The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Thanks for the extra info. I'm coming in with a Bachelors but on the DP scale. I think they've started me at around GS7 Step10 (or the equivalent GS9 Step 3).

You basically have no negotiating room unless you have an offer (or paystub) from other companies. The DoD uses a lookup table to determine your starting paygrade based upon very specific guidance. Typically that means that a bachelor's with no experience is getting GS-7, a master's is getting GS-9, and a PhD is getting GS-11 (GS-12 sometimes depending on the organization). Most organizations I saw used an automatic progression to GS-12. So after 1 year as a GS-7 you got GS-9. Then after 1 more year at GS-9 you got your GS-11 up to GS-12.

In some rare cases people have claimed to have received a GS-13 (or equivalent pay-band rating). I have never seen this and people in my organization and neighboring organizations are constantly looking for GS-13 positions.

If you are going to a pay-band organization, then you might think this doesn't apply to you. Well I would specifically ask my organization at what point the pay banding starts. If you are a bachelors they may put you in the 7-9-11 ladder and transition you into the payband after that. Also you will have to have some serious justification to have yourself placed anywhere other than the bottom of the payband (like a competing offer or historical pay). Items such as research, publications, patents typically don't count (I don't know why). They are typically looking at years in specific types of positions and/or responsibilities.

Before you accept your offer go look at the pay scale and ask yourself if you are comfortable with that. You will most likely be stuck with it. GS-7 pay (step 1) is approximately $35K/year (locality increases it by 10-20%). [url]https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/17Tables/html/GS.aspx[/url]
While GS-12 pay (step 1) is approximately $62k (without locality).

Thanks for the replies. Will try to keep this updated over the next month and see what happens. Honestly can't be arsed to go through and interview with private companies if I know I'm not going to be taking a job with them. That seems like something destined to backfire on me.

Salary will be pretty non-negotiable because (government, GS pay scale, laziness, you're already stuck, take your pick).

You may be able to argue that you have previous experience to justify a step increase, but it's not going to be a huge difference. This can be presented as correctly classifying you vs. negotiating a salary increase.

They won't be able to give a signing bonus, but a moving allowance is possible. I think mine was $7k. My manager pretty much said that it how he creates signing bonuses. If you're coming from undergrad, that's pretty reasonable for an engineering job.

Leave, insurance, and signing bonuses are not negotiable... You select your own insurance that is already subsidised somewhat through the government. To my knowledge, there are no signing bonuses either. In the private sector, sure. And leave is dependent on how many years of government work you have in, typically.

Usually, only the salary is negotiable, but even then, very few people on this forum report being able to negotiate. I changed facilities and got nearly double the salary in a place with similar cost of living, just different pay systems.

Interview with private companies and get competing offers. Try to get them to match your other offers.

Just got my offer a few days ago from my SF, and all it included was my salary and associated pay band, and the position I would be filling. My SF and point of contact within SMART mentioned that there was a negotiation process at this point, but I'm confused as to how this works. (This may also be compounded by the fact that this is the first time I've been able to negotiate a job offer at all).

Mainly, I'm wondering how a negotiation process is possible if both parties have already "agreed" to me getting hired. I have no leverage to say "I have X years experience and think that qualifies a Y% salary increase" because I've already committed to being hired.

Any general tips on negotiating within a government pay band would also be helpful. What sorts of things are flexible, what sorts of things aren't (salary, leave, insurance, signing bonus if that's even a thing outside of private companies, etc)?