When negotiating salary do you ask for the max in the range they provide? If not what’s the best strategy

Know your worth. I don't know the rules in your country, but during my time as a corpse slave, max was 10% unless you're leading a team or department then it's possibly 12%. If that's the max, maybe ask for additional perks like additional holidays off or if allowed, transportation allowance, or even mobile allowance. If you want to expand your skills, maybe the ability to have flexible hours so that you can sign up for online schools. Maybe even have your employer cover some of the tuition costs.

I do what @retoor does. Slightly inflate my current salary and declare that I won't work for anything less. If they offer anything below their max, I ask what can I do to reach the max, ie what do I lack and how/when I could get that sweet carrot. After all, I have a family to feed, payments to make, etc.

Problem is, I'm already too expensive for 90%+ of positions I'm contacted for :/ if I knew how to find clients, I'd have already left my employer for contracting/freelancing long ago 😁 soft skills...

I feel like this differs between men and women. I wanna know what's womens' experience in this as well, I just genuinely don't know who's fem-presenting here and who isn't.