, not a knowledge problem. You can know all five and still commit them the moment your voice tightens.

The part the script can’t give you: saying it under pressure

You can memorize every line above and still lose the number in the five seconds after the recruiter says “that’s above our band” and lets it hang. Because reading a script and saying it — steadily, without the nervous walk-back — are two different skills. The first is done now, on this page. The second is a rep you either have or you don’t.

This is the whole reason a script isn’t enough. The lines are calibrated; your nervous system isn’t. Under real pressure, “I’m looking for $128,000” comes out as “I was kind of hoping for maybe around, like, 128? But it’s flexible.” Same words on paper, opposite outcome — and the difference is entirely in whether you’ve heard yourself say them out loud before it counted.

So rehearse it the way you’d rehearse anything that matters under pressure: out loud, against pushback, until your number stops feeling like a confession. That’s what Voiced is for — you load your actual offer and practice the counter against an AI recruiter that pushes back like the real one (the silence, the re-anchor, “that’s above our band”), then it shows you the exact phrase that just cost you money and hands you a stronger one to say instead. By the time the real call comes, saying your number is boring.

Print the four scripts on a notepad if it helps. But don’t stop at reading them — say them, against resistance, until the words come out in your own steady voice. The script gets you the right sentence. Practice is what lets you actually say it.