I always see the advice never give your asking salary upfront. Recently I want to move work and willing to take a pay cut just to move so gone in with the hone

I always see the advice never give your asking salary upfront. Recently I want to move work and willing to take a pay cut just to move so gone in with the honest approach which I am told is bad for maximizing salary. Right now I'm not to fussed about maximizing, it's just moving. The conversation normally goes: Company: What is your current salary Me: $XXX,XXX, that is negotiable as actively looking to move and will take less for the right company. *(I understand it's a high salary to the rest of the market where I am even though I am not in the US so salary is still well below US Junior FAANG) Then it's been one of two things: 1) Get offered 30-40% less (20% less is my ballpark, 25% for a company that really interests me) 2) Bye I've been told the job market is booming where I am but in 15 years it's the first time I've struggled to find a job although my skills are in demand overseas. I feel I'm fairly competent, I get told good things by people I work with and my salary has naturally grown through promotion based on my skills/performance yet I'm starting to question is it just me and I'm not that good why I am now struggling to find work despite going in to large orgs as a small dedicated team to do projects they couldn't deliver. It seems if I take a big paycut to where I was 5-10 years ago, forget 15 years of career and revert back to writing NodeJS/Python apps my luck will be better.