Depends on how badly you want this job. In my opinion, don't worry about what they may offer you whether they know your current salary or not. You should first

Depends on how badly you want this job. In my opinion, don't worry about what they may offer you whether they know your current salary or not. You should first decide what you want in terms of a salary as most of us have an idea of what we want. Then pad it up a little to leave room for negotiation. Then tell the recruiter "My current salary is $current_salary but I would need ($expected_salary + $pad_amount) to consider joining. Is that in your range ? ". If the difference between your expected salary and current salary is huge, that is not your problem. You stick to what you want as long as it is reasonable within the market of course. Let's use a specific example. Here are the scenarios: $current_salary = $100,000 av. market salary = $130,000 (based on your research) $expected_salary = $130,000 $pad_amount = $5000 (keep this low) "Recruiter, I currently make $100,000 but I would like $135,000 based on my research and market rate for someone with my skills and experience. Is this in the range offered by Google ?" By asking this, you are now taking the focus away from the fact that you asked for a big raise. You are now smartly getting into the offered range discussion and showing that you are asking for what you are worth.