Julie Gould 00:00
Hello and welcome to Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. I’m Julie Gould.
This is the fourth episode of a series about hiring and getting hired in science.
In 2024 the Nature Careers team ran a survey to try and understand what the scientists who are hiring scientists know about hiring, and how they do it.
One of the things that the survey team wanted to know is how much negotiation happens in industry compared to academia.
The survey showed that salaries, bonuses, benefits and contract lengths were all negotiated more in industry compared to academia.
I asked Linda Nordling, the freelance science journalist who worked with the Nature Careers team to build and analyze the survey, why they thought this might be.
Linda Nordling 01:00
What we heard from industry hires is that, you know, first of all, I think there’s an expectation that industry is more of a negotiating game.
You know, like, it’s a job that you do for for pay.
It’s not the same sort of idea of academia, where, you know, you’ve got a vocation and and you’re, you’re doing it for the great benefit of mankind, you know.
And you maybe don’t realize that you can actually negotiate salaries, you know, you you probably do think that the university’s budget isn’t very flexible, and also, you read in Nature and elsewhere about how poor the salaries are.
So I guess it kind of maybe creates a feeling of, you know, I better not kind of rock the boat or whatever.
But the message that comes across is that you can.
I mean, sure it was, it was a higher percentage that it negotiated, you know, benefits in industry, but even in academia, you know, 28% negotiate compensation package, so that’s almost a third or just over a quarter.
So if you do ask for, maybe, see if there’s more compensation or maybe other benefits that you can get, you’re not going to be like completely coming from Mars, you know. But others have done the same, and the worst that can happen is they say, sorry, you know. But there might be something that you can get.
Julie Gould 02:21
Boston-based based recruitment consultant Lauren Celano from Propel Careers says that in industry, the base salary numbers don’t vary hugely between companies, but those aren’t always the things that people negotiate for.
Lauren Celano 02:33
Companies I work with to recruit for, and many companies do this. They benchmark compensation, so it’s important for organizations to benchmark compensation.
So as they’re building their career ladders, for scientists, the ranges are X to Y. For senior scientists, it’s, you know, Z to A and, etc, etc. So that way there is some consistency of salary banding.
So you can pull information. You can benchmark around companies of similar size, companies of similar stage, companies that are, you know, also public or also private.
You can categorize by different areas.
So oftentimes, if people get multiple offers, they’re usually within a given range. The different pieces, though, benefits can be very different among organizations. Culture can be very different among organizations. Work-life balance can be very different among organizations.
So I’m seeing, especially with respect to things like negotiation, it’s some of the other aspects that become important in terms of evaluating as people. If you’re lucky enough to have multiple offers in industry, it’s kind of a whole package to look at, not just the base salary number.
Julie Gould 03:49
Lauren believes that one of the reasons there might be less negotiating room in academia is because of the way budgets are structured.
Lauren Celano 03:56
In the academic world, budgets tend to be more constrained due to how the grants are funded and due to the allocation of resources from the grant.
So there tends to be less negotiation room because of because of that. Also, for many organizations, there are kind of salary guidelines for what, you know, PhDs are paid, of course, what postdocs are paid. NIH helps set some of this guidance, so I think that’s also why you know you you tend to see people in a fairly tight salary range for where they are.
Julie Gould 04:34
But that shouldn’t stop people from asking, as Linda said earlier.
So in this episode, we’ll hear a bit about what negotiation is, why it’s important, and share examples of how academics negotiated with their institutions to get the best deal for them, their families and their research groups.
David Perlmutter is a professor in the College of Media and Communications at Texas Tech University in the USA.
He’s been writing about higher education, hiring and negotiation for years, and one of the first things he did when we spoke was offer me some advice.
So I thought one of the first things I would do is share that with you.
David Perlmutter 05:16
In any negotiation, the most important consideration is to put yourself in the position of the person on the opposite end of the phone, or Zoom, or table from you. Like, what are their motivations? What do they want, right? And ideally, if you’re a department chair, when you’re hiring somebody, you’re not hiring somebody for the fall next semester, you’re hiring somebody for seven years later.
Julie Gould 05:43
With that in mind, it’s worth considering what a negotiation actually is. Jen Heemstra, the chair and professor of chemistry at Washington University in St Louis, USA, says that often a negotiation is portrayed as this win/lose situation. You either come out of it and you’re a winner, or you come out of it and you’re a loser.
Jen Heemstra 06:02
But that might be the case, like if you’re, you know, buying a new car or something like that, right? You can win or you can lose, and then you’re probably going to part ways and never see that person ever again.
But in an academic negotiation, if there’s a winner and a loser, then you’ve really both, both lost.
