Can a new grad negotiate?

[bucknangler]

Hey ya'll!

I'm graduating this May and I was told by a couple of RN's that salaries are not negotiable with public hospitals. You see, I'm on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and we only have one or two really good hospitals. These hospitals don't pay that great but I need to work there to get good experience. The starting salary is $20.00 an hour for a BSN and $19.50 an hour for an ADN.

Since I am a Male, I'm looking for a Job around $25.00 an hour or around $50,000 a year. Do you guys think this is possible? Can a new grad negotiate their salary?

[bucknangler]

All flaming aside, (I am shaking this finger at myself)

this is an important topic. Men generally ARE taught to be better at negotiating. I would think that the further we move along on the equality issue the better women will get at negotiating.

Aside from gender inequality, I was at an interview today where I negotiated my starting pay upward and the director asked me not to discuss pay with any other nurses. (Duh). She relayed a story that revealed to me that some of her long-term much more experienced nurses are not making as much as some recent hires including myself. (I did not accept the job). What a dog-eat-dog world! Will I end up being a pro-union RN?

Sun

Way to go Sun! That's what i'm talking about! Everybody, including myself, need to start putting ourselves first! That is the only way we can change the current system! Ladies, Learn from SuN! :balloons::balloons:

[Crash_Cart]

I wouldn't want to be enumerated based on my male gender. If I was the HR hiring manager and you approached me with such a request, I would promptly decline your employment offer in short order.

That's just my objective opinion for your honest evaluation.

Oh and incidentally, I should indicate I am a former PCA turned Executive Director for a national manufacturing operation. (AKA The individual responsible for the executive oversight of the organizations resource management hiring practices and policies.)

I hope that helps and good luck in your employment endeavor.

My Best.

[bucknangler]

I wouldn't want to be enumerated based on my male gender. If I was the HR hiring manager and you approached me with such a request, I would promptly decline your employment offer in short order.

That's just my objective opinion for your honest evaluation.

Oh and incidentally, I should indicate I am a former PCA turned Executive Director for a national manufacturing operation. (AKA The individual responsible for the executive oversight of the organizations resource management hiring practices and policies.)

I hope that helps and good luck in your employment endeavor.

My Best.

Well now we are looking at what "should be done vs. what is done"

As a person who went from a PCA to an Executive Director, you should know exactly what i'm talking about!

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, a male nurse in the ICU of a local small hospital. $27/hour is what he makes! And to think the base salary for this hospital is about $8 dollars less!

[Crash_Cart]

Thina,

Please show me where I have sounded sexist vs. realistic? I hope that you get off of your sexist kick real soon.

And to think, before this thread got started my girlfriend read my topic and didn't even come close to assume what ya'll have created on here. I tell ya, mountain out of a mole hill!

Quite frankly, I felt the statement was very realistic and has significant merit behind it in principle.

As a male, I would only be honored to work beside any such individual who demonstrated such equality in hiring ethics and any individual who maintained equality in professional nursing practice standards myself.

Please feel free to strike me from the list of males who wouldn't work at the patient bedside with "woman like her."

Gender is about as irrelevant in nursing at the patient bedside as it would be to a police officer who patrols the streets.

Kind Regards.

[llg, PhD, RN]

Yes ... men do tend to make more money than women -- even in nursing. However, that is a phenomenon that is much more complicated than the OP suggests. It's not that a manager interviews a man and a woman and thinks, "I am going to offer them both the same job, but pay the man more." It's because of the specialties that men choose, the hours they choose to work, the promotions that they seek, and a lot of other factors that add up to more money over time.

Men do not generally make significantly more money than women as they graduate from school and get that first RN job. Those pay rates are less variable.

[bucknangler]

Yes ... men do tend to make more money than women -- even in nursing. However, that is a phenomenon that is much more complicated than the OP suggests. It's not that a manager interviews a man and a woman and thinks, "I am going to offer them both the same job, but pay the man more." It's because of the specialties that men choose, the hours they choose to work, the promotions that they seek, and a lot of other factors that add up to more money over time.

Men do not generally make significantly more money than women as they graduate from school and get that first RN job. Those pay rates are less variable.

finally!!!!!!! an answer that didn't fall within the box! Thank you for realistcally answering my question.

[Djuna]

You state you are not sexist yet in your very first post you assume that because you are a male you are worth more money, merely on the basis of your gender.

