Career Development Member Resources-Contract and Salary Negotiation

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The session, part of the ACAM Faculty Development Series, focused on navigating job offers and contract negotiation in academic medicine, especially for clinical, research, and education roles. Dr. Scott Hadland introduced practical strategies based on his own experience as a recent fellow and current division chief who hires faculty.<br /><br />Key advice included: apply broadly to strengthen your negotiating position, ask for everything upfront and early, and never assume salary is fixed. He emphasized that negotiation is expected, unlikely to cause an offer to be rescinded, and should be done respectfully but confidently. He also encouraged attendees to seek multiple reviewers for offer letters, request time before deciding, and consider legal review for contract terms like non-competes.<br /><br />The talk covered salary benchmarks, compensation models (salary, productivity, and hybrids), and non-salary items such as signing bonuses, relocation costs, CME funding, board exam fees, office space, startup funds, protected time, and title changes. For research careers, he stressed the importance of at least 50% protected time and clarified that “25% clinical” can mean different workloads depending on the institution.<br /><br />He closed by answering audience questions about salary increases, non-competes, offer letters, lawyers, and strategies for responding when institutions say they cannot offer more.

Keywords

academic medicine

job offers

contract negotiation

faculty development

salary negotiation

protected time

non-compete clauses

compensation models

research careers