It's tough to decide where to leave this reply, and this seems like a good place to address a few things I've seen in the replies to my comment.
Usually, my advice is "don't share you current or desired salary", but the one exception I've discussed with some people is when they're concerned they'll be low-balled. In those cases, I've suggested it might be better to just disclose your desired salary.
I've been rethinking this lately. I think a better tack might be to ask the company to share the salary range they're offering for the position. (You're only doing this if you're concerned you'll go through the interview process and get an offer so low you can't even counter with anything reasonable.)
In this case, you have virtually nothing to lose: either they'll tell you the range and you'll know if you're wasting your time, or they'll refuse and now you're both refusing to disclose the "desired" salary component. In the latter case, you can choose to continue with the process or not, depending on your general feeling about the opportunity.
The more I think about it, the more I suspect you should _never_ reveal your desired salary because it can basically only cost you money. When you do reveal your desired salary, you're basically guessing and gambling. You're guessing at the range they're offering, and gambling that you don't undershoot and cost yourself money. (See this clip on why I think it's so important to protect the few pieces of information you have in a negotiation: https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU TL;DR, you have only two or three unique pieces of information that the company doesn't have; the company has oodles and oodles of information that you don't have; they have a significant informational advantage in your negotiation and this is bad for you, but it's worse if you give away the few pieces of unique information that you have.)
This is a worse gamble than simply interviewing to see what they're best offer is, IMO. If you go all the way through the interview process and find they can't afford you, you wasted a few hours of interview time. If you guess and gamble by disclosing your desired salary, you're risking thousands of dollars of base salary over several years. Odds are, the opportunity cost of your time isn't anywhere near the potential downside of guessing wrong with respect to the base salary they're willing to pay.
(I'm going to sleep on this, but it feels right) So, my suggestion is don't disclose your desired salary, even if you're afraid their offer will be way too low or if the recruiter says they won't continue without it. If you're dealing with a very persistent recruiter OR you're afraid they can't afford you, ask them to tell you the salary range they're offering so you can tell them if it meets your requirements. If they won't tell you, then you can choose to continue and possibly get a low offer, walk away, or the recruiter may end the conversation (this is rare, in my experience, but I'd be open to seeing data to change my mind).
All of these outcomes are preferable to the alternative, which is risking thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars of base salary by guessing at their range and gambling by disclosing your desired salary.
The bottom line is the company has something you need: a job. BUT you have something the company needs: skills and experience that can help them make money. Don't be fooled into perceiving a salary negotiation as a one-sided affair.
This is actually an excellent point, and I can't believe I didn't think of this.
If I am the first one to bring up salary, and I request a range because I want to make sure that nobody is wasting their time, then they clearly get the message that I am expensive to hire, and they can efficiently reject me if needed. If they give a number and it's too low, then I can politely tell them it's best for everyone to discontinue the interviews.
But, if they don't want to give a range, presumably because they might be willing to pay a high wage if they liked me, then it puts me in a much better position to avoid stating what I am seeking.
Then I could say, "OK, it's alright with me if you don't want to explicitly tell me the range ... I just want to be sure that the position is offering compensation in the range that I am seeking. If you prefer to leave the salary discussions for later, that is perfectly understandable."
Now, if they press me for salary info, I can say the same thing they said and refuse to answer.
A, but there's a catch! I've asked for a company's range many times, and they have yet another non-answer answer: "we don't have a firm range in mind, we're confident compensation won't be an issue for a top candidate".
It's a game of chicken. The best counter I have is "what is the top of your range if we have a perfect fit?", but even that doesn't always work.
At this point, I'm sick of games. If a company refuses to disclose a salary range and/or insists on getting me to quote a number, I lead with $2X0 and see what happens. 80+% of companies aren't willing to hit that high, and the other 20% have been more interesting roles at higher quality companies.
Honestly, I still don't see a problem with stating a high number.
In my experience, refusing to agree on a range will inevitably lead to some lowball offers.
The strategy I've been using is to give out a range that is 1.5-2x what I'd be happy with. This anchors the conversation and quickly sifts out the employers who are not serious about attracting top talent.
Realistically, I never expect to get that 2x number and am certainly not leaving money on the table.
There are a couple of us here in the weird position of being senior enough that companies don't recruit for us through normal recruiters.
On the one hand, that screws up the usual "don't give a number" advice, including this advice -- there's usually not a defined salary range for a startup's catchall "we want somebody who does backend" poorly-defined job req.
On the other hand, I suspect "don't give a number" isn't the biggest mismatch happening there.
In past I have asked "What's your budget for the position?". In companies usually everything is budgeted during planning phase from new hires to promotions, bonuses etc.
So lets say you've asked them what is the normal range for the job and they've replied. What if their "normal range" is below the amount you desire? What then?
Usually, my advice is "don't share you current or desired salary", but the one exception I've discussed with some people is when they're concerned they'll be low-balled. In those cases, I've suggested it might be better to just disclose your desired salary.
I've been rethinking this lately. I think a better tack might be to ask the company to share the salary range they're offering for the position. (You're only doing this if you're concerned you'll go through the interview process and get an offer so low you can't even counter with anything reasonable.)
In this case, you have virtually nothing to lose: either they'll tell you the range and you'll know if you're wasting your time, or they'll refuse and now you're both refusing to disclose the "desired" salary component. In the latter case, you can choose to continue with the process or not, depending on your general feeling about the opportunity.
The more I think about it, the more I suspect you should _never_ reveal your desired salary because it can basically only cost you money. When you do reveal your desired salary, you're basically guessing and gambling. You're guessing at the range they're offering, and gambling that you don't undershoot and cost yourself money. (See this clip on why I think it's so important to protect the few pieces of information you have in a negotiation: https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU TL;DR, you have only two or three unique pieces of information that the company doesn't have; the company has oodles and oodles of information that you don't have; they have a significant informational advantage in your negotiation and this is bad for you, but it's worse if you give away the few pieces of unique information that you have.)
This is a worse gamble than simply interviewing to see what they're best offer is, IMO. If you go all the way through the interview process and find they can't afford you, you wasted a few hours of interview time. If you guess and gamble by disclosing your desired salary, you're risking thousands of dollars of base salary over several years. Odds are, the opportunity cost of your time isn't anywhere near the potential downside of guessing wrong with respect to the base salary they're willing to pay.
(I'm going to sleep on this, but it feels right) So, my suggestion is don't disclose your desired salary, even if you're afraid their offer will be way too low or if the recruiter says they won't continue without it. If you're dealing with a very persistent recruiter OR you're afraid they can't afford you, ask them to tell you the salary range they're offering so you can tell them if it meets your requirements. If they won't tell you, then you can choose to continue and possibly get a low offer, walk away, or the recruiter may end the conversation (this is rare, in my experience, but I'd be open to seeing data to change my mind).
All of these outcomes are preferable to the alternative, which is risking thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars of base salary by guessing at their range and gambling by disclosing your desired salary.
The bottom line is the company has something you need: a job. BUT you have something the company needs: skills and experience that can help them make money. Don't be fooled into perceiving a salary negotiation as a one-sided affair.