Julie Gould 06:18
This is not how you want that long term relationship that David Perlmutter described, to start.
You don’t want to be the one party, whether it’s the university or the candidate, feeling bad, feeling undervalued and feeling like you’re not supported.
Jen Heemstra 06:32
And so really, really important in any negotiation is to approach it, trying to find a way that everyone wins, right?
That you’re able to achieve these mutual goals, that that everyone wants to happen, and that, you know you might have disagreements about how to best do that, but always to keep that in mind, that if you’re negotiating for, say, your startup package for your lab, you want to get what you need to be successful.
And nobody wins if they invest a whole bunch of money in you, but it’s not enough for you to buy all of the equipment you need for your research program.
And so you know, you might not get everything that you ask for, but if you frame it that you’re asking for these things, (because this is what you need to be successful), then that puts you in the right position to negotiate.
Julie Gould 07:26
Another thing to keep in mind, and this is particularly important for those scientists doing the hiring, is that the new hires, and often the younger ones, are new to negotiating.
David Perlmutter 07:37
One of the things I advise is understanding that we should not be taking advantage of a beloved future colleague, because this is a real problem.
Most graduate students, even postdocs, have never negotiated anything in their entire lives, except with their parents.
So they’re coming into a business negotiation which may determine the rest of their life, completely unarmed. That’s why I want to stress it’s not a battle.
We want to hire somebody who starts the job and is very happy about their situation and stays with us, doing great work.
And so we should not in any way use our own skills as a negotiator to win a negotiation.
Julie Gould 08:27
So, early career researchers and negotiating novices, listen up.
David shared a few of his main tips with us on how you can put yourself in the best possible position to start your job feeling good and feeling valued. And the first thing to do is to get some practice.
Negotiating is new to many early career researchers, so just like practicing a job talk, it’s worth having a go at practicing your negotiating too.
David Perlmutter 08:51
Find an older friend who may be like a former department chair or something like that. Practice negotiations. Go into it feeling comfortable. Don’t, don’t, don’t have flop sweat, as we call it here in the colonies, going nervousness with going into the negotiation.
You got to have strike that balance between confidence and not being coming off as arrogant. And I think practice makes better perfection for that.
Julie Gould 09:19
The next thing to do, says David, is to put your research skills to good use.
Make sure you have researched what you are worth and also what you need to do the job that you’re being hired to do.
So imagine this.
David Perlmutter 09:31
You’re starting out at, say, let’s say a research university. We, (the shorthand here in the United States is R1, Research one Carnegie,) very highest research university in the tenure track in the chemistry department.
Julie Gould 09:46
And in this role, you’re going to spend time producing research that is citation heavy has a high H index, et cetera, et cetera. Think of all the tracking and metric codes that you could possibly think of that currently demonstrate success in academic circles.
And you will also be expected to bring in lots of grant money support students, etc, etc. The list is long.
So the question you have to ask yourself before negotiating is…
David Perlmutter 10:09
What do you need to be successful? Do research on that. Talk to your professors. Talk to other professors at other universities.
Look at what the second and third year hires of that department are doing. Look at their CV of the two years that they’ve been on the job.
Julie Gould 10:31
That will give you a good indication of what you can negotiate for when you’re starting a new position. Not only that, but it’ll also help you decide if the institution that is offering you a role has the infrastructure to support your goals.
And this is what Margot Smit did when she was fortunate enough to be in a position where she was offered jobs at multiple institutions.
Margot is a junior group leader at the Center for plant molecular biology or ZMBP at Tübingen University in Germany.
But before choosing this institution and negotiating, she compared two offers and assessed them based on her needs for her new lab and research. The first thing she considered was what was being offered.
At Tübingen University she would be arriving into a kitted out lab, so there was no need for a large start up package to help cover the costs of equipment…
Margot Smit 11:20
…so I didn’t need to buy PCR machines or arrange pro facilities for the plants. And basically had a small lab budget. I had like 10k sort of startup, and then I get a yearly like 6600 for consumables.
And that’s not like a crazy monetary amount.
But actually, what’s the most valuable is basically a PhD student position and a technician for the whole six years.
The other place I was interviewing, it was a monetary amount that would have been sufficient to hire a PhD student and a part-time technician.
But then also in their model, the way it worked there is we would pay a lot of facilities per hour for the microscopy or per space for the plant growth.
Julie Gould 12:12
Margot spoke with both institutions and ultimately decided that Tübingen University in Germany was best suited for her needs. But as an aside, she also looked at the bigger picture and compared funding ecosystems in the two countries.
Margot Smit 12:26
The German funding organization is much more likely to fund basic science, whereas the UK organization you need to have some sort of application, or write about application in your grant proposal.
