FNP Pay Issues

[NurseJi]

Hello, I am a recent grad, finally certified and looking for a job. i have recently been offered 2 jobs. One was before I was certified, so the practice offered me 10 (!) dollars an hour to do nurse duties and train until I was certified. I turned this offer down. Now I am currently pondering an offer in a specialty area. They want to pay me a salary which is equivalent to my RN salary now to "train", and then increase my pay by a couple thousand once I start seeing patients on my own to "start with". I do not see how I will ever be able to achieve the market rate for NP's in my area with this situation. I am very frustrated that certain practices do not seem to realize that this degree required money to complete, and therefore I will need to make more to recoup those costs. Any words of advice???

[VivaRN]

You can negotiate a higher salary. I did this, with justification as to why I was worth x amount. It's worth a try before declining because the worst they can say is no.

On the other side, though, if it's a tough job market or an area you really want to get into, you can accept a lower salary to get experience or ask for a pay increase at a later review. Your first NP job isn't forever. After 2 years you can take your experience and go elsewhere.

[carachel2]

I have 2 dermatology NP friends and they both actually worked for FREE x 3 months in order to train 1:1 with the dermatologist....so this is not unheard of. If this is a specialty area you really want, I would go for it, especially if there is a set endpoint to the training and a specific time frame in which your salary will be raised.

Kudos to turning down the nurse training job. That was an insult!

[MissDoodaw]

This all depends on your market. When I was first looking about a year ago I was offered 75-80K a specialty practice called me back and increased their 80K offer by 10K to 90K after I turned them down reason- needed better financial blah blah blah....Some of the others were insulted I did not find 75K to be enough. In my market, there were many places hiring so it gave me a little freedom to keep looking, I also have a strong background which appealed to many organizations that were hiring

I got an RN offer for 20$ an hour until credentialling was complete 3-6 mos. I turned that down. similar to your offer.

Keep looking until you find that offer you can't resist or a group that pays fairly, if your market is decent and you can afford to do this!

Good Luck keep up posted!

[NurseJi]

Thank you everyone. I am trying to negotiate...they gave me a figure that is 10k below the minimum starting salary I've seen being offered in my area ($70,000 a year). It is not a specialty I've been dying to get into, so I think I will most likely keep looking.