How to get a good salary job in the medical field?

How to get salary info for mid-level nonprofit jobs in NYC?

• I am in the process of interviewing for a mid-level program/project coordinator position at a non-profit in New York City, and I believe I will be offered the position. I have always been terrible at negotiating salary, and want to change that this time around, but I am finding it very difficult to figure out what the general market range for similar jobs is. Here are my specific details: -I have over a decade of relevant experience in academic and non-profit program administration. -I have a masters degree from a top university (although not directly relevant to the field). -The position title is senior coordinator, and the organization is a medical professional society. -My current position is as a program associate for a foundation. I make 45K, which seems very low to me, but I don't have much sense what people in similar positions make. I took this job because I was unemployed for a year while living out of the country for my ex-husband's career, and took the first job I was offered to get re-established in NYC. So I feel like I got lowballed, but I'm not sure (hence the question). Although I should say that I don't pay anything out of pocket for medical insurance currently, so I would need to keep that in consideration when negotiating for a new position. -I am very qualified for the new position. The organization I work for now is in the same medical specialty, which is a relatively small world. I've collaborated with staff members at the new organization in my current position, including one of their vice-presidents who was a consultant for my current organization. I've also worked with numerous people on their board and advisory committees. I would already be up to speed on the field and the organization, and the work would be more complex and demanding than what I do now. -I can look up their 990 forms for financial information, but only the salaries of the top executives are listed - I have no access to general staff salaries. -I'm a woman and so is 90% of the staff at the new job (which I only mention because women are traditionally less likely to negotiate and I figure it's an important context.) I am going in again next week to meet additional members of the staff, and want to be prepared with a salary range informed by research, but I'm stumped looking at the traditional salary sources. When I look at the http://www.bls.gov/ooh/, for example, the closest job descriptions I can find are different types of managers, which doesn't quite work, because while I would be managing projects, I wouldn't be supervising any staff underneath me. Or secretary/administrative assistant, which gets at the administration aspect, but I would have much more responsibility and independence than that. And so many similar job and salary descriptions seem tailored to corporations, not non-profit. I'm finding the same issue with salary.com, as well. So long question short, is there anyone either in a similar position in NYC, or familiar with hiring, who can either suggest what kind of salary I should be asking for, or other resources where I can find the information I need? Thanks in advance!

• Answer:

  It would be nice if you could get this data, but don't forget that even without any data, you can still negotiate on your salary. You can seriously just ask for more money because you think you are worth it, and see what they say. If they want you, they're not going to rescind the offer because you tried to negotiate. I say that as a person who does hiring for a nonprofit, albeit a quite different one than the one you're applying for. I'd say that at least half of the people I hire don't try to negotiate at all, even though I purposefully offer them a little bit less than the maximum we can afford to pay, so that if they did try to negotiate I would be able to do so. Anyway, if you have the data on salary averages it can help inform you on how much more to ask for and give you a reference to cite if needed, but even without that I'd ask for maybe 10% more than what's being offered, the worst they can say is no.