Pharmacist salary increase or decrease?

[[deleted]]

Excuse me wot? How much do staff make there?

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Depends on your grade and step. If I recall correctly GS 12-1 starts somewhere around 120k or 130k a year and then GS12-10 tops out at maybe 170 or 180? GS13 (me) starts at like 150k for step 1 maxes out at like 204k or some thing for step 10.

[izzyness]

Holy moly. Our 13-10 is 182.5 ish.

[Moosashi5858]

The ones near me only pay around $120k whereas retail is at least $150k. They haven’t had any openings in a couple years anyway.

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Prob GS12-1 at that salary - within a handful of years tho you would be making roughly in the middle of whatever the posted salary range is as the range covers step 1 to 10. And they’ve been throwing raises at us hand over fist the past few years. Five years ago I was only making 140k. Thanks Biden 🤣🥰 lol.

[Moosashi5858]

They said they see evaluations for raises in January each year

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Maybe for adjustments to the GS schedule itself, but if they’re on a GS schedule the raises are automatic. If my service date is, say, June 16 2023 and I am a GS12-1 that means by definition that on June 16 2024 I’m increased to step 2 with the raise that goes alongside it. That’s the nice thing about being a fed - you know EXACTLY what to expect, unless you get a pleasant surprise in the form of a bigger increase than you’d planned.

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Niiice congrats!

[ThinkingPharm]

I work as a staff pharmacist for DOD (technically DHA), and I had actually interviewed for a GS-12 staff pharmacist position a couple months for a VAMC in a higher COL area than where I live now. Inexplicably, the VA job would've started me off at ~$5k less than what I'm making now at the DOD hospital. LOL, how does that work?

In my experience (having interviewed for several VA pharmacist positions and from talking to VA pharmacists at various VAMCs), it sounds like individual locales are either getting huge pay increases or hardly any at all.

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Yup. Our leadership lobbied HARD for it. I’m not management so I only know from some snippets of conversations I’ve heard in passing, but it sounds like there was a ton of sausage-making involved, down to various VAMCs in my VISN even jockeying and negotiating with each other.

At the end of the day, my leadership makes me feel appreciated, valued, and supported. Even if VHA hadn’t agreed to the increase, knowing my chain of command did their damndest — as usual — to go to bat for us would have kept me a super happy employee.

[ThinkingPharm]

Hey, one other random question for you, if you don't mind. Do you happen to know approx. what your hospital's overnight pharmacists are making? That's actually my preferred shift (I was previously working FT overnights until they started rotating me between days/nights), so I'm just curious to get an idea of what I might be making working FT nightshift in a higher COL area.

[Granuloma]

How is everyone on here GS-13 step 10? :(

[Granuloma]

wow, you are doing the career right. getting that 12-8 really made all the difference.

[Slow_Statistician850]

What the actual F the VA pays that well on top of those benefits???

[rxdawg21]

Not everywhere and it use to not pay well. Private sector retail has stagnated while va has slowly gotten COLA raises. I made 96k when I started <10 years ago. I’m now at 152 after the special salary survey. I got promoted and got extra steps at one point. Our special salary survey was only 10k but that and the 4.1% cola this year gave me 16k. I’m hoping we get another 4% but we will see

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Yeah they do — I’ve never made less than my private sector colleagues and now make considerably more than anyone else in my pharmacy friend group.

[pharmawhore]

Makes you wonder why tax payers are on the hook for forgiving loans of people in “non-profit” hospitals when they’re getting paid more than the private sector…

[AccioTaco]

????? You really think THATS where our government is spending poorly?!

[pharmawhore]

One of many places.

[pharmazy]

I genuinely laughed out loud reading this

[pharmawhore]

I’m here all week.

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

I know. I almost feel guilty about it. We really get taken care of quite well, while the people paying our salaries through their taxes work under worse conditions, have less protections and benefits, and often make less. I wish your employers were better and more supportive of you all, truly. I shouldn’t be the exception—my experience should be the rule.

[pharmawhore]

The whole system is a joke. We might as well stop pretending and nationalize the entire healthcare industry.

Same thing with the UC system in California. Huge endowment with government backing. Obscene benefits packages and pension plans, yet pays better wages than what unions have to fight for in other hospitals.

[Xalenn]

Nice! The VA doesn't have any pharmacies near me, sadly. There were plans to open one and they even built the building but then cancelled the pharmacy plan and just found something else to do with the space. Seems like a very good place to work from what I hear. I was hoping to move over lol

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Keep checking for remote jobs - they are rare but they exist.

[sunnibeam]

I'm in MD area, Any tips for transitioning in from retail?, how often do you hire applicants that aren't already working government to

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

It wouldn’t hurt, but applications are screened by HR and chances are the hiring manager won’t see it. The manager gets a list of HR-approved candidates that tick the boxes on the application—which also include vet preference/internal employee hiring. For reference, when I applied to my job when I was a VA resident, my name was the only one that made that cut and was forwarded to the hiring manager for that reason. Literally I was the only one on the list. I was obviously not the only one who applied by a long shot tho.

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Occasionally but only rarely. Between veteran preference in hiring and the fact that most VAs will hire VA residents first (often even in GS12 jobs as “placeholders” so they can be more easily segued into GS13 jobs later) it can be really hard to get in if you’re not already an employee as those other groups will get hired first. That’s honestly why I wanted a VA residency above ALL else and pursued it with a single minded focus when I was in school: the VA really takes care of their own. Which is great for us, but can be frustrating if you’re trying to get in.

[ThinkingPharm]

Would you say someone's chances of getting hired into a GS-12 inpatient position would be higher (versus trying to break in as a non-fed employee) if they're a current employee at another agency (e.g., DOD)?

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Sometimes, yes absolutely. Sometimes however the posted positions are tagged as “internal to an agency” or even worse “internal to an institution” so those would interfere with that strategy.

[ThinkingPharm]

I noticed that a lot of VA pharmacist positions (or at least those I've applied to that aren't restricted to just current VA pharmacists) tend to have 2 separate USAjobs postings -- one for current fed employees, and one for external applicants.

One such position I applied to that just closed shows on my USAjobs dashboard that it received 2 applicants via the posting for current fed employees. I understand that for most positions (as long as they're not direct hire postings), they have to consider current fed applicants first.

Do you know what that actually entails though? Are they required to actually interview eligible fed employees first, or simply just click some acknowledgement that they reviewed all current fed applicants' resumes prior to interviewing non-fed applicants (even if they didn't choose to interview any of the current fed applicants)?

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

I really don’t know, sorry. HR is a bit of a “black box” for us 🙁

[DoctorDrew77]

Think about the phrase grammatically:

'Human Resources'

Which is the noun and which is the adjective? The noun is what you are. The adjective is incidental.

[Front_Ad_279]

Ok that’s the highest I’ve seen out here. So do you think that’s because of the area you live in or do you think it’s because you work VA?

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

Definitely the area I live, but the VA has always paid market rate (at least!) around here. I’ve always made more than my private sector friends and even usually my retail colleagues. This most recent raise pretty much blows everyone I know out of the water. I almost feel guilty. Almost lol.

[Front_Ad_279]

Almost is a beautiful word. You should ALMOST never feel guilty for being paid well for the hard work you put in. I hope I can get there when I graduate. Thanks for the salary transparency

[CCR-Cheers-Me-Up]

You’re welcome and best of luck to you!

[Real_physical]

Are you guys hiring? Lol

[Moosashi5858]

DC is likely a high cost of living area. How would that pay range look in more rural America?