<prompt> Human: Help! I am in an interesting situation. I have been working part time 10 hrs week for a local government for the past year and a half and mostly being a stay at home mom. I recently have been given a full time job offer in the same department. I have a specialized masters degree in this field with 6 years experience and a national certification. The posting for the job called for a bachelors degree and 2 years experience for X amount. The offer they gave me this morning was for only 575 more than the posted amount. Its a salaried position. So question: how do I negotiate this? I have a number in mind that is almost 12,000 more than they offered. I have proof from the national professional org that this is a reasonable number for my experience and city size around 50th percentile . Do I give them a really high number to start negotiations with or just give them my number? I dont want to go 20,000 over and be offensive and lose out. Do I have to give them reasons why I want this amount? AND kicker - Im pregnant - due any day now. They are letting me start after Labor Day and be part time for 6 months. I was going to figure out my part-time salary by figuring out the hourly rate of full time 35hrs and multiplying it by my part time hours 20hrs.  <response>: honestly...the job posting requires a BS degree. it does not really matter that you have a MS and 10 years experience. if you dont like what they pay for the job, most likely they will have no problem finding a person with less experience then you, but still meets their qualifications 