The main adverse consequence is that you will waste time on roles which are not of an appropriate level for you to ever take.

Yea, I just had a candidate that was amazing for the role, had multiple rounds of interviews, and everyone was really excited to bring on board. When they told us their salary requirements at the end, it was shockingly out of our budget. Not getting that information, or anything close to it upfront was a huge set back for everyone. Treating interviews like buying a car makes hiring suck, just like dealing with car salespeople. I see your point, but um, no.

@coblr Or perhaps your budget was shockingly low for the quality of candidate you were interviewing?

This advice is in line with what is said in the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?" The party that states a number first (in salary negotiations) always loses.

@coblr Does your company now share its own salary expectations upfront with candidates? If not, why not? If the company is very concerned about wasting time from mismatched expectations, then it can share its own expectations upfront. My first employer did this when I applied there, and it worked fine. No time was wasted. If the candidate, as opposed to the employer, is concerned about wasting time, they could choose to share expectations, not to appease the recruiter, but should only do so with the awareness of how it affects their negotiating position. The OP clearly doesn't want to share.

Worth noting that in multiple US states it is now against the law for the recruiter to ask you your current salary. So definitely read up on applicable laws before having this conversation.

"recruiters are paid to get people hired, not to reject them." Where do you live? Down here in Australia, it's my understanding that the primary purpose companies hire recruiters is specifically to throw as many resumes into the rubbish bin as cheaply as possible.

It's like unions are a way to keep companies from being terrible employers, but if they weren't terrible employers to begin with, we wouldn't need unions. that is one of the two causes of conflict with employees :-)

@nick012000 if that's the case, please contact me, I think I can automate your system for a very reasonable fee...

@Tiercelet I'm pretty sure that their systems are already automated using resume keyword matching and such.

Quick reminder: "Salary expectations" and "salary history" are two different things. No matter when you discuss salary expectations, you never want to disclose salary history.

@zmike Actually yes and no. Because the first one to give the salary sets an anchor on which it is then hard to move from. But the employee can sometimes win quite a bit when the original anchor is set way higher than expected.

"The party that states a number first (in salary negotiations) always loses." and "first one to give the salary sets an anchor on which it is then hard to move from..." I mean, come on, ok, if it's the first negotiation you've ever been in in your life maybe! Good grief. All you say is "I'm thinking 950 but I know nothing about the situation yet" Later you just say "I'm now thinking 1350". If the other party says AH HAH, YOU SAID 950 EARLIER, just stare past them to the wall behind. They can repeat AH HAH, YOU SAID 950 EARLIER a thousand times. Just state what you want.

@ASDFQWERTY , I am very interested to hear this answer, but, like a number of others have mentioned it does seem pretty unusual to me. But yes, if, for some reson (put aside whether it is a good idea or not) the OP wants to "only say later" ... then indeed ASDF you have perfectly answered the exact actual question - essentially be polite, direct, firm about the issue.

@GlennWillen Could you give a source on this? I've never heard of it being illegal to ask anyone their current salary, no matter who you are.

@GrumpyCrouton Here's NYS, for one.

@Tiercelet Very interesting read, thank you.

Say you, doge, the salary question at the beginning of the interview, at the end of the interview when the question comes up again, do you still doge it till the company representatives gives a number or at that point, you just state the range you expect?

@ASDFQWERTY : This mindset is especially difficult to grasp for people coming from the Eastern Block. Although communism is long since over, the public consciousness still didn't grasp the fine art of salary negotiation. For generations the rule was that the exact salary for every job and every rank was decided by the state, so there was no negotiation. You could rise in rank/grade (in the same job and same position) according to very specific criteria (number of years worked, eventual on-site exams passed) and that rank came with its own pre-defined salary.

My only question is why you would do this to yourself? So you go through hours/days of grueling interviewing process, to only in the end find out that their budget is not even remotely close to what your expectations are. For... what possible gain? None that I can see.

@Ghos3t - I think you should still dodge the question at the offer stage and let the company go first. You should also try to get as much objective information about the market rate for this role as possible which you can use to counter-offer. If they refuse to make an offer without you going first, maybe you'll have to give in, but I've never seen that happen. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has heard of a company delay giving an offer until the candidate proposes a number.