I’m a career expert – here’s what you should say when a job interviewer asks about your salary expectations

A career expert has revealed exactly what you should say if a job interviewer asks about your salary expectations – and the answer may surprise you.

Anna Papalia, from Philadelphia – who makes social media content about interviewing tips – said that when questioned on it, you should hold back on revealing your answer too soon.

‘Do not give them a number,’ she remarked in a recent TikTok, which has racked up 17 million views. 

‘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”.’

She explained that this is because the role may be paying between ’60-90′ and you don’t want to ‘shoot yourself in the foot’ by saying that you’d be willing to take the lowest end of the range.

‘Instead you say “what is the range of the position or what is the position paying?”,’ Anna revealed.

‘They will most likely give you a range or maybe even they push back on you and say “well we really need to know what you need to make in order to put you on to the next round”.

‘And if that’s the case you say something 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”.’

Viewers were torn at the advice, as some felt nervous about ‘starting an argument’ at the interview, whereas others agreed you shouldn’t ‘low ball’ yourself. 

‘What? No, I’m an HR person and we REALLY need the number,’ one insisted.

‘I’ve directed hiring for my company for four years. This is bad advice. It’s closed off,’ another said. ‘Transparency is authentic and shows leadership.’

Some also admitted that, when they’re applying they’d rather be honest about what they expect because they don’t want to ‘waste their time interviewing for a company that can’t pay what they need’.

However, many also pushed for the importance of companies to ‘normalize salary transparency’.

A career expert has revealed exactly what you should say if a job interviewer asks about your salary expectations – and the answer may surprise you

Viewers were torn at the advice, as some felt nervous about ‘starting an argument’ at the interview, whereas others agreed you shouldn’t ‘low ball’ yourself

‘Takes all this guessing game out of the conversation,’ one wrote.

‘Great advice thank you,’ a second added. 

Anna is known as the ‘interview expert’ and does one-on-one coaching and has a book on her tips out, called Interviewology: The New Science of Interviewing, coming out later this month. 

She has more than 455,300 followers on TikTok and some 98,700 followers on Instagram. 

Meanwhile, a life coach on TikTok has recently advised using ChatGPT to prepare for an interview.

Namely, you should ask the chatbot to use the job description to come up with possible interview questions and answers in advance of the real thing.

‘That was dramatic, but it is changing lives,’ career coach Darci Smith told her followers on the platform.

‘ChatGPT is free and will work wonders for your interview prep!’

‘If you’re interviewing and you’re not doing this, pay attention,’ continued Darci, who goes by @careercoachdarci on TikTok, ‘because it is the easiest, the most important thing to do when prepping for an interview.’ 

‘Whatever the job description is, copy and paste it,’ she said. ‘Copy and paste the entire job description [and] put it into ChatGPT.’

Then, as the career coach explained, you ask the AI chatbot to come up with potential questions you might get asked.  

Her recommended prompt was: ‘If I were the interviewer for this position, what questions should I ask a candidate?’

‘Then, you — as the candidate — are going to get all the questions that are probably going to be asked based on that job description.

‘What do you do?’ she continued. ‘You turn it around. You put those questions in, and then you say, “As the candidate, how would I answer these questions?”‘