Negotiating first offer out of school

[Madison1979]

I am negotiating an offer for an inpatient position at a university hospital in the chicago-land area and would like some advice. I was low-balled and then they came up $5k for salary, but are saying now they can't go any higher because of internal equity issues. I will be speaking with administration later today. Any advice on ways to negotiate a good deal when they cite "equity" as the reason the salary cannot be any higher. The offer is still low. The position involves seeing inpatient floor and ICU patients, 40-50 hrs weekly and rotating day and night shifts. Any advice is helpful. Thank you.

[Phooey]

You could site the AAPA salary survey, which you can purchase, to bolster your request. My question would be, how do you know you were low-balled? Is there any way you can use this information in your request or this information you shouldn't know?

[coloradopa]

I am negotiating an offer for an inpatient position at a university hospital in the chicago-land area and would like some advice. I was low-balled and then they came up $5k for salary, but are saying now they can't go any higher because of internal equity issues. I will be speaking with administration later today. Any advice on ways to negotiate a good deal when they cite "equity" as the reason the salary cannot be any higher. The offer is still low. The position involves seeing inpatient floor and ICU patients, 40-50 hrs weekly and rotating day and night shifts. Any advice is helpful. Thank you.

This is frequently a problem with public institutions. Usually they have a set salary for a given position. The other issue when you hear "equity" is that their current employees have fallen behind the market and are not sure what to do. One of the reasons my institution looks at salaries in the outside market and brings internal players up if necessary.

 

I would make sure they have you in the right band. In my institution there are essentially five bands Outpatient, Inpatient no weekends, inpatient weekends, inpatient weekends with call, and critical care. Critical care pays the highest. On top of that we have additional money for working weekends and nights. So possibly you could go back with the base salary is fine but I need some kind of differential for the ICU and nights.

 

For what its worth when I interviewed in Chicago for a university position five years ago they were on the low side. I would get a salary survey this still may be the case.