What to put for desired salary on a job application

The desired salary field is a filter and an anchor at the same time. Enter too little and you set the ceiling on your offer; enter too much and a screener drops the application before anyone reads the resume. The right entry depends on what the field accepts, so the tool above gives you all four versions.

• What the field is really asking

  Most applicant tracking systems pass the desired salary straight to the recruiter as a number next to your name. Some use it as a knockout: anything above the budget is filtered before a person looks. Either way, it is read as your ask, not as a conversation opener, so the number you enter is the number you will be negotiating down from.

  The one exception is the optional text field. There, Negotiable is a legitimate answer and keeps the first number with the employer.

• How to pick the number

  Start from the market, not from your current pay. Look at three or four postings for the same title and city that show a range, and at the salary data on Glassdoor or Levels.fyi, and take the middle of what you see for your experience. Then decide what you would actually accept; that is the floor of your range.

  If the posting shows a range, answer inside it. A number above the posted maximum gets filtered; a number near the top signals you read the posting and value yourself at the senior end.

• Mistakes that cost interviews

  Entering 0 or 1 to dodge the question: many systems reject it, and a recruiter reads it as evasive. Entering 999999: same result. Entering a monthly figure in an annual field or an hourly rate in a yearly one: the application is filtered as either absurdly low or absurdly high. Read the label every time.

  Entering your current salary instead of your target: the offer will match it. Entering a figure below your current pay by mistake: the tool above warns you if you add your current salary.