Salary Requirements on a Resume [Should You Do This?]

ResumesMoney

Oct 20

It’s funny how the conventional advice around salary disclosure hasn’t changed much over the years. The job landscape has changed drastically over the past few years, yet the advice hasn’t. Today, I’m revisiting an old question about salary transparency and challenging the status quo.

In several states, employers are now required to list salary ranges for their job openings, but should you do the same on your resume? And if so, should you put your lowest number? Do you inflate it for negotiation later?

Here’s my advice on this topic based on my 20 years of hiring and recruiting experience and being seated at the table where resumes are reviewed and job offers are negotiated.

In this article, I’ll discuss:

What an expected salary is.
The reasons people will tell you not to list your salary on your resume.
Reasons why I think some of those positions need to change with the times.
The legality of employers even asking about your salary information.
How to determine your salary requirements, and
How to write those requirements in your resume correctly should you decide that’s what is best.

As always, I’ll empower you with the information to make an informed decision about what is best for your resume and job search.

What Is An Expected Salary

Put simply, your expected salary is the salary that would like to receive for doing a particular job that you are applying for. It is the same as your salary requirements for the purposes of our discussion today.

In the past, it was common practice to base a candidate’s salary requirements on their past salary history. But that trend has been quickly eroding, especially with the passage of new legislation that prohibits employers form asking about it in the first place. More on that later.

When considering your expected salary, think about yoru cost of living, the location where the work will be performed, your education, your certifications, and any licenses that you possess. Things like education and certifications all cost you time and money and you should be compensated for them.

Other things to consider include the demand for your skills, the supply and demand of the job market for your desired job, and the salary brackets a company may have.

Your expected salary should have nothing to do with your past or current salary, but rather what the market will demand for your skills, experience, background, and situation.

Should You Include Salary Requirements on a Resume

Some companies will ask you for it in an application, others won’t. For those who require it as part of the application process, it makes sense to also include the same data in your resume. But for those companies who don’t ask, it leaves open the debate, “Should I include salary requirements on my resume?”

The Argument For Not Including Salary on Your Resume

Most conventional advice will tell you to never include salary expectations on a resume. I had the pleasure of speaking with John Gates this week about this very topic. John is a 30-year recruiting veteran and the Founder of Salary Coach. John gives these reasons to not include your expected salary in your resume:

If you ask for too much before you’re able to prove your worth in the interview process, you could be screened out.
Giving away a salary number before knowing the true challenges of the role and the company could put you in a corner and result in a lower salary offer.
Interviewers often use pay requirements as a lens to interpret experience. If your number is low, they could see you as a junior candidate or vice versa.
It will result in fewer conversations with potential employers which results in fewer opportunities.

I have a great deal of respect for John and while I agree with John all of these possibilities are real and I’ve seen them happen myself, I’m going to challenge the conventional wisdom.

Every company and every recruiter is going to ask you about your salary expectations early on in the interview process. Most of them are going to ask during your first phone screen. Why?

Because no good recruiter or hiring team wants to waste their time talking to someone who is so far away from their budget number. It’s okay to be on the fringes, but if my budget is $90,000 and you’re asking for $200,000, there’s no way that is going to happen even if you have the qualifications to back it up. The company simply can’t afford it or their salary bands simply won’t allow for it without a complete restructure.

Similarly, you most likely want employers to list their pay range on job listings because you don’t want to waste your time applying for jobs that you can’t afford to take. Most people (job seekers and employers) want salary transparency. I say most people because, like everything, there are always some less-than-desirable people out there who are greedy and don’t see the big picture of paying people well.

When you go shopping for something and no price is listed, how do you feel? Most people prefer a straightforward approach. Tell me the price and let’s talk if we’re close enough to each other's number.

But what about all the reasons for not listing it? Let’s discuss those.

Screened Out Because You Asked For Too Much, Too Early

If you’re trying to obtain as many interviews as possible, then listing your salary requirements on your resume probably isn’t the best strategy. You will be screened out if your salary expectations are too far outside of the hiring team’s expectations.

But my question is do you want to talk to people who can’t afford you and who won’t pay you what you’re worth or require? You might. Perhaps you need the interview practice to sharpen your skills and that’s just as valuable to you as the end result. Or perhaps you are able to ask for a referral to another department or someone else who does have the budget and can better leverage your skill sets. In those cases, you may wish to leave your expected salary off the resume.

