The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Dee18 on May 30, 2020, 01:53:12 PM
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My daughter is interviewing for a job at Epic in Madison, WI. As I just learned, Epic is a large (10,000 employees) software company that is best known for medical records software. Daughter is one year out of college and is interviewing to be a software trainer/educator to go teach people how to use the software. The job would be a great fit for her skills as her first major was computer science (but she couldn't bear the thought of programming hours on end) and she is now teaching in a temporary position. She has to state her salary requirements and does not know what to put. Glassdoor shows a huge range of $32000-75000. Any suggestions for salary ask? Also any interview tips for that company would be most welcome.
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When asked for a desired salary range on an application or in an interview, I always say it's negotiable once an offer is on the table. If they push back for specifics I'll say that I'm open to a reasonable offer. If they really get pushy I'll give a $10k range that starts $5-10k above my current salary.
As for Epic, from what I've heard they are tough to get in to and work their people pretty hard, and compensate accordingly. I'm a developer and couldn't get past their first round written test about 15yrs ago. So I can't really give any insight on the interview. Good luck to your daughter. Working for Epic even for a few years is great on the resume.
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A friend's family member used to do that and I want to say I heard 90k as their salary. I could be wrong though.
Anything hospital related is expensive by nature. Epic is also by far the best and biggest EHR (electronic health record) out there. With all the travel, expenses and risk of going into hospitals she should not short change herself. Unless its an online form that specifically requires a certain number of numerical characters, I try to put 0, or "commensurate with experience" or some verbal garbage that means I don't want to say the number first. It has not worked out to my benefit ever to say a number first.
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Unfortunately it is an online form. So she doesn't want to leave it blank. The good news is that she made it through the first interview and the online test (not the one they give to programmers!). They told her if it were not for Covid19 they would be flying her in for the day.
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My dd works at Epic, in technical writing. I would say she should ask for >$50k, but maybe say that that would be negotiable?
My dd has been there for 5 years. The benefits are awesome. She got an 18% raise this year.
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Err on the high side. This is a well known anchoring effect that results in higher offers even when the company knows about the anchoring effect.
Take into consideration what Glassdoor and other similar sites say for jobs with that title and responsibilities. Usually private pays better than public, and large pays better than small. Especially try to find a site that adjusts for geographic location - perhaps you can find some similar positions in that area of the country or in similar COL areas. I'm guessing that geography is the main reason for the wide variation in salary.
Take into consideration how well she happens to match what they're asking for. They'll pay up for someone who happens to have the skillset they're looking for.
Most good companies will require the candidate to state a salary range first, so go ahead and do your best. Unless she asks for something completely ridiculously high that indicates that she has a severe lack of understanding of that job position and her relative value, whatever she states will very likely not prevent her from progressing through the interview process.
It should be generally understood that whatever number she states is negotiable, especially in the early stages of the process.
So I'd say pick the highest number she feels like she could justify.
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Does she know the exact title of the job she's in the running for? That can be used to narrow down the salaries on Glassdoor. If it is "trainer," then it looks like the average is about $51K. But if it's "Implementation Specialist" or something similar, then the range is a little higher.
To be honest, all of the salaries look on the low side given Epic's reputation in the industry and what skills they're looking for - I'm assuming that's because of Wisconsin's lower cost of living.
Good luck to your daughter - I work for a health system that uses Epic and they are well-regarded. There's a lot of opportunity both within the company and in other areas of the health care system that use Epic. If she works her way up and gets certified in various Epic technologies/modules, she'll be able to command a great salary at a lot of hospital and health systems down the line.
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Around 10-11 years ago I interviewed at Epic and I also had a friend who worked there. They have great benefits and a really neat workplace (google-like in that they have themed buildings and even a treehouse for meetings) but I remember that there was not very good opportunities for advancement. It seemed like a really great launch job, but the structure was flat within the organization, which is probably why the salaries look on the low side. It may have changed significantly from what I remember, but that is something to keep in mind, or for her to ask in the next round of interviews about advancement opportunities. I think back then starting salaries were in the low to mid 40ks, but I'm not sure because it varied by position type, I was interviewing for technical writer.
The interview process might be completely different, but they split off people for the different jobs and had a lot of odd interview tasks. For the writing position they gave me a few timed writing exercises to complete (4 or 5 things, I distinctly remember being asked to write some lines from my favorite poem in addition to writing a few fake articles on topics and myself), and the interview questions were strange. I particularly remember being asked "what are three things you are not?" and being quite thrown off by the question as it was my first interview.
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Thank you everyone for your helpful information! Daughter still has a couple days until the interview, so additional advice is most welcome.
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Live close by to Verona where Epic is HQ'd.
She should ask for 60k.
She should also be prepared to put in 55hrs per week minimum not including travel.
If she sticks it out 5 years they have an awesome sabbatical program.
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Yes, we should be on dd’s sabbatical right this minute. Hmph.
Dd does not work 55 hours/week, though I hear the hours are longer for the actual coders.
The gelato is awesome.
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Askamanager.org
Good advice for all things work related, including interviewing.
Also, I will be nice and give you the benefit of the doubt that your daughter is in the driver's seat here.