I will admit to not knowing how things are done outside of Silicon Valley, so if that's the norm outside then I gladly defer to you.
But in Silicon Valley I've never been pressed to give a salary. So in today's market, if I were talking to you as a prospective employee and you pressed me to give you a salary without you telling me how much you want to pay for the salary, I would politely decline to continue the interview process. I don't need a job that badly (yet). It would feel to shady to me to have the prospective employer force me to give a salary expectation before they give me an offer. They know what their budget is, and if we're in the negotiation process, they know if I'm worth whatever their best offer is.
If you are a recruiter, and this is the initial phases of the conversation, and you press me on salary expectations, then I most assuredly will not continue the conversation. I don't think it's appropriate for either side to discuss salary expectations at that point.
If I'm desperate for employment, then I'm sure my feelings would change on this, but so far (knock on wood) this hasn't been an issue.
Yeah, fair point. If by Silicon Valley, you mean the large tech companies (like Google, Apple, etc), you're correct that they won't ask your salary expectations since they have their own internal process for determining compensation for a given candidate. (They also generally think they can outbid anyone else).
I have been working with smaller startups (down here in LA, but I've seen the same behavior up north), who tend to filter candidates based on expected salary due to limited resources and hiring for an exact role. (We tend to mask our cheapness by using phrases like "hungry" or "passionate").
But in Silicon Valley I've never been pressed to give a salary. So in today's market, if I were talking to you as a prospective employee and you pressed me to give you a salary without you telling me how much you want to pay for the salary, I would politely decline to continue the interview process. I don't need a job that badly (yet). It would feel to shady to me to have the prospective employer force me to give a salary expectation before they give me an offer. They know what their budget is, and if we're in the negotiation process, they know if I'm worth whatever their best offer is.
If you are a recruiter, and this is the initial phases of the conversation, and you press me on salary expectations, then I most assuredly will not continue the conversation. I don't think it's appropriate for either side to discuss salary expectations at that point.
If I'm desperate for employment, then I'm sure my feelings would change on this, but so far (knock on wood) this hasn't been an issue.