Negotiating a United States VA career

[Archipelago]

My wife has an internship at a VA facility and within 2 months of starting, her supervising staff wanted to hire her full-time after internship (July 2023). She is making $30k/yr with great health insurance, time off, and training benefits. She is considered a contract employee.

My wife spent most of her 20s getting a doctoral clinical psychology degree, racked up $180k in student debt, worked 3 years with no pay + 1 year of low pay, and made a lot of other non-monetary sacrifices. Well now she's coming up to her 'free agency' date after paying her dues. Qualified people in her field have an absurdly high demand. There are hundreds of postings for VA psychologists and not enough people to fill them.

One thing to note is that working at the VA is something she wants to do which is driven by personal interest and life purpose. She also likes this particular VA facility and the people there. She genuinely wants to stay on which is a great thing, and it's a complete win-win for a facility that has a constant under supply of qualified workers.

Some benefits that have been mentioned:
1. Student loan forgiveness after 120 minimum loan payments (10 years)
2. After 3 years of service - time off increases from 4 hours sick time + 4 hours personal time per pay period to 6 hours of each
3. Pension - 1 percent of your high-3 average salary for each year of service
4. 10 paid holidays and good family leave (we do plan on having children).

Other benefits of staying on:
1. She effectively gets to skip a formal post doc position which is a massive benefit. It means the loan forgiveness and service time clock starts ticking 1 year sooner, and the pay is around $30k higher than what a typical post doc position would pay. It also means skipping interviews, cover letters, and general stress and many hours involved when applying to post doc positions.
2. Once licensed, her pay goes up again.

She has a good deal lined up in a career she absolutely wants...but this is also a unique window to influence the trajectory of her earnings and benefits. Certain things in the federal gov't seem to be non-negotiable like salary because it's based on pay scales which are outside of management's control. But what might be some other things that ARE negotiable so she can make the best of her eventual 'payday'?

She has a good relationship with the 'decision makers' at the facility. There has been a lot of talk behind the scenes about wanting to keep her, and a lot of it goes directly to the top. My wife is also very high in agreeableness and advocating for herself is not her natural inclination.

I know this is a niche topic but any advice from people who have navigated successful VA or gov't careers would be helpful. Thank you!

[Archipelago]

Paging @englishteacheralex  because I believe Mr. ETA has a career with the VA in a similar discipline.

[uniwelder]

Sorry, I have no advice. I just can’t believe starting salary for a PhD psychologist is 30k with the government. Regardless of benefits and loan forgiveness, that’s so sad.

Edited to add— I think I misunderstood. You mean 30k is the internship salary?

[Michael in ABQ]

Salary and benefits for federal jobs are technically negotiable. But in practice, that's the rare exception.

For instance, on the GS pay scale you would typically start at the beginning of the pay band, so a GS-12 Step 1 in the Boston area (I think that includes NH) is $88,850. Step 2 is $91,812. You usually get a step increase every year for the first few years, then they spread out to every three years (if memory serves). You can advance faster for good performance but in general each step increase is around $3k per year.

If you can show that you were coming from a job making $130k plus benefits you could reasonably negotiate to start at Step 2 or 3 (or 5 or 6) instead of Step 1. However, the person making the hiring decision rarely has the power to make that decision and has to get permission from someone in HR with that agency. They'll claim that all the federal benefits add something absurd like $50k so the total compensation package is really $138,850 in this case and therefore coming from a job paying $130k a year there's no need to pay extra.


It took me 6 months to get hired for a federal job. There are so many layers of decisions and even if the hiring manager is desperate to fill the position and knows there is a shortage, the person in HR doesn't give a fuck and usually won't budge on anything. After all, it's not their department that suffers from being shorthanded.

A quick search on US Jobs indicates most psychologist positions with the VA are GS 11-13. So, with more experience/qualifications you can try to get hired at the higher pay scale. That makes a big difference as the base pay (before locality adjustment) is $56,983 for GS-11, $68,299 for GS-12, and $81,216 for GS-13.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2022/general-schedule

[Archipelago]

Sorry, I have no advice. I just can’t believe starting salary for a PhD psychologist is 30k with the government. Regardless of benefits and loan forgiveness, that’s so sad.

