conversation: User (lltrs186): "I know I've read this here before but had a real-life experience with it yesterday that I thought I'd share. \n\nGoing into the interview I was hoping/expecting that the range for the salary would be similar to where I am now. When the company recruiter asked me what my target salary was, I responded by asking, "What is the range for the position?" to which they responded with their target, which was $30k more than I was expecting/am making now. Essentially, if I would have given the range I was hoping for (even if it was +$10k more than I am making it now) I still would have sold myself short. \n\nGranted, this is just an interview and not an offer- but I'm happy knowing that I didn't lowball myself from the getgo. "
  Self: "This is another frustrating thing about those online form type applications. Many ask you to input a salary requirement and many of those won't let you input something like "Negotiable" as they only take hard numbers. I feel like I'm gaming it a lot of the time by trying not to offer myself out for too low but also not disqualify myself by asking for too much."
  mukungfu (mukungfu): "You can just put $1 or some ridiculously low amount that the input will accept When asked about it later, I'll just up front say I don't make it a practice of setting salary expectation until I know the role and benefits better. You still end up in the ongoing dance back and forth eventually, but at least it gets you past the computer form and you're negotiating with a real person at that point. \n\nEdit: love all the discussion on this - negotiating is a game I love to play and chat about.  Lots of folks posting how this might get your resume auto filtered into oblivion. While that's true, my assumption was that if you're going through the numbers game of online automatic applications, you're already dicing with the algorithm gods anyway, and this just moves the game one step further without too much investment. If you really are hunting the dream job, I think there is no substitute for getting creative to get around these digital gate keepers and talking to a real person. Go to meetups the company hosts, offer to buy someone that works there a coffee or lunch even to ask about the work (not directly for a job), volunteer to help out with a project or even charity event the company is hosting. Hiring people want to find good candidates with minimal fuss, make it easy on them if you can - Good hunting y'all!\n"
  SonOfSparda304 (SonOfSparda304): "I'd just press and hold the "9" key until it runs out of space "
  vyvantage (vyvantage): "You will be filtered as being "outside recommended compensation range"."
  FrankPapageorgio (FrankPapageorgio): "I don't think I want to work at a company that considers their new hires by what number they enter into a field.  \n\nLike, even if the salary is good, it would probably be a toxic work environment driven by "results" and "doing my job" and "getting work done on time".  Screw that... "
  vyvantage (vyvantage): "With a high enough volume of applicants companies will filter in any way that gets the number down to a size they can actually process.\n\nIf that means setting a high-bound on acceptable initial negotiating positions or accepting that individuals (like yourself) might self-exclude on those grounds, the effect of resulting in a smaller pool of applicants to evaluate is the same."
  