How to find third or nᵗʰ maximum salary from salary table?

How to find third or n^th maximum salary from salary table(EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary) in optimized way?

Answer

Use ROW_NUMBER(if you want a single) or DENSE_RANK(for all related rows):

WITH CTE AS
(
    SELECT EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary,
           RN = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY EmpSalary DESC)
    FROM dbo.Salary
)
SELECT EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary
FROM CTE
WHERE RN = @NthRow