"What Are Your Salary Expectations?" — Answering It From Nigeria Without Underselling
The question arrives early, usually in the screening call, and most candidates lose thousands in the four seconds before they speak. The problem is not the number. It is the currency you are thinking in.
It comes early — often in the first fifteen-minute screening call, from a recruiter who is not the hiring manager and has a band written down in front of them that you cannot see.
And most people lose money in the four seconds before they answer. Not because they negotiate badly, but because of the arithmetic running silently in their head.
The conversion trap
You are asked for a number. You think in naira. You convert your current salary, add what feels like a bold increase, convert back, and say it out loud.
Someone earning ₦450,000 a month does this and arrives at about $500. They say $500 with real nerve, believing they have asked for a lot. The band for that role was $2,400 to $3,200.
Nobody corrects you. The recruiter writes down $500, and if you are hired you are hired at $500 — and every raise for the next three years is a percentage of that number.
Your current salary is not evidence about the value of the role. It is evidence about the last market you sold into.
What to say instead
Deflect once, politely, and ask for their band. This is normal and expected — recruiters ask candidates this question all day and are rarely surprised to be asked back.
"I'd rather understand the scope properly before putting a number on it. Do you have a range budgeted for this role?"
Most recruiters will tell you. They have the range, and their job is filling the seat, not underpaying you specifically. If they give it, you have won the exchange: you now know the ceiling before you have said anything you cannot take back.
When they push back
Some will insist you go first. Fine — go first with a researched range, in dollars, anchored to the market rather than to your history.
"Based on what I've seen for similar remote roles, I'd expect somewhere in the $2,800 to $3,400 range, and I'm flexible depending on the full package."
Three things are doing work in that sentence. It is a range, not a point, so there is room to move. The bottom of the range is a number you would genuinely accept, because you may well be offered it. And "based on what I've seen" signals that you have researched, which quietly discourages a lowball.
Where the research comes from
Not from asking friends. Look at the roles themselves. A large share of remote listings now publish a band, particularly from US companies subject to pay transparency rules — read twenty adverts for your exact role and level, and the shape of the market appears without anyone having to tell you.
Adjust down for smaller companies, up for those with funding. Anchor to the role and the market, never to what you currently earn.
The question behind the question
What most people are really asking is whether being in Nigeria means they should ask for less.
Some companies do apply location-based pay bands, and they will tell you. Many others — particularly smaller, fully distributed ones — pay for the role rather than the postcode. You do not know which one you are speaking to, and quoting a low number is how you find out too late.
Ask for the market rate. If they have a location policy, they will say so, and you can decide then. What you cannot do is un-say $500.
Negotiation is Stage 4 of the Foundation Training — the same session that builds the CV and LinkedIn that get you into the conversation in the first place. See the stages →