You are perpetuating the myth that men SHOULD be paid more. Your subsequent comments further your argument that you should be paid more money because;

1) You have noticed other men receiver higher salaries and

2) Men in other professions make more than women

Either which way you look at any of your posts you are trying to make a case for men receiving more money based not on the fact they are more qualified in a certain clinical area or have qualifications significantly higher than a woman competing for the same position, but on their GENDER.

Women all around the world have fought for equality and it saddens me to see men's attitudes are still in the 19th century when it comes to equal pay for equal work.

In a profession like nursing I see benefits in negotiating a salary but I also see merit in starting at the bottom, gaining clinical expertise and THEN making a pitch for a higher salary based on your experience, qualifications and professionalism, NOT merely because you are a man OR a woman.

[OgopogoLPN, LPN, RN]

Wow.....

oh, thank goodness, I'm in 2007.

While reading the OP, I thought I was back in 1955!!!!

What a crock. This attitude is exactly what perpetuates males getting paid more for the same job!

Why in the world should you be paid more than an equally qualified, new grad female RN????

[Crash_Cart]

The "Forbes" article comparison is based on bad math. It's based on an 85% difference in comparison of actual "paid dollars."

It doesn't take into account the two companies different levels of annual profitability.

Profitability of the business is the litmus paper which accurately determines the CEO's annual paid salary. Typically this is based on a percentage of profitability scale.

Obviously, if company A doesn't do as financially well as company B, then company B's CEO isn't going to make as much salary as the CEO of company A, now is it.

Therefore the conclusion reached indicating the male CEO is paid 85% more salary than the female CEO is not an accurate or reflective statement because it's not measured or compared in terms of any percentage level involving the companies actual annual profitability.

My Best.

[Suninmyheart]

Buck - Perhaps you should have taken less sociology and more interpersonal communications courses.

What your calling "crying" and "sexist kick" is just MORE of the male sexist stereotype your conveying that everyone here is trying to point out to you. It is sooo akin to the proverbial "assertive women" risking being called a b***h.

I know many RN's who are men and would not dream of making some of the statements you have here.

[TeresaB930, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry....am I to understand that because you are male you should make more..........I KNOW you are not really saying that!!

[bucknangler]

Who knew this what I would be doing tonight! :lol2:

Allow me to re-introduce myself to everyone,

You can call me bucknangler because I love fishin and huntin. I chose the nursing profession because I want to help people both inside an out of the hospital.

Here is my bio:

I'm a 22 year old male

I come from a wealthy Southern Family

I'm in nursing school

I was offered a Division I scholarship for football

I broke the Mississippi State Bench Press Record twice at age 14 & 16.

I have been asked if I was Ricky Martin

The above is what you people see of me. A cocky, SEXIST, ego-centric kid who thinks he knows everything. Well, guess again. I guarantee if you knew me, you would say to yourself, "He's the last person in the world to think like that"

ALLOW ME TO APOLOGIZE TO EVERYONE

My goals in life are simple but do not include a 20 year career in floor nursing. However, I intend to use nursing as a "stepping stool" to another career that I have been dreaming to obtain my whole life. I want to get a masters in public health and a JD so I can travel to africa and other parts of the world to protect humans rights.

What you don't know about me:

I am not a sexist pig!

I have been a numerous mission trips including 3 humanitarian trips to third world countries.

I have a 3.9 GPA

I made a 150 on the LSAT and am going to Law School

I recently made a 1028 on the GRE

I am finishing my first Novel (Fishing for Shrimp: a story about two boys friendship and how a rich white boy can help save his autistic african american friend's life from the hardships of inequality and a near death experience)

Please excuse my effrontery in the first post. I did not intend for my comments, which can be viewed as fatuous, to be such an issue. Though I see how it can be, and for that I apologize. You have to excuse me for that and become inure to my "give me the facts, and I'll give you an answer that you probably don't want to hear" attitude. I was once called the Libertine of Mississippi!

Though I love this topic and debate, it has become nothing but jocular jargon.

Please do not take umbrage to my comments anymore, I see that I am wrong, and again, I apologize. It is axiomatic where this topic is heading and even though I find my statements veracity in nature, I can not convince everyone.

To think that one will get hired based on gender is unconscionable and not one second throughout my posts did I believe it otherwise. This topic is an example of how a well intended question can end in utter opprobrium. Again, I must apologize for my wanton display of pure stupidity!

Let's all hold this topic in abeyance for now. It is self evident of our disagreements and there is no point to drag it on. We all have reached the zenith of our frustration and its time to come down this mountian of an issue. Furthermore, I believe I have been upbraided and vituperated enough on this topic and will finally end my verbose apology with this statement, "Please Stop Beating This Dead Horse"!