Salary expectations: the number, the units, and where it does not go
Salary expectations are the figure you want to earn in that role, and in an application box it goes in gross annual terms unless the field says otherwise. That is the default nearly everywhere: before tax, for a full year, in the currency of the job. Everything else (a range or a single number, how much to ask for, when to say it) rests on a decision most people skip: working out your figure before the box appears.
Gross or net, annual or monthly, and what «p.a.» and «OTE» mean
Settle the units before the number. «Salary expectations», «expected salary» and «desired compensation» are the same question with three names, and their convention fits on one line: gross, per year, in the currency of the job.
Gross
What the employer pays for you before income tax and your own contributions come out. It is the default unit of everything written down: adverts, forms, offer letters, contracts.
Net, or take-home
What lands in your account. Nobody can sensibly ask you for it: it depends on your tax code, and your tax code depends on your personal situation rather than on the job.
Annual, and why a month misleads
Twenty-eight thousand a year is 2,333 a month over twelve payments and 2,000 over fourteen. Same salary. If you are asked for a monthly figure, write how many payments it is split over.
«p.a.» and «OTE»
«p.a.» is per annum, the whole year before tax. «OTE» is on-target earnings, base plus the variable you get only if you hit every target, so an OTE figure is not a salary. Ask what the base is.
Part-time, or twenty hours
The figure is given for the hours you will actually work, never scaled up to full time, and you say so: «18,000 gross a year for a 20-hour week».
With the units settled, the field stops being frightening for what it actually is: a box that sets an anchor, not a contract.
What to put in the box when you know nothing about the job yet
This is the real case: a cursor blinking in a field on a job board, before you have spoken to anyone or know the scope of the role. The answer depends on what the form lets you do.
If the field is optional
Leave it empty and move on. If the board lets you send the application without that figure, the conversation is still open and you have not set an anchor before knowing what will be asked of you.
If it is required and takes text: a range
«38,000 to 43,000 gross per year». A useful range spans roughly ten to fifteen per cent of its lower end: narrower gives you no room, wider reads as unconsidered. The lower end is the only number they will read.
If it only takes one number
Write the top of your range, not the middle. In a numeric field the figure works as a ceiling rather than a starting point, and whatever comes after moves downwards from there.
If the ad already prints a band
Use it. If it says 42,000 to 50,000 and your number fits inside, write a point within that band: you have answered with their own data. If it is above the whole band, say so or do not apply.
What does not work: «negotiable»
«Negotiable» and «competitive» are not answers: the person reading already knows it is negotiable. If you cannot give a figure, say a sentence with content in it: «I do not yet know whether the role carries a bonus; my reference is around 30,000 gross».
Notice what the five have in common: none of them asks you to guess what the company wants to hear.
In the demo you can watch a whole job ad get read before anything is filled in. No signup, no email.
Open the demoHow to work out your number
Nobody is going to hand you this figure. There is no table that says what you are worth, and anyone selling you one is averaging people who are not you. What does exist is an afternoon's method.
Start with your floor
The number below which you say no. It is arithmetic rather than ambition: one month of your fixed costs times twelve, plus the margin you need not to live on the edge. Of your three numbers, it is the only one that is not negotiable.
Ten adverts and their bands
Find ten ads for the same job in the same city that print a band and note both ends. The median of those lower ends is what the market pays today, and it costs you forty minutes.
The public earnings statistics
Your national statistics office publishes average earnings by occupation and region, free, and almost nobody looks. It does not tell you what to ask for, it tells you where the middle is, which helps when an offer looks strange.
Salary guides, read knowing who wrote them
The ones recruitment firms publish every year are detailed, and they are written by people who make a living placing candidates. That does not make them wrong, it makes them a source with a direction. Read one against the statistics.
Two people, not a forum
Ask two or three people doing that job now, and do not ask what they earn: ask what band seems reasonable for the role. Almost nobody answers the first question and almost everybody answers the second.
By the end of the afternoon you have three numbers: the floor, the target and the top of your range. The target goes in the form, the top is said out loud, and the floor never leaves your notebook.
You can also see what an ad says it pays, pulled out of the posting and set beside the analysis.
Try the demoWhat to say when they ask in the interview
In a conversation everything changes, because there is a person opposite you and silence has weight. It lands at the end of the first call, because the recruiter does not want to move forward someone who will fall over on the number.
The first move is to get them to say the band, and it takes one question:
«Before I give you a figure, do you have a band assigned to this role? If you tell me, I can say right now whether I am inside it.»
