Negotiate New Salary: New Graduate

[mscoulte]

I graduated in March and will be taking my NCLEX on April 30th. I have received an offer from a Pediatric Group (doctor's office) and do not have any prospects at the hospitals. The pay is $6 less/hour than a staff nurse job in my area. I have 7 years experience in account management and the past 3 with a home health agency doing scheduling, coordination and HR. I have a bachelors in business from Indiana University and graduated with my Associate Degree in Nursing. Is there room for negotiation? I always have negotiated up my salary, but am not familiar with the nursing industry. Please advise.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Office rn jobs tend to pay less than hospital jobs in general. Trade off for "normalish" hours & little to no weekend/holidays.

FWIW, your past experience and non-nursing degree(s) usually mean bubkis in terms of nursing salary negotiations. You don't really have any argument to increase the initial offer as you have no nursing experience. 2nd job, whole 'nother thing.

jmho

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I would expect a job in a doctor's office to pay significantly less than most hospital jobs.

You can try to negotiate but, in this economy and with new grads saturating the job market, I doubt you'll get far. The salary you're going to turn down, they know there are even more nurses out there who will take it.

[ImKosher]

I graduated in March and will be taking my NCLEX on April 30th. I have received an offer from a Pediatric Group (doctor's office) and do not have any prospects at the hospitals. The pay is $6 less/hour than a staff nurse job in my area. I have 7 years experience in account management and the past 3 with a home health agency doing scheduling, coordination and HR. I have a bachelors in business from Indiana University and graduated with my Associate Degree in Nursing. Is there room for negotiation? I always have negotiated up my salary, but am not familiar with the nursing industry. Please advise.

Like the others say it is tough these days with so many new grads. With no help from craigslist or the classifieds. If you have any other offers, take a look at those, if not, might have to take the blunt of the blow.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Agree with the other posters: office jobs usually pay less than hospital jobs...but on the other hand, you have a stable and fixed schedule. You won't have nights, will likely not have weekends (unless your practice has weekend hours) and you will probably have paid holidays off (again, subject to practice policy). To some nurses, that stability and guaranteed daytime hours is worth the decrease in income.

You could try negotiating--after all, the worst they can say is "No"--but as a new grad you don't have a lot of leverage...plus they know they'll have no problem filing the job should you walk away from the offer.

Best of luck whatever you decide!

[dreamprincess89]

I will be a new grad in May and have received an offer about 2.5 hours from where I live. Its in the ICU, the department I wanted, but is also 3-5$ less than what I was expecting/hoping to get. Its the same salary I make in my non-nursing job and I will have to relocate. I am considering taking it, but should I attempt to negotiate for a bit more?