Edited to add— I think I misunderstood. You mean 30k is the internship salary?

It's a PsyD which is the equivalent of a PhD but focused on clinical practice. Yes, the $30k is the internship salary. The salary for the next year would be around $75k and licensed starts around $90k which would be another year away. Still underpaid relative to what the private sector would pay.

[englishteacheralex]

Hm. I'll ask Mr. ETA. The VA has been very good to us. He was able to get $45k of student loans forgiven with PSLF. He worked his way up and is now a GS-14; he's the lead social worker at his hospital. So he is an LCSW, not a PsyD. There's a pension after 10 years, I think. I'm not super conversant on the fine points of working for the VA other than generally feeling that Mr. ETA really likes it, appreciates the job security and all the federal employee bennies.

[reeshau]

The money answer: over a period of 10 years, your wife would be able to earn much more than the $180k in student loans on the outside at market rates.  Amortized over the 10 years (which you would not have to do, of course) at 6% interest, would be payments of just under $2k a month.  So, that's worth $24k / year, for comparison purposes.

But, you will certainly have more than a median household income, so you should have no troubles with finances, relatively speaking.  And you say this is what she wants to do, and where she wants to do it.  That is not easy to come by.  Places might pay high to compensate for other issues: HCOL, or stressful / poor work culture.  They pay high, because they have to.

Despite the impression that benefits like a pension and loan forgiveness try to imply, this isn't a lifetime decision.  Let her pursue happiness and fulfillment, and know you have a clock running on the bennies.  Make a date for 10 years' time, on the cusp of the loans being forgiven, and the pension vesting, and give her some space for reflection: stay that current course, or choose a new direction?  10 years may seem like forever, but it will come in a blink of the eye.

And if she approaches you earlier than that, then something is off, and it could be time to go then.  Nothing in life is certain, but from your description, it seems like this is worth the bet.

[Archipelago]

Salary and benefits for federal jobs are technically negotiable. But in practice, that's the rare exception.

For instance, on the GS pay scale you would typically start at the beginning of the pay band, so a GS-12 Step 1 in the Boston area (I think that includes NH) is $88,850. Step 2 is $91,812. You usually get a step increase every year for the first few years, then they spread out to every three years (if memory serves). You can advance faster for good performance but in general each step increase is around $3k per year.

If you can show that you were coming from a job making $130k plus benefits you could reasonably negotiate to start at Step 2 or 3 (or 5 or 6) instead of Step 1. However, the person making the hiring decision rarely has the power to make that decision and has to get permission from someone in HR with that agency. They'll claim that all the federal benefits add something absurd like $50k so the total compensation package is really $138,850 in this case and therefore coming from a job paying $130k a year there's no need to pay extra.


It took me 6 months to get hired for a federal job. There are so many layers of decisions and even if the hiring manager is desperate to fill the position and knows there is a shortage, the person in HR doesn't give a fuck and usually won't budge on anything. After all, it's not their department that suffers from being shorthanded.

A quick search on US Jobs indicates most psychologist positions with the VA are GS 11-13. So, with more experience/qualifications you can try to get hired at the higher pay scale. That makes a big difference as the base pay (before locality adjustment) is $56,983 for GS-11, $68,299 for GS-12, and $81,216 for GS-13.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2022/general-schedule

Yeah, I get the feeling that pay negotiations would go something like this:

*Wife sits down in hiring manager's office (who is a psychologist as well)*

"So, Mrs. Archipelago, we'd really like to keep you!"
"I'd definitely like to stay here, too! Would you be able to start me at GS-12 for all the sacrifices and hard work it took to reach this point, plus my stellar job performance over the last year?"
"Well, that's not really something I have any say in, but I'll see what I can do."

*2 months later*

"We can hire you on full-time starting at GS-11!!!"

And that's it. Nothing was actually negotiated and that's just the kind of system it is.

So maybe that's all there is to it?

[Archipelago]

The money answer: over a period of 10 years, your wife would be able to earn much more than the $180k in student loans on the outside at market rates.  Amortized over the 10 years (which you would not have to do, of course) at 6% interest, would be payments of just under $2k a month.  So, that's worth $24k / year, for comparison purposes.