So that moment, the German option was more appealing, and I knew already that basically what they’re offering is what they had, right?
They have a certain number of positions, they have a certain budget. That is very straightforward. There is negotiating here when you’re going for a professor position, negotiations with the university then, but in this career stage, for me, there was, there was relatively little negotiating to do
Julie Gould 13:09
At the mid and later career stages, negotiations can look very different, says Jen Heemstra.
Jen Heemstra 13:16
Because on one hand, you’re coming with grant money that you already have, and so you don’t need some of the things that you need when you’re just starting out.
You’re often able to move a lot of your equipment and things like pipettors and glassware and all of that with you from your previous university.
Often you have to pay to move those things, but you can buy them out at a, usually a much, far discounted rate compared to what you paid originally.
But then, on the other hand, if you’re moving in a mid-career position, you want to be able to do some new things.
You know, you want to be able to start a new collaboration that might lead to a big multi PI grant, or, you know, buy a new instrument that’s going to allow you to open up a new research direction.
Julie Gould 14:02
Chances are that in this stage of your career, you’re not just moving yourself, but you’re moving your whole research group too.
Jen Heemstra 14:10
And so you have to think about negotiating a moving expense stipend for your group so that they don’t, you know, their move is covered as well.
You have to think about, you know someone in your group has to pay to break a lease where they’re living because your lab has decided to move.
Are there ways that you can have the money and the flexibility to be able to reimburse that them for that?
You want to think about things like if everyone in your lab has to stop doing research for a month so that you can move, maybe you want to negotiate money to cover your personnel during that time, so that you don’t have to be paying them off of your grants while they’re moving, instead of doing research.
Julie Gould 14:52
Whatever the role you’re going for, it’s clear that it’s worth knowing what you can potentially negotiate for. As David Perlmutter and Jen Heemstra both said. And do your research to find out what you need to make your next career position a success.
So to help you, Lauren Celano from Propel Careers has a few more things that you might like to work into a negotiation.
Lauren Celano 15:12
People have asked for things like, “I would love to be able to attend three meetings a year in my space,” or something like that, to be able to make sure they can network with their peers, they can stay engaged.
I mean, of course, if you present a poster, get a travel award, usually you can go to a meeting.
But these folks wanted to make sure that even if that wasn’t the case, they wanted to be able to attend certain meetings.
Maybe you could try to ask about like, could there be coverage for, you know, memberships to professional associations, because, again, it’s important for people to stay engaged in their network. Because, again, it’s important for you, it’s important for the lab, and it helps increase your professional network.
Julie Gould 15:49
Those are very work and research-related things, but there are a couple of other more personal requests that Lauren has seen too.
Lauren Celano 15:56
I’ve seen sometimes people negotiate certain religious holidays to have off.
I’ve seen people, maybe they they’re interviewing for a job, they happen to be getting married six months from when they would start, and they let the organization know, and they kind of negotiate not having that honeymoon they’ve already prepared for and paid for, have that not be part of their vacation for year one.
Julie Gould 16:21
As a final thought, whatever the negotiation situation is, David Perlmutter says that the way you speak and hold yourself can make all the difference.
David Perlmutter 16:31
I think tone and phrasing are very important. I say that as a communication professor.
There’s an old saying that some people can make friends, by the way they say no, and some people can make enemies, by the way they say yes.
And that applies to negotiations.
No matter what’s going on, trying to be respectful, friendly, positive, and to phrase things, not as something life or death.
This is not the Russians and the Ukrainians and the Americans across the table here.
We’re both on the same side. So, and I hope both sides feel that way, but even if they don’t, you must try to sound positive.
So if you’re asking for something, maybe phrasing it speculatively. Like, “would it be possible to look at this?” rather than “I demand the following 17 points.”
Now it may be that you decide in the end to walk away. I mean, this is where you know your value. It has is this situation where you feel that you could get a better offer from somebody like you literally have another offer on the table?
And of course, in the business world, this is more likely than academia today. But the fact is that if you’re good enough to be hired by one R1 then probably a lot of them, unless they don’t have that position open, might be considering.
I know this is a very difficult and certainly thousands of posts on social media for graduate students and postdocs have talked about this issue is like, what? “How do I turn them down?”
Well, it’s possible to turn them down if you feel that like there’s no alternative. But this goes back to knowing your value. But always keep it positive.
Julie Gould 18:28
In the next episode of this series, we’ll be exploring how artificial intelligence is being used in the job hunt from both the administrative and candidate perspectives, and how best to use this tool without it hindering your chances at getting the role you’re after. Thanks for listening. I’m Julie Gould.
