Excellent question. I have lots of thoughts, so I'll try to summarize. 1. This is just the reality of negotiation: sometimes you'll find out you're pretty far

Excellent question. I have lots of thoughts, so I'll try to summarize. 1. This is just the reality of negotiation: sometimes you'll find out you're pretty far apart when they finally make an offer. The value of your time matters, but in general I think the payoff when you DO command top dollar at a good company is worth the time investment. (Think of this from a Sales perspective - they deal with hundreds of leads, often narrowing them down to the best-qualified leads and closing only a few deals. That time working with unqualified leads is not wasted per se, it's an investment to get to the good leads where they make their money.) 2. Signaling is important and you should continuously do this throughout your interview and negotiation process. My one-sentence strategy summary for interviews is "You're telling them a story about how their company will be better if you're a part of it." Your job in the interview processes not to save time—it's to get the best job offer possible so you can negotiate or walk away if it's not a good fit. I realize this is controversial, but I think it's best to not think of interviews that don't lead to job offers as time wasted, but as time invested in finding a good fit. If you're interviewing for a huge volume of jobs that always end with an offer far below your range, you may want to evaluate whether you're applying to the right jobs. But if you occasionally interview and find out that they can't met your pay requirements, you can just move on to the next opportunity. One last thing: Make sure you're doing market research to determine the value of your skillset and experience in your industry. If your market research confirms your salary expectations, then keep interviewing. If it doesn't, then it's possible you're at a company that really values your work and you might consider the opportunity cost of leaving. Does this help? If I can clarify anything, let me know!