On the other hand, if you want to run a more targeted job search and don’t have the time to waste on people who can’t offer you what you need, listing salary expectations on your resume may help save you and employers valuable time.

The key to making this work for you of course is to have the right salary range, which I’ll talk about in an upcoming section.

Lower Salary Offers

There have been times when I work with candidates who have a reasonable salary range, but then interview and find out that a particular job is much more than what they expected it to be. The job turns out to be more intense, more stressful, and more demanding than others. In that case, you probably want to adjust your salary requirements.

The conventional advice states that listing your salary range in a resume could put you in a corner and prevent you from negotiating for more. I just don’t see it this way.

Let’s say you’re in the situation I just described above. If you have reasonable reasons for asking for more salary and can make the case for it, most of the hiring managers I’ve worked with would listen and seriously consider it. Especially if at this point they were sold on you being their top candidate because they see the ROI (return on investment) in hiring you.

It’s not difficult to say that your original salary range was based on X, Y, and Z. But after getting to know the department’s challenges and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve success, you feel the need to request a higher salary. You could then spell out what those challenges are and what it will take to overcome them.

My biggest problem with the advice that giving away your salary number too early results in lower offers is this. It assumes a competitive negotiation style. If you’re unfamiliar with negotiation training, a competitive negotiation is one where there is a winner and a loser. In a salary negotiation, it usually looks like an employer trying to pay as little as possible and an employee trying to get paid as much as possible.

The problem is that most salary negotiations I’ve been a part of are not competitive at all. Rather they are what negotiation trainers refer to as collaborative. Both sides are working together toward a common goal to make a fair offer that results in an employee being happy and set up for retention and an employer not overspending based on fair market rates.

Here’s a story that has played out a number of times in my recruiting career. A candidate gives the HR team a number that is lower than what they would pay. One time I had a financial analyst give a salary expectation of $70,000 to $80,000. The HR team then comes back with an offer of $92,000. When I asked why, the answer was because that’s what we believe fair market value is based on our salary bands for his experience level.

The reason I’m sharing this story with you (and it’s not the only one) is because good companies understand that paying people well is a good long-term investment. Will there be companies out there who will try to lowball you? Of course, there will. But would you really want to work for them?

Furthermore, if you do your salary homework well and follow my advice on how to do this later, you’ll severely minimize lowball offers.

The Wrong Number Can Paint You As Less Experienced or Over Experienced

There is a lot of truth that hiring teams often associate salary with skill level, the same way you and I associate price with value. If it’s expensive it must be good. Or the other way around.

But with current hiring trends, this should be less of an issue. It’s easier than ever to research and know what fair market value is for the job you want.

In addition, many states and local municipalities have enacted laws that require employers to list salary ranges on their job advertisements. In that case, you should have a very easy time using a salary expectation on your resume to show yourself more senior for the role, in the middle, or more junior. The key of course is to be realistic with your expectations and to use the tools available to you. You could even use their exact same range.

You may think it’s silly to state the same salary range from a job posting in your resume, but let me tell you another story. I’ve recruited for hundreds of roles and you would be shocked at how many people apply to jobs with a reasonable salary range listed and don’t have expectations within that range.

Not that long ago I interviewed someone I was excited about based on their resume. We had advertised the job with a salary between $90,000 and $120,000. They were currently making $150,000 and wouldn’t take anything less than $170,000 (and why would they). But they still applied for the job. Here’s how hiring works.

If you’re outside the range by $10,000, maybe even $20,000, it’s possible to stretch an offer. But if it’s more than that, 98% of the time, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Now this is for most openings for most levels from the Director down. When you start interviewing for executive-level jobs, the story changes a bit (but the majority of you reading this probably aren’t applying to be the next CEO of a company).

I have no data to back this up, but I’d venture to guess with the ease of applying for jobs these days, most people just hit the easy-apply button on as many jobs as they can and don’t actually read through the listing to make sure they qualify. That includes qualifying for the salary range.

