If your answer to "what salary are you expecting?" is: "I'm fine with a market-rate salary", I'll just ask you what you think market-rate is for your position.
Now, usually, you can just say something like: "market-rate will vary with the type of position, role and responsibilities".
The goal of the recruiter is just to get a confirmation that your expectations are in within the range permitted for the position.
If you suggest that others at Apple or Google are making $X and $Y for the same role, that helps the recruiter identify how you're evaluating a market-rate. It's up to you to not price yourself below what the market may pay for your services.
That's the fallacy of never making the first offer. This expectation that you could be undercutting yourself and your negotiation partner would have offered more. In reality, this almost never happens, especially if the expecatation that the terms are negotiable. The company will just offer the least favorable terms first expectating a counter if they're unsuitable.
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").
Now, usually, you can just say something like: "market-rate will vary with the type of position, role and responsibilities".
The goal of the recruiter is just to get a confirmation that your expectations are in within the range permitted for the position.
If you suggest that others at Apple or Google are making $X and $Y for the same role, that helps the recruiter identify how you're evaluating a market-rate. It's up to you to not price yourself below what the market may pay for your services.
That's the fallacy of never making the first offer. This expectation that you could be undercutting yourself and your negotiation partner would have offered more. In reality, this almost never happens, especially if the expecatation that the terms are negotiable. The company will just offer the least favorable terms first expectating a counter if they're unsuitable.