Negotiating Your Salary: A Complete Guide

Salary negotiation feels adversarial to almost everyone who does it. In practice, most recruiters expect a counter and have already been given room by the hiring manager to move the offer. The candidates who feel most uncomfortable asking are almost always the ones leaving the largest amounts of money on the table.

Anchor to your total compensation, not your base salary

When a recruiter asks about your expectations, they're often really asking about your base salary. But at any company that offers equity, bonus, or sign-on, base is only one lever. Answering 'my expectation is a $180k base' tells them nothing about how much room they have on the rest of the package — and quietly caps your offer at what they've already budgeted for base.

A better answer names your total-comp target and leaves the composition open: 'I'm targeting around $260k all-in, and I'm flexible on how that splits between base, equity, and bonus.' You've now given them four levers instead of one, and each of those levers has a different budget owner internally.

Never give the first number if you can avoid it

This isn't a hard rule — sometimes the recruiter will insist. But when you have the choice, ask them for the band first. 'Before I share a specific number, what's the compensation range budgeted for this role?' is a completely normal question that recruiters get all day, and it moves the anchor away from your last salary and toward their budget.

Have two numbers ready, not one

• Your walk-away number — below this, you would rather stay where you are. This is not the number you say out loud.
• Your target number — the honest amount you'd feel great about. This is 10–20% above walk-away and is anchored to real market data.
• Your ask — 10–15% above your target. This is the first number you say out loud, because the offer will move down from there.

How to counter without sounding rehearsed

The counter script that works best is short and honest: express excitement about the role, name the specific pieces of the offer you'd like to move, and explain briefly why. 'Really excited about this — the team seems great. Given the scope of the role and my prior experience with X, I was hoping we could get the base to Y and the sign-on to Z. Is there room?'

When they say no

Sometimes the answer really is no. When that happens, the follow-up is a different question: what else can we move? Additional PTO, a signing bonus, an accelerated first review, a title change, remote flexibility, relocation. Companies rarely leave the base offer unchanged and give you none of those things when you ask well.