What are Your Salary Expectations? 5 Best Answers from a Former Executive Recruiter

Few interview questions create more damage with fewer words. Not because it's hard. But because people answer it at the worst possible time, with the least possible leverage. Most candidates think this question is about money. It isn't. It's about timing, power, and whether you understand how hiring decisions actually get made. Say a number too early and you either leave money on the table you'll never get back or price yourself out before anyone truly understands your value. And here's the part nobody teaches. There isn't one "right" answer to this question. There's a sequence.  A progression of responses that protects your leverage, keeps the process moving, and positions you to negotiate when your stock is highest, not lowest. In this week's lesson, I break down: Why giving a number early almost always works against you. What recruiters are really trying to confirm when they ask. And the exact recruiter-proof responses I use to control this conversation without sounding evasive or combative. If you've ever felt pressure to answer this question quickly, or worried that one wrong sentence could cost you thousands, this lesson will change how you approach salary conversations forever. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Does it feel like you're not growing in your career? Perhaps not learning much? Or building new skills? Or not sure which skills to even build? Maybe you're noticing other people passing you by. You're thinking, Why does she get the promotion? I'm just as good. If any of those questions are tugging at you, you're in luck, because I've got a lesson today wrapped in a little story with a big punch that'll shed some light on the answers. But first, one more question. Do you think pulling together and delivering a status report is boring? If you answered yes, drop what you're doing and give me four minutes. Because you won't believe what I think of them, and how the secret to knowing which skills to build is sitting right under your nose every single week when you prepare this "simple" deliverable, or any of your deliverables! Listen to This is How You Determine Which Skills to Build! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

If you're rehearsing your stories five minutes before an interview, you're cooked. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I'm saying it because it's true. Right before an interview is not the time to cram, memorize examples, or mentally sprint through your résumé. This will just get you tense, not to mention self-focused (🤔, hmmm, what's he mean here?). Interviewers can feel your tension. It becomes palpable. The best performers do something different before any conversation.  They run through a pre-interview ritual that puts them in the right state of mind. Not a routine. That's too mechanical and mindless. A ritual. That's a performance enhancer. It's something intentional that interrupts fear, quiets the noise, and shifts their focus away from themselves and onto the people they're about to meet.  Thanks to a great question from Shantel, that's what I'm teaching in this week's lesson.  You'll learn why interviews are won or lost before the first question is asked, how to reframe every interview as a guaranteed win regardless of the outcome, and the simple mental ritual that helps you show up relaxed, confident, and ready to deliver value. Interviews don't reward the most prepared candidate. They reward the candidate who shows up in the strongest state. Listen to The Pre-Interview Ritual That Helps You Perform at Your Best! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