So yes, the wrong number could give someone the impression that you are less or more experienced. But we’re also not talking about listing salary on your resume as a static thing in a bubble. You’re not going to list it at the top. You’re going to write a compelling, well-crafted resume that shows you are qualified for the job you want and then include salary expectations at the bottom.

By this point, they already have a good picture of how qualified you are (if you wrote the resume well) and this should be an issue. Furthermore, it’s easier than ever to come up with a realistic salary number if not the same range as the company is expecting to pay for the role in today’s world. I just don’t see this as a problem with current trends and changes.

The Argument For Including Salary on Your Resume

Let’s summarize the argument for including salary expectations on your resume. Here a few reasons you may wish to consider it:

You’re a busy professional and you don’t want to waste time with employers who can’t or won’t pay you your desired salary.

There is a downside to this. You may miss out on potential referrals and interview practice. Your requests for interviews likely will decrease, but the ones you get will be with companies that will pay what you want.

It makes everyone feel better.

Everyone feels better when they know the price tag. You feel better when you see an employer’s range on their job posting. Recruiters feel better when they know you’re salary expectations. Everyone feels better moving forward when they know that both parties are in the same ballpark as one another.

Anchoring

If you’re unfamiliar with this term, you’re not alone. It’s a negotiation tactic I learned from John Lowry who teaches at Pepperdine. Think of a ship dropping an anchor in the sea. The ship then can drift a bit, but it won’t drift far away from that anchor point. In salary negotiations, it works the same way. The first person to mention a salary number anchors the negotiation.

Reasons to include salary in your resume

If you mention that you’re in the range of $120,000 to $150,000, it makes it really hard for the other party to come back and offer you something far outside that range. They’d have to be a real piece of work to do so and think they could get away with it.

Most of the salary advice that’s been around for years tells you to never give your number out first. Wait for the employer so you can maximize your deal. I understand that logic, but I think you sacrifice more by following it because you lose the ability to anchor.

Here’s an example. Let’s say the employer is savvy and states a number of $90,000 first. That’s the anchor. So you counter with a proposal of $95,000 thinking that you’ve gotten an extra $5,000 from them. They say yes. You feel great. But here’s what really happened. The employer could have paid up to $110,000. They actually saved $15,000 by anchoring.

I’m a huge fan of anchoring a negotiation. Of course, in order for this to work, you have to know your numbers. But with all the tools available to you these days and with my strategy I’ll share a little later, you can do it.

They’re going to ask anyhow

Every good recruiter is going to ask you early on, probably on your first phone screen, about your salary expectations. I see no advantage in delaying. Sure some experts are going to say you can build value first. But let’s be honest.

I’ve conducted thousands (if not tens of thousands, I’ve lost count) of phone screens and they usually last about 30 minutes and are filled with preliminary information to tell if you really do know your stuff or just sounded like it in the resume. How much value are you really going to build in 30 minutes? Enough to make me think, wow, I’d pay you $50,000 more than our budget. Probably not.

Is It Legal For Employers to Ask About Your Salary Expectations

Before we talk about how to determine and list your salary requirements in your resume, I want to take a minute and talk about what can and can’t happen legally in regard to your salary discussions.

First, yes employers can ask about your expected salary. But in many states like California, employers cannot ask about your past salary at previous employers. I highly advise you to check your state’s Department of Labor website for labor laws in your state. Keep in mind that some municipalities also have laws about this even if your state does not.

Even if your state doesn’t protect this information, you should know that your past salary has nothing to do with your next salary. Your worth is not based on what your current or past employer paid you. It should be based on fair market value which considers the current job market, industry, and a few other factors I’ll get into in a minute.

How to Determine Your Salary Requirements

If you’ve decided to list your salary requirements in your resume, they need to be realistic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done a phone screen and someone was way out in left field with their expectations. No matter how much praise you received at your last job or what your college counselor told you, you have to be realistic. So no, I’m not going to pay a recent graduate with 1 year of experience $200,000. That’s not realistic.

With that being said, let’s get into how to determine your salary expectations.

Using a Range

Don’t state a static number on your resume or in an interview. You don’t know enough about this particular job to do that yet (unless it’s a final interview). Instead, use an expected range. Employers always give a range when discussing salary because there are unknown factors to them too. They might consider paying more to someone who can do more than they expected or less for someone who needs a bit more nurturing.

