Salary question

[normanandchanel]

Hello everyone, I hope I'm posting in the right place. I have a question regarding salary. I have a bachelor's degree in biology and am interviewing for a lab technician position (no license required) in a BB. I have no idea of what I should ask for in terms of salary because the position is not CLS or MT and I don't know what salaries to compare position to. Southern CA region. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[L106]

I do not know how things are in California, but in "mid-America" I don't feel it's common to ask for a specific salary, and there's not much room for salary negotiation among hospitals and blood centers. Most are under financial constraints and many have hiring freezes and no annual raises, etc. (What do the rest of you think?)

Hopefully some forum participants from California can provide some info about reasonable salary expections in that area.

[normanandchanel]

I do not know how things are in California, but in "mid-America" I don't feel it's common to ask for a specific salary, and there's not much room for salary negotiation among hospitals and blood centers. Most are under financial constraints and many have hiring freezes and no annual raises, etc. (What do the rest of you think?)

Hopefully some forum participants from California can provide some info about reasonable salary expections in that area.

I wasn't prepared to ask because I'm a new grad but during the phone interview, the screener asked. I just said it was negotiable but it is probably going to come up again in the in person interview.

[L106]

normanandchanel -

Since the screener brought it up, I do think you are wise to try to get a feel for what the salary ballparks are. It would be helpful if you could describe some of the main job responsibilities that are involved with the lab technician position (ie: drawing donor units? preparing components? clerical chores and answering the phone? performing any patient testing? etc.), and maybe some Californians will post a reply to your salary question.

[normanandchanel]

Position summary

Works interchangeably between the Components Laboratory, Quality Control Laboratory and Reference Laboratory as warranted by production needs and in accordance with career path schedule. Basic Components duties include independently processing and labeling basic components, entering component information into SafeTrace, screening units for processing. Special Components duties include preparing and labeling special blood components (i.e. irradiations, washed cells, deglycerolized red cells, volume reduce platelets, cryoprecipitate and pooled cryoprecipitate units for quality control submission) according to standards. QC duties include performing quality Control Testing of apheresis and whole blood products and performing complete blood count testing on apheresis donors. Fractionation/Reference (non-license) duties include performing preliminary antigen typing on units, maintaining special screened blood inventory, filing, computer entry of test results, and other duties as assigned in the Reference Laboratory. Fractionation duties include performing accurate selection, boxing, reboxing, and shipping of units to a fractionators. Ensures that all shipment requirements are met.

[John C. Staley]

Ask for the salary range for the position. They usually will provide that and then indicate that you can get so much for each year of experience up to a certain point but they seldom if ever hire anyone in at above the mid point of the range.

The way most places do this really sucks and there is no room for negotiation. Usually it's a take it or leave it offer.

:angered:

[Likewine99]

Since you have a bachelor's degree and the position is not stated as CLS or MT I would think that you would fall into the "entry level range". Negotiable was a great answer, afterall this is your screening interview and the recruiters are just asking canned questions.

Having conducted many interviews in my time as a manager we never gave salary quotes during the face-to-face interview, that was an HR thing.

If you are asked that question again you should stick with "negotiable" or "entry level". The other posters are correct, there isn't much room for negotiation in the salary arena. John is right, take it or leave it. Hopefully you will get the chance to take it!

Good luck!