It is usually somewhere near the end of the call, said lightly, almost as an afterthought.
So — what are you looking for, compensation-wise?
And something happens in your chest. You had a number. You had it written down twenty minutes ago. And what comes out of your mouth is a number several thousand dollars lower, followed by the word “ish,” followed by an apology you did not plan to make.
I have done this. Almost everyone I coach has done this. It is not a confidence flaw. It is what happens when you are asked to price yourself in real time, in a conversation where you badly want to be liked.
The question is not what you think it is
It feels like they are asking what you are worth. They are not. They are asking for an anchor — the number the rest of the conversation gets measured against.
That is genuinely good news, because an anchor is not a verdict. It is a starting position, and everybody in the room knows it is a starting position. The only person treating it as a final, morally binding statement about your value is you.
So give them a real one. Not the number you would be relieved to hear. The number the conversation should start from.
Prepare three numbers, not one
The number you open with. Above what you expect to land on. Not fantasy — grounded in what the role actually pays — but with room in it, because the room is the entire point.
The number you would be happy with. This is the one most people say out loud first, which is exactly how it becomes the ceiling instead of the target.
The number below which you keep talking. Not a threat, and you never say it out loud. It is a line you decided on in a calm room, so that you are not deciding it in a warm one.
Write all three down before the call. Have them where you can see them. The confidence you are looking for is mostly just preparation wearing better clothes.
Where the number comes from
Take three sources for your title, your metro area, and your size of company, and use the middle one. Live job postings with published ranges are the most honest data you have access to, and there are more of them every year.
Then do the part almost nobody does: work out what staying where you are actually costs. Raises compound off the base you already have, so a gap does not sit still — it grows quietly, every year, in the background. Seeing that number is often what finally makes the conversation feel worth having.
I put a calculator on the site that does all of that, including a script you can adapt and say out loud until it sounds boring. Boring is the goal. Boring means you are prepared.
And if you want to practise the actual conversation with someone who used to sit on the other side of it, book a free 1:1 call. That is genuinely one of my favourite things to help with.