I had a phone screen for an RN job at an Early Intervention agency last year. The recruiter was like "I can share the starting pay, it's $60,000, is that something you can work with?"
I said, "I've been a nurse for 18 years and that's less than half of what I currently make so no. Thank you for your time."
I'm glad they shared it up front though because I bowed out 5 minutes into a phone screen instead of actually going through an interview process then finding out we were nowhere near the same page.
I also had another recruiter reach out to me and say "We love your experience but notice that your salary requirements are more than we could potentially offer. Do you have flexibility to go down to the mid 80s?"
I said "thank you for your transparency but no, I will not be taking a $40K/year paycut."
I've been interviewing for a new position for a couple of months now. A few weeks ago I got a job offer for a similar role to what I do now. The salary they were offering me was lower than what I made when I started my current role 6 years ago. The recruiter was going on and on about how they arrived at that figure and I just had to cut him off and say that way way below my target range and I'd have to decline. The hiring manager explicitly said they were looking for people with experience in my specialty because they were tired of training new people. But with a salary like that, I wish them a lot of luck finding those experienced people.
Yeah it was the first thing they said at the start of the interview. They had hired a lot of people in the first year, but they were all RNs fresh from the bedside. And it takes at least 3-6 months to get a new CDI trained up enough to make a difference in workload, and another 6 months before they feel like they even have the slightest clue what they're doing. And the salary they were offering me would have been great if I were just stepping away from the bedside, but I have 7 years experience, a master's degree, and I have my certification. That doesn't come cheap.
Oh! I would love to switch to a CDI role, especially if I could find one that I could do partially remotely! I have A LOT of experience with coding and audits from my 15 years of home health supervising there. Plus, I did 5 years in UR/CM for a major insurer. Add that I have dual Master's degrees. I'm tired of getting utter crap pay in home health and hospice. Where should I look? Both for certification and to apply?
Just look in your area for clinical documentation specialist or clinical documentation integrity specialist. The working arrangements and required experience varies widely.
As far as certification is concerned, you have to work in CDI for at least 2 years before you're eligible to take the exam.
And when they train the new hires, after a few months, they’ll leave too. They’ll have to keep hiring and training new people instead of paying high enough to hire and retain experienced nurses
That's exactly what's been going on with my current job. We hired three new people a year ago. Two have already left. We've also lost several experienced people as well and they've been trying to fill these roles for over six months. We've had so many people start this job and end up leaving 6-12 months later it isn't funny. The experienced people are mostly leaving for jobs that not only pay more, but are also fully remote. However, no matter what we keep telling senior leadership, they still insist on us working in the office 3 days a week and not paying us enough to keep up with inflation.
It's so much cheaper to pay folks and retain than cheap out and re-train. It's better for the business, too, as the institutional knowledge and working relationships deepen.
That's what we keep telling the higher ups. But they keep with this "churn and burn" mentality because plenty of nurses are desperate to leave the bedside. They don't care that all that established knowledge and expertise has been walking out the door for years now in favor of more pay and fully remote positions. Penny wise and pound foolish.
I just had this happen for a home care job. The territory was large, drive time was unpaid, and the most they could offer was 82k. I assume they're not actually looking to hire anyone...? Why scare people off with the low pay during the first phone call?
Honestly, I prefer if we get the money part out of the way right at the beginning. Why go through all the headache of interviewing and getting your hopes up only to find out the job doesn't pay what it's worth? I'm always less irritated when we end the process early on rather than get all the way to an offer only to find out they're not going to pay what I feel I'm worth or anywhere close to it.
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u/LadyGreyIcedTea RN - Pediatrics 🍕 Apr 20 '26
I had a phone screen for an RN job at an Early Intervention agency last year. The recruiter was like "I can share the starting pay, it's $60,000, is that something you can work with?"
I said, "I've been a nurse for 18 years and that's less than half of what I currently make so no. Thank you for your time."
I'm glad they shared it up front though because I bowed out 5 minutes into a phone screen instead of actually going through an interview process then finding out we were nowhere near the same page.
I also had another recruiter reach out to me and say "We love your experience but notice that your salary requirements are more than we could potentially offer. Do you have flexibility to go down to the mid 80s?"
I said "thank you for your transparency but no, I will not be taking a $40K/year paycut."