Career Expert Shares The Right Way To Answer The Salary Requirement Question In An Interview
Sometimes what you don't say is more important.
pathdoc / Shutterstock For many of us, there's nothing more nerve-wracking than a job interview, and the most uncomfortable part, far and away, is salary negotiation.
But according to one career expert, there's actually a very simple, kind of counterintuitive way to ace this part of a job interview.
A career coach shared the right way to answer the salary requirement question.
Job interviews are usually full of questions that everyone universally hates because of the way they often seem like traps (looking at you, "What is your greatest weakness?").
The salary requirement question is a perfect example. Answer it wrong and you either cut yourself off at the knees or knock yourself out of the running entirely.
But Anna Papalia, a career expert, interview coach, and author of the book "Interviewology: The New Science of Interviewing," out later this month, said there's an easy way to answer this question that ensures you stay in control of the negotiation. And it's not the answer you might expect.
She said the best way to answer the salary requirement question is to not answer it at all — and definitely don't give them a number.
"When the interviewer asks you, 'What are your salary expectations?' do not give them a number," Papalia emphatically said in a recent video on TikTok.
She said it's especially important to never reveal what you are currently or were most recently being paid. "If you are currently making 50, for example, and you're hoping for 60 grand, whatever you do, don't say, 'well, I'm currently making 50 and I'm hoping for 60 grand!'"
This, she said, is the surest way to undermine yourself and end up with less money than you deserve. "They may be paying 60 to 90 and you just shot yourself in the foot by telling them that you would take the lowest end of the range," she explained.
Instead, answer the salary requirement question by asking about the salary range for the position.
Papalia advised to turn the question back around on the interviewer. "When they say to you, 'What are your salary expectations?' you say, 'What is the range of the position or what is the position paying?'"
In another video, Papalia explained that you'll almost certainly not get a direct answer. "They're going to give you a range. They know not to give you one number," so that they can continue negotiating. "That informs you on how to answer the question. You would say you obviously want top of the range."
But rather than give a range, some interviewers will push back by saying they need to know what your salary requirement is in order to move you forward in the interview process. Papalia said not to take the bait if this happens and retain the upper hand.
"If that's the case," she said, "you say something like, like, 'well, I need to know the range before we move forward,' or, 'I'm sure your range will be something I'd be amenable to.'"
She also urged job seekers to never bring up the salary requirement question in a first job interview.
Papalia said this is among the most common mistakes people make during interviews. Unless the interviewer brings it up themselves, she said applicants should never discuss money in a first job interview.
"Interviewing is a lot like dating," she said in a video on the subject. "Would you ask someone on a first date about marriage? No! Slow it down," she advised.
Early interviews, she said, are more about feeling the situation out and seeing if the job, company, and team are a good fit.
And, if nothing else, holding off on that conversation gives you more time to practice sticking to your guns when the topic of salary does eventually come up.
In the end, job interviewing is a sort of game, so it's all about strategy and maintaining the upper hand.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.