My first job out of PA school was in General Surgery. I was able to gain a lot of experience in this setting and was ready to move to something different. My wife and I were wanting to move to a different city to get closer to family so I had been applying to new jobs. One promising position that I had interviewed for was in vascular surgery. I ended up getting offered the position and now it was time to negotiate.

Vascular Surgery Negotiation

An important step to negotiating is to know your worth. If you are currently employed you can use your current salary for a baseline. If you’re not working currently you can go off what others are making using salary surveys. The initial offer was around $120,000 which was more than my current base salary of $95,000, however with bonus I was making over $115,000.

At the time the average salary was around $90,000 so the offer was well above what was “average” and slightly more than what I was currently making. If I was looking at just salary  this would have been a great opportunity.

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Not Just a Salary

There is a lot more to look at in a job offer than just the base salary. My current position had a great call schedule. There was one surgeon who did the majority of weekend call so I only had to be on call on the weekend a couple of times a year. Also, on average I worked less than 40 hours a week.

I discussed this with the supervising physician at the place where I was offered the job and he said he had great hours: he would typically get home right in time to say good night to his kids. Needless to say, it sounded like he worked long hours and he expected the same from his PA.

I also tried to get a feel of how he was to work with by asking some of the OR nurses I had met during a tour of the hospital that was given by the recruiter. No one had bad things to say but typically people won’t;  if they do, you want to run the other direction. Mostly what people said was that he was very “intense” during surgery.

During the interview process he was very friendly and seemed like he would be great to work with but people are usually on their best behavior during an interview.

The Counter Offer

Once I had the offer in hand I looked at what I would be getting paid and how much more I’d be working and decided to counter. I discussed my current pay and my current hours and if  I was going to be working more hours would need to be fairly compensated for the extra hours I’d be working. I suggested some options for a higher base salary or incorporating a bonus.

They did not have a current bonus plan in place. They did go up a little on the base salary and said that we could figure out a bonus plan once I was there. It is a little unsettling for me to accept a job which does not clearly define how I’m going to get paid. Without a bonus plan in place before accepting an offer it makes it easy for the hiring organization to not create a bonus plan or push it off which delays what you’re getting paid.

The Decision

After final discussions they were not able go any higher on the base salary and not willing to create a bonus plan prior to me accepting an offer so I ended up turning the offer down.

Even though the salary was more than what I was currently making the demands of the job were going to be much more. Another issue that made me a little hesitant is that there had been a lot of short turnover from his previous PAs. I had asked about this in my interview and there were reasons for why each of them had left but it was a little concerning.

When you’re looking at a potential job there is a lot of different factors you need to think about. Salary is just one of them. Your quality of life is also important and part of this is who you are going to be working with. The people you work with can really make or break your job.

If you get a job offer don’t be tempted to take the job with the highest salary. Look at everything they are offering and try to evaluate if it’s going to be a good fit for you, and remember that you are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you.

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