New Grad Vascular Surgery Offer

[TUPA2018]

I've just graduated this last week but have yet to sit for the PANCE which I have scheduled for June 14. I was nervous about not being able to find a job for a few months after graduation and licensing, so I began applying about 1 month prior to graduation.

Recently, I was offered a vascular surgery position in the Bay Area with a private practice, which has a pretty competitive package, decent hours, good training for new grads, and all the surgeons seem genuinely nice and easy to work with. I've interviewed at several other places, but have not had any other formal offers. Ideally, I would like to have several offers in my hand to be able to compare each one and make my decision. Do you think applied too early and shot myself in the foot by not allowing myself to have several offers in hand before making a decision or is this pretty typical for new grads?

What do you guys think of the overall package and any thoughts on what I should negotiate? This is a high COL in the Bay Area

 

Contract specifics:

• $100K base salary to start with potential to earn $3-5k on "after hour" surgical cases that run past scheduled work hours
• 401K with 3% match and profit sharing after 1st year
• Medical, Dental, Vision
• Car mileage reimbursement per federal rate
• $50/month towards cell phone bill
• $1500 CME
• 17 days PTO, ~5 hrs accrued per pay period (every 2 weeks)
• DEA, ACLS, PALS license fees and all hospital on-boarding costs
• Malpractice coverage with tail

[MT2PA]

There's no right way to apply for jobs.  Everyone would rather have multiple offers to compare and play off each other but realistically you can't MAKE that happen.  It all depends on who's hiring, how fast they call you in to interview, and how long they take to make a decision.  Some people apply MONTHS before graduation, some wait until after.  There is no timeline that would guarantee you multiple offers at once.

In absence of that, you have to evaluate your offer as a stand alone (you could compare to others posted on this site but that doesn't change the fact that you have ONE offer and have to decide to take it or keep looking).

FWIW my first job as a new grad has a slightly better details than what you posted and I'll be in a much cheaper COL area with cushy outpatient scheduling so.....you may want to consider negotiating some of those details.  I'm not familiar with the Bay area (saturation etc) but when you said it was a competitive package I was imagining better numbers for you.

If you want to see what else is out there, keep applying but remember nothing is guaranteed.  If this is a specialty you want to work in, take it because some of those surgical specialties can be hard to get into as a new grad.

[jeepgirl]

I was fortunate and had multiple offers to sift through. It definitely wasn't an intentional thing, just the way the stars aligned. I started applying to jobs about 6 months out from graduation.

You can always ask for time to make a decision. I requested one month to make a decision on the offer I eventually accepted in order to attend scheduled interviews, and it was granted without issue. 

With that being said, $100K in the Bay Area will not go far. CoL is astronomically high. I would keep looking, especially if you're flexible in speciality and willing to work in areas outside of the Bay Area like the Central Valley. FWIW, the larger hospitals in the area like Kaiser tend to pay more than private practice. 

Good luck.

[PACJD]

I started applying to jobs a month before graduation and had multiple offers to compare. 100K in bay area is very low... especially in vascular surgery. I know a few folks working in family medicine making 120k to start there. COL is crazy there. 

[TUPA2018]

On 5/27/2018 at 4:49 AM, MT2PA said:

There's no right way to apply for jobs.  Everyone would rather have multiple offers to compare and play off each other but realistically you can't MAKE that happen.  It all depends on who's hiring, how fast they call you in to interview, and how long they take to make a decision.  Some people apply MONTHS before graduation, some wait until after.  There is no timeline that would guarantee you multiple offers at once.

In absence of that, you have to evaluate your offer as a stand alone (you could compare to others posted on this site but that doesn't change the fact that you have ONE offer and have to decide to take it or keep looking).

FWIW my first job as a new grad has a slightly better details than what you posted and I'll be in a much cheaper COL area with cushy outpatient scheduling so.....you may want to consider negotiating some of those details.  I'm not familiar with the Bay area (saturation etc) but when you said it was a competitive package I was imagining better numbers for you.

If you want to see what else is out there, keep applying but remember nothing is guaranteed.  If this is a specialty you want to work in, take it because some of those surgical specialties can be hard to get into as a new grad.

 

On 5/27/2018 at 7:59 AM, NJPL1213 said:

I started applying to jobs a month before graduation and had multiple offers to compare. 100K in bay area is very low... especially in vascular surgery. I know a few folks working in family medicine making 120k to start there. COL is crazy there. 

Yeah... I totally agree. After doing more research and crunching some numbers, I think that the salary is on the lower end for the area and specialty. I think considering state COL, specialty, and experience level, I should be somewhere in the $120K start range. Thanks for the input