Negotiating Pay

[Kasandra]

I interviewed last week for a job. It went well. The nurse manager who I interviewed with said that she wants to hire me and that I should expect a call by the latest by early next week from HR with the job offer.

For the past month, I have been working at a LTC that pays $23.75 an hour in St. Louis, MO. On top of this, I get paid $1.50 more for night diff to make $25.25 hourly. This is much more than I got paid in the hospital for BJC Healthcare which was $20.52 an hour as my base pay.

My dilemma is that I feel that LTC is not a good fit for me. I really want to work the unit that I interviewed for. However, I would like to make my current base pay with this new job: Like most people, I have alot of bills to pay and 2 little ones in daycare. The couple $100 extra every paycheck helps my family.

Some background: I am a RN with 2 years experience with my BLS and ACLS. I know telemetry as well. I live in St. Louis, MO.

My question: What is a tactful way to negotiate one's salary? Also: Given my experience, how much hourly pay is reasonable for a RN with my experience? I would like to hear from RNs that have around about the same time invested into their careers as myself as a means of comparison about how much, exactly, can I reasonably expect to make?

Side note: I love my patients and what I do (for the most part, there are always cons to any job). However, I find nothing wrong with getting paid reasonably well for a job well done. I am not in nursing for "the great money" (Ha!) although I have a family to support so finances do matter.

[nursynurseRN]

Well i tried to negotiate my salary once just to find out they had a set scale based on years of experience. i dont think IT will hurt to ask since you have been offered the job. Also base rate in a hospital southern california for me was 28.81 for a med surg unit.

[llg, PhD, RN]

It doesn't hurt to ask whether there is any room for negotiation. However, most hospitals have set pay scales based on years of relevant experience. At my hospital, a person with 2 years of experience would make about $1.00 more per hour than a new grad. So, you could ask what the base pay is for new grads and ask how much each year of experience is worth. If the salary they quote is reasonable based on that information, you probably have little room to negotiate. But the question may cause them them to double-check and be sure that you are getting propper credit for your experience.