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In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
Are postdoc salaries negotiable? I'm thinking in particular of European postdocs funded by the ERC, where the PI might have some leeway over allocation of funds, but I'm also wondering in general if postdoc or even VAP salaries are negotiable (and are negotiations expected) in the same way that TT salaries are.
No idea! Any readers have inside insights?
SSHRC and FRQSC aren’t. I don’t think the Killam is, either.
In northern Europe postdoc salaries are generally fixed by a scale, and there is no negotiation. But the salaries are also generally very good. Indeed, usually the money is secured from a grant where the salary for the postdoc is predetermined.
My impression is that it may vary from country to country, but as an ERC grantee in Northern Europe, I can say that I have no leeway for postdoc salaries. As others have said, these things are fixed by scale without negotiation. (Also, for the budget, I applied using my university’s standard rates. Even if I could raise the salary for one postdoc, it would mean less time for other personel because of how the budgets are put together.)
I think things operate very differently in the US vs. Europe, so make no assumptions across that divide. I can’t speak to whether VAPs/postdocs in the US are negotiable.
But I expect that salaries in Europe — at any level, including TT — are very unlikely to be negotiable. OP seems to be importing some assumptions from the US. There are usually predetermined salaries for such positions, sometimes as a matter of the grant budget, but just as often as a result of statute or collective bargaining. In Germany, where I was a postdoc, my salary was set by statute and negotiation would have died in the cradle and made me look oblivious, to boot. I also heard second-hand that, in the Netherlands, faculty unions are very proud of the salaries they have secured for faculty, and so attempting to negotiate your salary can be taken as an insult and anti-solidary.
So be very careful.
I held two postdocs and had two other postdoc offers. In the two I accepted, I did not have the impression that the salaries were negotiable based on how those positions were funded. In the two offers I did not accept, the salaries were much lower — to the point where I question whether they would even have constituted a living wage. I would have definitely attempted to negotiate in those cases if I had not had a much better offer in hand. I think, however, folks have less leeway for negotiating for temporary jobs: it is less important for the hiring department to get their top choice of candidate for a job that will only last 1 or 2 years, so there’s rarely much incentive for the hiring department to bend to meet the candidates requests.
So, in short: I suspect it varies whether these salaries are negotiable, but regardless, candidates should not expect to gain much through negotiating with the hiring department for a short-term postdoctoral position.
I think it depends where in Europe.
In the UK, ERC postdoc salaries are negotiable, or at least were negotiable about 10 years ago.
In Germany, I don’t think postdoc salaries are negotiable, even ERC ones. However, salaries for W1 positions (6-year professorships, not tenure-track, which are basically long postdoc positions) are negotiable.
As everyone else said, European postdoc salaries seem to usually be determined according to a fixed scale of some sort. I think it’s always perfectly fine to ask how salaries are determined for a job once you have received a verbal offer. I can’t imagine someone taking offense to your asking about this, especially if you are moving to a new country, since each country seems to have a different system. Obviously, you should not attempt to negotiate unless told explicitly that something is negotiable.
In the US it’s sometimes fine. Taken as grown-us talking through their agreement together.
As a small nuance to the above, I think in countries like Germany or the Netherlands it would be ok to ask how they determined which point on the scale you’re starting at, and under certain circumstances there may be some ambiguity in the rules, creating room to argue that one step higher would be a more appropriate application of said rules. But yeah that’s quite different from how negotiating a TT salary in the US would work, so if you approach it as if it’s the same thing you may come across as oblivious and possibly rude.
Where I work in Europe, the salary for a post-doc starts at about $ 55,000 US/year. That strikes me as decent pay. (Am I out of touch with reality?)
In Germany, the general salary for a postdoc is not negotiable, but adheres to a fixed system. However, this system recognizes experience — that is, the number of years you have spent in an academic job in your area. You can (and should) push your PI or the university to recognize that experience before you sign your contract, which should include your time as a graduate student if you have done things like teaching in that time. (Fellowships that allow you to fully focus on your dissertation are not recognized as job experience time, unfortunately…)
Post-doc in the US: my salary was not negotiable. I (female, non-US citizen) earn 10.000 USD less per year than the other post-doc in my department (US citizen, male), and less than a PhD student (male, North American) with a fancy PhD fellowship. (Note: this is not based on number of years of research experience or number of publications: if it were, the numbers would likely be reversed). I can guarantee that in some EU countries (e.g., Germany) you can negotiate the spine of your salary based on your research experience. I have seen similar dynamics in some ERC/externally funded post-docs in the UK. In other cases (always in Europe), I do not think negotiations are possible (at least based on my experience). Key message regarding the US: it seems that, at least in some places in the US, salary is negotiable. However, it is not clear what the criteria for possible negotiations are.
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