January is one of the busiest and most misunderstood periods of the hiring year. Behind the scenes, companies are launching new initiatives, trying to staff teams faster than most job candidates realize, and, unfortunately for them, replacing unexpected employee departures.  Recruiters are active. Hiring managers are under pressure. Roles are opening that weren't planned just days earlier.  Today, I'm covering why January creates both urgency and opportunity for job seekers and how to work the right activities that'll give you a leg up on getting hired. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Let me ask you something honest. Have you ever looked at your effort and thought, "There's no way I should still be here?" You show up. You work hard. You try to do the right things. Yet your career, your goals, or whatever you want still feel out of reach. I've coached thousands of people through this exact frustration. The problem is almost never effort. Most people work plenty hard. That isn't what keeps them stuck. It's something else. In this lesson, I'm sharing a personal story from 2019. It starts with me sitting in my favorite chair, coffee in one hand, my dog Harley 🌈 🐾 next to me, and a strange idea about doing an Ironman race even though I couldn't swim a single lap in a pool without wanting to faint. (I signed up for the race and swimming lessons on the same day!) That moment taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. It's a lesson I want you to hear today. Inside you get: ✓ Why hard work stops being enough. ✓ Why your progress stalls even when you want it badly. ✓ What separates people who grow from people who stay stuck. ✓ How to start living your goals before you reach them. Listen now! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Everyone is trying to predict the job market right now. Most of them are staring at headlines and waiting for someone to tell them what's going to happen in 2026. That's the slowest way to build your career. There's a much better approach, and that's what I'm teaching in this off-schedule Sunday lesson. You'll learn why I never chase trends and how I make decisions that stand the test of time. Then, you'll understand how to think the right way and why that beats any tactic or tool you use in your search. If you feel stuck or confused by mixed job market messages, this lesson will give you a better direction. I'll show you: ✅ The two timeless forces that always tell you where opportunity is hiding. ✅ How to spot industries that will stay strong in 2026 and beyond. ✅ Why your thinking matters more than any job search strategy. ✅ How to realign your search when you feel like nothing is hitting. ✅ How to read connections between industries so you can see around corners. This approach changed the way I make decisions in my own career and financial investments. It'll change how you navigate yours too. Once you understand this way of thinking, everything in your career gets easier. You'll stop reacting and start directing. You'll stop guessing and start choosing. Enjoy the lesson! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Job searching can be brutal. It tests your patience, your confidence, and your resolve. But if you shift your focus from results to wisdom, everything changes. That's what I'm teaching in this week's lesson, how to use your job search to make you a better professional. In the podcast, I share a personal story about recently finishing my new book. It's now off and running with the publisher, moving through the production process. The moment I hit send, I sat in my favorite Pottery Barn Wells swivel chair and thought for 20 minutes about nothing but the "agony" I'm going to endure over the next 12 months. Kidding aside, I genuinely did this. I didn't think about how many copies I might sell or what it'd take to make a bestseller list. I focused on something more important, the skills I need to strengthen over the next year as I market and launch this new book. You might think that because this is my fifth time around, I'd have mastered it by now. But if you assumed that, you'd be completely wrong. Yes, I've done a lot right and built some great skills when it comes to marketing a book. But many efforts have fallen short of my hopes. Some were dead ends. Others just confused the heck out of me. Which means only one thing, I need to try new things, keep learning, and keep building. Does this sound like your job search? The things you think will work don't. The things you don't expect to work do. It's effort, surprises, ups, and downs. That's just life in a nutshell. And what I'm about to say might sound like common sense. But I'm guessing it'll only sound like common sense after I actually say it. If you're going to go through a job search, why not gain the benefits of the experience? If we agree those benefits come in the form of new experiences and better skills, then it's time to ask yourself... 👉 What skills do you want to build throughout your job search? If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Most job seekers prepare for interviews the wrong way. They start by memorizing answers to questions like "Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss" or "Describe a challenge you overcame." But that's backwards. Those questions aren't about your disagreement skills or your ability to solve one random problem. They're about whether you can transform the company—their team, their performance, their results. The secret to winning behavioral interviews isn't about rehearsing lines. It's about building stories that sell what they actually buy: your ability to help them achieve their goals. That's what this week's lesson is all about. We're crushing how to prepare for and answer behavioral questions using the most powerful approach I've ever taught! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Most candidates talk about what they can do. The best ones show it. When an employer asks for a presentation, it's not a test of PowerPoint skills. It's a test of whether you understand what they actually buy: transformation, not tasks. Your goal isn't to list skills or repeat your resume. It's to prove you can help them hit their goals and do it through a well-structured story. This week's lesson shows you how to prepare a presentation that persuades and sells your value. You'll learn how to: Identify what the employer truly wants to achieve. Uncover the real problems standing in their way. Choose powerful examples that prove you can solve those problems. Structure your presentation so it flows naturally and ends with impact. Highlight your skills as evidence, not filler. Inside, I'll even show you how to use a single summary slide that ties everything together and seals the deal. Listen to How to Give a Job Interview Presentation (That Gets You Hired) now! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Interviewers don't wait until you finish your story to decide if they like you. They decide while you're still taking your first breath. In those first 15 seconds, they're asking, "Do I trust this person? Do they get what matters here?" Most candidates waste that window listing tasks or backstory. The best ones win it by showing they understand the real business problem and hinting at the result they delivered. That's what I'm teaching in this week's lesson. You'll learn how to open with context that earns respect, why the STAR method fails, and the exact 15-second framework that makes your answers sound confident, strategic, and memorable. Listen now! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy