4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you, tell the recruiter that you would be interested in seeing a competitive offer from Company X, or something along those lines. At the end of the day, the best negotiating leverage you have is that if Company X actually does want to hire you, at some point they have to commit to an offer. You don't. You can always walk away and go talk to someone else.
Can you give an example of how this plays out in real conversation? Answering “I’m not telling you” or similar to the recruiters question “what’s your expected compensation” seems like bogus advice
If pressed, I'd just say: "I would immediately say yes to the job for $1 million/year."
Who cares if they laugh? Why negotiate against yourself and hand them your actual min value on a silver platter? They're not going to tell you their max value.
EDIT: Oops, looks like another commenter already spelled out this strategy[1]
You can just say, "I've been advised that it's in my interests to not share a number."
And it's true. You have been advised that way by threads and comments like these.
If you get any pushback, it'll be that they just want to ensure they're not wasting time, and you can always respond that if they'd share the compensation details of the position, you'll be happy to tell them if it's acceptable.
4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you, tell the recruiter that you would be interested in seeing a competitive offer from Company X, or something along those lines. At the end of the day, the best negotiating leverage you have is that if Company X actually does want to hire you, at some point they have to commit to an offer. You don't. You can always walk away and go talk to someone else.