Well, to start with, there is a rather huge difference between your current salary and your current salary "potential."  Generally speaking, it never makes sense to switch jobs unless you can increase your salary by AT LEAST 10% to 15%.  If you were asked directly what your current salary is you did the correct thing by being honest about it.  Perhaps what you should have added, however, was what your anticipated salary range was at the same time.  Something along the lines of, "My current salary is $X, but my anticipated salary is negotiable within the $Y to $Z range."  Nevertheless, at this point, I think your best strategy is to politely ask if their initial salary offer is negotiable and see what they say.  If it's not, well, you'll probably just have to continue your job search.  If, on the other hand, the offer is negotiable, I think you can counter with an anticipated salary range, but I honestly don't think this employer is going to agree to up their offer by 25% to 30% unless you're the ideal person for the job and there's no one else out there who could possibly be as well qualified for it as you are.  I think you could propose a range that's 10% to 15% higher than their offer, but not more than that.  And, at the same time, I think you have to be fully prepared to state WHY the job will be worth that much more to the employer, based on your experience, training, skills, past job performance, and education.  Your challenge is to show exactly how the job will be worth that much more to the employer because you're in it!  If that all works out, I think you could ask if the bonus amount is negotiable and see what happens, but I wouldn't bet that they'll do a lot of negotiating with regard to bonus since bonuses are a function of profitability and performance - both of which are unknowns at this point.  Were I in their position and you asked for twice the bonus, I'd be tempted to say, "Show me twice the productivity and I'll show you twice the bonus."  Don't aim so high that you disqualify yourself from further consideration for this job, assuming you really want it.

Paul W. Barada

The Negotiation Expert