Similarly, you don’t know the level of responsibilities this job is going to require from you yet. You don’t know the working environment. And you don’t know the true problems that you’re going to have to overcome and solve. Some problems are worth more money than others.

Perhaps the job is super easy and low-stress. I’d take less pay for that. But if it’s going to demand long hours away from my family, I want to be compensated well for that. Or maybe the benefits are great and that’s worth a lower salary. Using a range gives you room to maneuver.

Researching the Right Salary Range

Most people suggest researching the current job and location online using Glassdoor or Salary.com. In my opinion, that’s not good enough. Yes research that information, but also research two other salaries.

Research the salary of the person directly below you in the organization hierarchy. And then research the person directly above you. For example, if you’re applying for a Staff Accountant job, you will research three salaries. A salary for a Staff Accountant, the salary for an AP Specialist (person below you), and the salary for a Senior Accountant (person above you).

I’m telling you to do this because it will help establish a workable range. No company is going to pay you less than the person below you and they won’t pay you more than the person above you. Can you imagine the hell to pay if that information got out? So by researching all three salaries, you’ll come up with a workable range.

When you’re researching salaries, I and many HR teams I’ve worked with prefer to use Payscale.com. We find it to be the most accurate.

Factors to Consider When Researching

When you’re researching those three salaries, keep in mind that the following factors can impact the number significantly.

Industry (some industries pay more than others)
Company Size
Financing (someone with rapid growth and an infusion of cash via Series B funding will be able to pay more than a bootstrapped small business)
Location (complain all you want about being paid the same everywhere, that’s not how it works, where you live matters)

Some of these you can find out via online salary research tools, but for many, you may have to do some digging. Talk to people in the industry, and examine 10Ks and 10Qs to find insights.

Don’t neglect to research these factors. For example, I live in Riverside, CA. But if I apply for a job that is 20 miles away in Orange County, CA or even in the Los Angeles area, the salary range can increase by anywhere from 15 to 20 percent. That’s a big pay difference. Things like location matter.

If you’re researching the location for a remote role, research based on your home location. But if you’re driving to an office, be sure to research the office location instead. As you can see from my example above, it can make a large difference.

Use an Interlocking Range

Here’s what I’ve learned after being involved in thousands of recruitment searches and hires. When you give candidates a salary range, they always hear the top number. And when you give employers a candidate’s expected salary range, they always hear the bottom number. That’s why I propose using the interlocking range on your resume and in your early interviews.

Once you’ve figured out an employer’s expected salary range for the role, you can use what I call the interlocking range on your resume. Also, don’t forget that if an employer lists a salary range on their job posting, you can use that to come up with your range too. In fact, that may be one of the best ways to do it, but don’t neglect to do your own research too.

To list an interlocking range, your bottom number is going to be toward the top of the employer’s range. Don’t exceed it though. Your top number should sit slightly above their top range number. This will give you negotiation room later in many situations.

Keep in mind that this is a general rule of thumb I use for many situations, but it may not always be your best strategy. Be real with yourself. If you don’t have the experience to command the top of the range, you may consider lowering your bottom number more.

Converting Wages to Salary

If you are used to being paid an hourly wage and want to list a salary instead, it’s very easy to do so. Take your hourly wage and multiply it by 2,080. That is the number of working hours in a calendar year and will give you an annual salary number.

How to Write Salary Requirements on a Resume

Keep It Simple and Use Base Salary

Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. In most situations listing a base salary works. You can simply write it like any of these examples:

Salary Expectations: $40,000 to $55,000
Salary Requirements: $40,000 to $55,000

You don’t need to explain yourself or justify your expectations in a resume. Let the rest of your resume speak to your qualifications and it should be clear why you are asking for this salary range. If you need help writing a resume, check out my free resume guide.

Use a Realistic Range

We’ve all seen the job listings from employers where the salary is listed between $50,000 and $250,000. That helps no one and is not realistic in most situations. Your range is most likely going to be a $20,000 spread. For more senior roles, that could increase some.

Also, make sure you aren’t ruled out for jobs that you would accept toward the lower end of your range. Keep it real and base it on your research.

