Hey just thought I would throw some pay info out there for new grads for st. Louis area. I interviewed this month with SSM St. Joseph Health Center, SSM St. Mary's and I have 2 more interviews this week with St. Lukes and Missouri Baptist Med Center. The starting pay at SSM St. Joe's is $18.25 with a sign on bonus of $5000. Shift diff is different for evenings and nights and weekends and weekend nights. I was told weekend days was $2.00 xtra and weekend nights was $3.00 per hour more. SSM St. Mary's is downtown St. Louis, and they are more desperate for nurses, but I don't think the pay reflects that much. St. Mary's offers 11% nights and 16% weekends of your base pay. Base pay is $18.25. SSM does offer tuition reimbursement and they will pay back your student loans up to $12,000. Benefits will start the day you start. I used to work for SSM before as a Medical Assistant and they paid better than BJC. I was offered a position years ago at BJC and they couldn't touch SSM pay. If you start as a new grad, they only require a 18 month contract, which isn't bad considering that you will get your experience in 1 1/2 years and will be eligible to do travel nursing and make more money. I don't know about you all out there, but I would like to retire in 20 years or sooner and have my house paid off, and be able to travel to other countries on vacation before I end up too old. Nursing to me, isn't just about money...I want to be able to be somewhere, where I will be happy to go into work in the morning. I will post next week what St. Lukes and MOBAP will offer.
According to Salary.com, nurses in St. Louis area should be making minimum of $53,000 and max of $64,000. I am wondering if the $18.25 would be negotiable. I would be happy starting at $20.00. Does anyone know how to go about negotiating base pay? Thanks
