Astronomy
Recently a female postdoc who has worked with me was offered a faculty position. She had never negotiated a start-up, so I gathered some advice from colleagues and added some of my own. I repeat it here in the hopes it will be useful to others.
things that are useful to ask for:
- teaching release: one less course for your first semester
- grad students: minimum 1 person x 3 years; get numbers from department
- travel: $15,000 (you want to represent your new department at meetings)
- research equipment including computers (fancy ones)
- more travel
- publishing costs (no joke I've spent more than 30k in publishing in the last 5 years).
- undergrad stipends
As a different colleague put it:
-Remind her that now that she has received an offer, she is in the position of power to ask for what she wants.
-She should think about what she really needs for the first few years to be successful, and ask for that (grad student salaries, computer, travel, etc.). It is in the department's interest to give her the things she needs to be successful.
-Also add some stuff which she would like to have but is not an absolute necessity. This gives her a bit of padding which, if necessary, can be reduced during start-up negotiations.
With some hesitancy this person asked for everything she really needed. She asked me privately: Will they think I?m greedy? Will they want to hire someone cheaper?
In fact they gave her 100% of what she asked for.
-Doug Duncan [dduncan_at_colorado.edu]
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Astronomy
Start-Up Advice for a New Faculty Member
Recently a female postdoc who has worked with me was offered a faculty position. She had never negotiated a start-up, so I gathered some advice from colleagues and added some of my own. I repeat it here in the hopes it will be useful to others.
things that are useful to ask for:
- teaching release: one less course for your first semester
- grad students: minimum 1 person x 3 years; get numbers from department
- travel: $15,000 (you want to represent your new department at meetings)
- research equipment including computers (fancy ones)
- more travel
- publishing costs (no joke I've spent more than 30k in publishing in the last 5 years).
- undergrad stipends
As a different colleague put it:
-Remind her that now that she has received an offer, she is in the position of power to ask for what she wants.
-She should think about what she really needs for the first few years to be successful, and ask for that (grad student salaries, computer, travel, etc.). It is in the department's interest to give her the things she needs to be successful.
-Also add some stuff which she would like to have but is not an absolute necessity. This gives her a bit of padding which, if necessary, can be reduced during start-up negotiations.
With some hesitancy this person asked for everything she really needed. She asked me privately: Will they think I?m greedy? Will they want to hire someone cheaper?
In fact they gave her 100% of what she asked for.
-Doug Duncan [dduncan_at_colorado.edu]
- Advice: Negotiating For A Tenure-track Position Ii
CSWA got great advice on negotiating for a tenure-track position from Mordecai-Mark Mac Low. Mordecai is a tenured research curator in the Dept. of Astrophysics of the American Museum of Natural History in his home town of New York City, a position he...
- Advice: Negotiating For A Tenure-track Position
When CSWA first started compiling advice on applying for tenure-track positions, we got some great suggestions on negotiating from Alison Coil. Alison is an associate professor at UC San Diego in the Physics department and Center for Astrophysics...
- Negotiation Is A Dialogue: Compiled Advice
This post was inspired by the following paragraph from a Chronicle article: If you're like most academics, you either negotiate a job offer poorly, or you don't negotiate at all. The cost to you of failing to negotiate your first faculty position...
- Negotiating For A Job
[The following is a contribution from a reader. I hope you find this as interesting and useful as I did! -Hannah] I just read your list of things to negotiate for in a job offer in the AASWomen Newsletter for 11/13. There were things I hadn't thought...
- A Letter To A Daughter
In case you haven't been following Dr. Isis' Letters to Our Daughters Project, this is me telling you that you should. Here's how she describes the project:When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the...