I've countered with more than 50%, and ended up at 50% over the initial offer, though in general I agree with you. 50% up on advertised range or on what the recruiter indicates their range is, on the other hand is far easier. The top end of their stated range is lower than what they're prepared to stretch to.

When I joined Yahoo a decade ago, for example, I ended up accepting an offer 40% over the top of the advertised range, after demanding more. When they gave me the 40% offer, they apologised that they really couldn't go higher (it'd push me too far up over some other people in the department) and offered me more options instead, and guaranteed me a review after 6 months instead of 12 to bump me up further (which they did).

I've never taken a job at only 5%-10% above initial offer, and don't think I ever will - I know from my own hiring that we're always prepared to stretch more than that if we've first decided on a candidate.

Good to know. It was only the third offer I have received in my career (12 years), and the only one I have rejected, so I don't really have much experience with trying to negotiate.

I previously applied for a position knowing they were looking to hire someone around $65k-ish (it wasn't listed on the job page but there were other indications that's the range they were looking to pay for the position.

After several rounds of interviews, they actually came back with an offer for much higher (they did ask me how much I am expecting to get paid before making the offer). I countered back and definitely got a salary offer that was certainly way more than 50% of the original intended offer and about 30% more than the actual offer they actually ended up making in their initial pitch.

In larger corps, at least, they will have salary ranges for each staffing level. It's common for these ranges to be very wide. For example, I've commonly seen the upper end of a lower staffing level be the same or higher than the lower end of a higher staffing level. It's not unheard of that a junior employee will make more than a senior employee. That's why corporations like to keep salary information obscured.

Plus, unless you want the job very badly, it (usually) doesn't hurt to ask.

I used to be involved in the hiring decisions of big corporate consulting co. (software + other stuff) and they would consistently negotiate salaries that were 50% above the initial offer. Their strategy was to low ball, and work up from there. I'm not sure how many companies employ this strategy, but I report that it definitely does happen. Another point is that as you move away from fresh grad opportunities and more experienced, it's less obvious what "market rate" really is.

Interesting. I will keep that in mind the next time the issue comes up.

The particular case I mentioned was complicated because: a) the initial offer was knowingly less than I currently made; b) I previously worked for the parent company of the company making the offer and the offer was the same salary grade and almost the same salary I had when I left 2.5 years before. I'm not sure I would have tried to negotiate even if I thought I could get them up 30% - 40%.

Ah. From being on the other end of hiring decisions, my general advice would be to aim high on initial conversations and gauge reactions + adjust downwards from there. You can always adjust down, hard to adjust up!

Yeah, unfortunately they never asked me what I wanted or expected.