What to put for desired salary, and what to say on the call

Each bar shows the middle half of stated pay for that title in US-dollar postings in our feed over the last 30 days. The left end is the 25th percentile, the right end the 75th, and the tick is the median. We take the midpoint of each posting's range and count only postings that state pay. Seniority is mixed, so the software engineer bar covers new grads and staff engineers alike.

Where you apply moves the number too. Postings from companies that hire through Greenhouse had a median of about $130k in the same window, well above the all-US figure, so if you're targeting those employers (see Greenhouse jobs) the top of your range can sit higher.

The box is there because the employer wants to know early whether you fit the budget. You want to stay in the running without capping your own offer. Here is how we'd fill it in, depending on what the form will accept.

If the field takes text, a range plus a short note keeps both sides honest. If it only takes numbers, give one figure: the midpoint of your range from the lookup, or a number in the upper half of the employer's own range if the ad shows one.

Some advice online says to type 0 or 99999 to skip the question. We wouldn't. A recruiter who reads it sees someone dodging, and if the system screens on the number you've given it nothing to work with. If the box has a tight character limit, "$95k to $110k base, negotiable" says the same thing in 30 characters. Before you type, check the unit too. A yearly figure typed into an hourly box (or the reverse) makes you look careless in one keystroke.

Recruiters often ask on the first call, sometimes before they've told you much about the job. Ask for their range once. If they won't share it, give yours. Dodging a second time wastes the call and makes you sound unsure of your own worth.

In a growing list of places you shouldn't have to guess. As of November 2026, fourteen states plus Washington, DC require a pay range in job postings, and three of them (Virginia, Maine and Connecticut) joined in the second half of 2026. That helps explain why about half of the US postings in our feed state pay. When the ad shows a band, the question changes from "what does the market pay?" to "where in their range do I belong?"

The details vary. Some laws only cover employers above a certain size: Hawaii's starts at 50 employees, Minnesota's at 30, Maine's at 10 and New York's at 4, while Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut and DC cover employers of any size. Some cities have their own rules too, including New York City, Jersey City and Cleveland.

For the 2026 additions we went to official sources where we could. Virginia's Department of Labor and Industry confirms its law took effect on July 1, 2026, and Maine's statute covers employers with 10 or more employees, in force from July 29, 2026. For Connecticut (October 1) we found the bill but not a state notice, so that date comes from Jackson Lewis's midyear pay transparency update. The rest of the list, and the other employer-size rules, come from a public state-by-state tracker (paytransparency.app), checked November 7, 2026. This is a job seeker's summary, not legal advice.

US pay math assumes 2,080 working hours a year (40 hours times 52 weeks). So $25 an hour is $52,000 a year, and $100,000 a year works out to about $1,923 a week or $48 an hour. Use the calculator when the form asks for a different unit from the one you think in.

Indian application forms usually ask for current CTC and expected CTC, often with notice period on the same screen. HR will compare the two and think in terms of a percentage hike, so your expected figure gets read against your current one whether you like it or not. Work out the hike your number implies before you type it, with our salary hike calculator. Remember that CTC often includes employer PF, gratuity and variable pay that never reach your bank account each month.

Indian postings rarely state pay, which makes a lookup hard. Fewer than 3 in 100 India postings in our feed over the 30 days to November 7, 2026 named a usable figure. Among fresher and intern roles that did state pay in rupees (57 postings), the median was about ₹4.4 LPA, with the middle half between ₹3 LPA and ₹7.5 LPA. That's a small sample, so treat it as a sanity check rather than a rate card.

Splitting fixed and variable stops HR from quoting a hike on your total while cutting your fixed pay. If your notice period is long, read up on notice period buyouts and early release before the HR call, because it usually comes up in the same conversation.

The money on this question is usually lost early, on the first call, long before anyone says the word negotiation. One more trap the lookup can't fix for you: a range built from national postings undershoots in San Francisco and overshoots in a small town, so nudge it for your city.

Once an offer arrives the conversation changes, and you have more room to push. Our salary negotiation scripts pick up from there, with email and phone versions.