But, you will certainly have more than a median household income, so you should have no troubles with finances, relatively speaking.  And you say this is what she wants to do, and where she wants to do it.  That is not easy to come by.  Places might pay high to compensate for other issues: HCOL, or stressful / poor work culture.  They pay high, because they have to.

Despite the impression that benefits like a pension and loan forgiveness try to imply, this isn't a lifetime decision.  Let her pursue happiness and fulfillment, and know you have a clock running on the bennies.  Make a date for 10 years' time, on the cusp of the loans being forgiven, and the pension vesting, and give her some space for reflection: stay that current course, or choose a new direction?  10 years may seem like forever, but it will come in a blink of the eye.

And if she approaches you earlier than that, then something is off, and it could be time to go then.  Nothing in life is certain, but from your description, it seems like this is worth the bet.

You've hit the nail on the head, and that's probably the best way to look at it. My mind is geared towards getting all the benefits and money she can get because I saw her spend those grueling years to get into the profession (and probably somewhere north of $500k between student debt and opportunity costs). But at the end of the day, she didn't pick the profession for the $. So if it took all that time and effort to find her place, but she found it, then what does a few thousand bucks matter? As long as we're financially stable and have our basic needs met, life purpose and job satisfaction are far more important than a few extra, or even several thousand dollars.

[lhamo]

Not sure if it is similar with the VA, but I used to work closely with people at the State Department and there was a really steep drop in available positions at GS-12 and above.  I probably could have transitioned over pretty easily from my contract position into something at the GS-11 level (the person who managed my program in DC was at that level, and there were quite a few at her level), but getting up to GS-12 meant managing a whole regional section of the Bureau.  There were maybe 4-5 GS-12s in that division, and then a couple of GS-13s, and the top person was a GS-14 or 15. 

So I think your suspicion may be correct -- if the position is already listed as a GS-11 then she can probably walk right into it, but negotiating a start as a GS-12 may prove challenging.

[Michael in ABQ]

I was hired as a GS-11, and it was basically an individual contributor level. When I went to GS-12 it was a management role. There were some technical positions that were GS-12 or even GS-13 but generally they required a master's level education if they were a non-management role. My boss was a GS-14 but she had a doctorate and managed about 30-40 people.

[Abe]

In my experience (state employee x2 at this point), there’s not a lot of salary negotiating beyond mentioned above. The main thing that’ll influence her happiness is the people there. Some VAs are nightmares, some are actually pretty good to work at. It seems hers is in the latter category, but keep that in mind if you all move elsewhere at some point.

[Villanelle]

Most people I know have maybe had success negotiating the step, never the GS level, and sometimes the leave accumulation for GS jobs. 

[Fomerly known as something]

I will add A/L is 8 hours a pay period (26 days a year) starting at year 15 and there are now 11 Federal Holidays with the addition in 2021 of Juneteenth.

I can’t talk to the VA, but in my agency negation on starting salary really doesn’t exist.  But I would check if here internship time can be counted toward the pension and annual leave calculation.

[bougette]

One other benefit to research is student loan repayment (not forgiveness) while she is working towards PSLF. Please make sure to double check her loans, etc to make sure this would fit your situation & not trigger ineligibility for anything else.

My agency offers up to $10K per year towards student loan payments as a retention incentive (Note: It’s taxable!). You have to sign a service agreement to insure you stay for X years  (or repay), but it’s really great for people planning on long term federal service.  My agency usually offers this after the one year mark for staff with professional licenses.

I didn’t work for a non-toxic agency early in my career, so this was a “no” for me & I can’t provide a step by step how to.  However, I work for a great agency now & many of my co-workers find this incentive to be a great benefit as they accrue years towards forgiveness at 10 years. Good luck!

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/student-loan-repayment/

[the_hobbitish]

Agree with those above that you can sometimes negotiate up one or two steps, but I've never heard of negotiating a higher GS (11 to 12 etc). Definitely try to negotiate to include the internship and any other working years toward the pension/annual leave calculation - that will get you closer to the 3 year bump in A/L hours earned and earn you more if she stays for the full pension. In my experience all of the above was negotiated with HR and not the hiring manager.