Often they will, because asking that way reads as saving time rather than as dodging. When they insist you go first, the answer gives the number and says where it came from:
«On what I know about the role today, my reference is between 26,000 and 29,000 gross a year. I say that from what is in the ad: it is two more routes than I run now, and the evening shift is on the job description. If the rest fits, the number is not going to be the problem.»
It works for three reasons. It gives a number, which is the only thing the recruiter needs to write down. It justifies it with something from the ad rather than with what the rent costs. And it closes without giving anything up. Notice what it does not do: it does not say what she earns now.
If they ask outright what you earn today, you are not obliged to answer, and a short sentence works better than going quiet: «I would rather anchor on what this role asks for». And the number is not the only thing that moves: remote days, paid training or a review at six months are part of the package.
A range or a single figure: which goes where
The same question gets answered differently depending on the channel, and the rule is short: in a form, a range; in a conversation, one figure with an «around» in front of it.
The reason is how each is heard. A range said out loud is heard as its lower end, because the other person writes down the number that suits them. Written in a field it reads as a whole band. And there is a third channel nobody prepares: the open question inside the form, answered with two sentences.
This is where BeSuix comes in, and it is worth being exact. BeSuix holds no salary data: it does not know what your sector pays and it is not going to tell you how much to ask for. The figure is yours to bring, and the product helps you write it down.
Two concrete things. When you paste the text of a job ad, it pulls out what that ad says it pays and puts it beside the analysis. And there is a box where you paste the literal question from the form, choose a length and a tone, and it returns a first-person answer anchored in what you have confirmed. The shortest caps at twenty words.
And what it does not do: if you have not given it a figure, it does not invent one. It returns a professional framing and leaves the number to you.
The question, pasted from the form
«What are your salary expectations for this role?»
The draft
«I sit within the band the role sets, with five years in performance and my own budget behind it.»
The limit
There is no salary data in the product. With no figure from you, it returns a framing, never a number.
The open questions on a form, answered from your own facts and at the length the box asks for. Free during the private beta.
Request accessWhere the figure does not go: your CV
This is the part with the shortest answer on the page. It does not go on your CV. Not your salary expectations, not your desired compensation, unless the advert asks expressly.
Why not on the CV
Because it is the only number on the page and the eye goes there before your experience. Because it expires: the document serves six months and that figure does not. And because a CV gets forwarded, so you end up negotiating with a number written for another company.
If the advert asks, put it in the letter
One line at the end, with its units: «My expectation is around 30,000 gross a year, with room depending on the final scope of the role». The letter is written for that company on that day.
In the form, yes, and with units
The field on the job board is the natural home of that number: gross, annual, and with the hours noted if it is not full time.
It is also why the two CV templates BeSuix generates have no salary field, and are not going to have one. A CV describes what you know how to do; the figure belongs where the question was asked.
Frequently asked questions
Are salary expectations given gross or net?
Gross, and per year, unless the field says otherwise: it is the convention in adverts, forms and contracts. Nobody can sensibly ask for net, because take-home depends on your personal situation rather than on the job, so the two of you would be comparing different things.
What does OTE mean on a job advert?
On-target earnings: the base salary plus the variable you would earn if you hit every target. It is not a salary, and quoting an OTE figure back as your own expectation leaves you worse off than it looks. Ask what the base is.
Can I leave the salary expectations field blank?
If the board lets you send the application without it, yes, and you have lost nothing: the conversation stays open. Some ads mark it required and others do not, within the same board. When it is required, a range always beats writing «negotiable».
How do I give a figure for a part-time or twenty-hour role?
For the hours you will actually work, never scaled up to full time, and say so: «18,000 gross a year for a 20-hour week». Without that tail, whoever reads it assumes whatever suits them, and you both find out on the third call.
What if I ask for more than the job pays?
If you are over by a little it rarely rules you out: it opens a conversation about the scope of the role. If your figure is above their entire band it does rule you out, and better now than later. What does not help is lowering yourself before anyone says anything.
Can I change the figure I put in the form?
You can, and it is not unusual: you answered that box before knowing the scope. It is done with the reason in front, not with a new number on its own: «When I wrote that figure I did not know the role carried two more routes». Changing it silently lands badly.
Keep reading
The questions on the application form, where most people give up
The four kinds of open question a form asks, how a 20-word answer differs from a 200-word one, and what to do when there is a character limit.
Interviewing in a second language, and why nobody is scoring your accent
What is actually assessed, the vocabulary worth preparing, the sentences that buy you time, and what to do with your CV when the ad is in another language.