Tailor Your Resume

This is an important part of your resume that should be on your tailoring checklist. While you may have a generalized salary expectation that you keep to yourself (what you must have to put food on the table), the salary requirements you share with potential employers should be fluid and change on a case-to-case basis.

Tailoring a resume should take 5 - 10 minutes tops if you have a good strategy and a good master resume. Don’t forget to tailor your salary expectations based on what you know about this company and this job.

Don’t List Past Salary Information

I know I touched on this in the early section on what employers can ask legally about your pay and compensation, but it’s worth mentioning again. Don’t list your past salary history on a resume, even if you live somewhere that allows employers to inquire.

Some resume writers and career coaches still recommend giving employers your past salary information. They are wrong and this is a very old, outdated way of thinking that almost always ends up in lower pay.

Your worth is not tied to those jobs. Someone who has worked at the same company for 8 years will most likely make less than the person who has held 3 jobs in 8 years. Both could be equally qualified and deserving of the same salary. Your salary expectations should not be tied to your past employment.

Yet if you release it, I can almost guarantee your next salary will be based on your past salary. Don’t even allow yourself or the employer to go down this road.

If they ask you in an interview, that’s a different situation, but for our purposes, don’t list it on a resume.

Don’t Say Negotiable

I know every coach under the sun is going to tell you to say this, but don’t. What is the point of giving a salary range if you’re going to immediately after saying it’s negotiable? That’s the equivalent of saying my range is wide open and means nothing.

Of course, you’re going to have a salary negotiation of some kind later in the process after everyone has gotten to know each other. Everyone operates from the assumption that both side’s numbers are somewhat negotiable. But again, they’re not going to move far away from the original anchor points.

Yes, you may miss out on jobs that are slightly below your range, but what’s the point in giving a range if it’s not really your range? Know your numbers, be confident, and stick to it.

Where to Include Salary Information on Your Resume

If you are going to include salary expectations on your resume, do so at the end of the resume. You want to convey your value first.

Example of Expected Salary in a Resume

Here is an example of a resume with salary expectations listed on it. You can see the salary is at the end after I’ve communicated my value. I’ve also used the interlocking range on this one. When researching similar roles at other companies and doing my research on sites like Payscale, I found that the average pay for this role is between $50,000 and $70,000.

I set the bottom of my range at $60,000 (I’m not willing to accept less than that based on my experience) and the top slightly above the average maximum.

Cole Sperry

Riverside, CA | 555.555.5555 | cole@optimcareers.com | linkedin.com/in/colesperry

Community Engagement Specialist

Hybrid community manager and issue resolution specialist with 4 years of experience in onboarding, customer advocation, and leveraging data in “fun on one” monthly reviews in efforts to drive renewals and retention.

80%+ Renewal Rate ◼ 24% Increase in Adoption ◼ 26% Decrease in Support Tickets

Career Path

University of California, Los Angeles | Community Manager | 2018 - Present

Recruited to drive renewals and retention outcomes for an 800-person community. Responsible for remotely onboarding over 20 new members per year, setting clear expectations with all stakeholders, analyzing member patterns, conducting monthly reviews, and creating feedback loops to drive new scalable processes.

Key Contributions:

Obtained executive sponsorship and executed an interactive onboarding program that incorporated subject matter experts from 10 departments resulting in a 76% increase in onboarding engagement
Consistently maintained an 80%+ retention and renewal rate by creating online communities that promoted adoption and education on new services
Selected to lead the implementation of a new ticketing system, improving communication response times by 12%
Designed 20+ online help articles based on frequently asked questions, giving stakeholders on-demand access to information and reducing inbound tickets by 24%
Planned 30+ events with 200 to 500 attendees, leveraging data to select optimal dates which increased attendance by 26%
Resolved over 300 escalation support tickets within 48 hours or less

Education

Bachelor, Event Management | UCLA (2018)

Technology

Salesforce, Hivebrite, Excel, Qualtrics

Salary Requirements

$60,000 to $75,000

Salary Requirements on a Resume Recommended Reading

Targeted Resume: The Definitive Guide to a Tailored Resume With Examples

Skills vs Experience [What is More Important in a Resume]

There’s a Hidden Job Market for Six-Figure Jobs [Myths and Facts]

Going Below the Line in Salary Negotiations

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.