During the interview the hiring manager asked what salary I wanted. I replied with the median salary for the job title based on Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data. He said that should be okay.
When he made the job offer, it was 20% less than I asked for. He said that HR wouldn’t pay what I asked for because I hadn’t held the job title for the number of years on their pay grid.
I turned down the HR offer. He said he might get them to bump up the offer. (I’m guessing less than 5% of their initial offer.) I said no.
I didn’t tell him that the day before I had gotten an offer about 50% more than what I had asked for during the interview with him. My new gig not only paid more, it was a fun, no BS team.