March 6, 2024 • 21 mins
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In this episode, we lift the veil on public health salaries and discover how transparency in salary discussions can pave the way for more informed career decisions in public health.
Sujani walks us through her own career, from initial salary to current earnings, and discusses starting income ranges of other public health professionals collected from a LinkedIn post and how factors like sector, region, and experience play pivotal roles in shaping your earning potential. Sujani also guides you through a range of resources, from government pages to platforms like PayScale and Glassdoor, offering a realistic perspective on what new grads and seasoned professionals alike can anticipate in terms of compensation. By encouraging transparency, we aim to empower our community with the knowledge needed to make empowered career choices.
Featured on the Show:
- Learn more about Canada's EC agreement
- Learn more about public health salary ranges on PayScale and Glassdoor
- Listen to the previous episode on consulting and entrepreneurship
- Schedule a mentorship call with Sujani
Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.
Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to PH Spotlight, a community for you
to build your public healthcareer with.
Join us weekly right here, andI'll be here too.
Your host, sujani Siva from PHSpot.
Hey, welcome back to anotherepisode here on the PH Spot
Podcast.
(00:22):
This is Sujani, and today wehave a episode which is me.
It's one of those solo episodeswhere I bring you either career
advice, some tips, somereflections, and there won't be
a guest, it will just be me, andthe topic that we're going to
explore today is one that isquite popular, I think,
(00:45):
regardless of the industry orfield you're in.
When we think about careers andjobs and work, it's a question
that comes up a lot, right?
And that question is how muchcan I get paid and specifically,
how much can I get paid inpublic health?
And everyone asks this questionat some point in their careers,
(01:10):
and I don't think you only askthe question once.
I think you ask this questionto yourself, maybe on Google,
maybe you ask other people, butit's a question that likely
comes up at multiple points inyour career, right?
But I bet that if you're earlyin your career, it is a question
(01:34):
that probably comes up a lotfor you, and if you are someone
who's been asking other peoplethis question.
Good for you.
I think it's a topic that wedon't bring up enough and the
resources.
If you dig around and do someresearch on the internet, you
(01:54):
will be able to find answers.
But I think if we can maketalking about earning potential
how much one can earn a normalpart of our conversations, I
think it would be quite nice.
I think it will allow you toplan the future of your career a
little bit better.
It will allow you to make moreinformed choices.
(02:19):
For me, I think I've tried tobring up this topic wherever I
can.
One of the first times I thinkI brought it up was probably
through a blog post.
Somebody had contributed a postaround this topic and then,
kind of, the next time I hadbrought it up was on my LinkedIn
page and I'll be sure to sharethat link so that you can go and
(02:44):
read it for yourself.
And actually this episode isinspired by that post that I
made and the contributions ofpeople on LinkedIn who are part
of my community that also addedsome of their experiences and
their salaries when they firststarted off in public health.
And so I'm going to start off byanswering this question with an
(03:10):
answer that you probably won'tlove, which is it depends and I
know nobody loves that answer.
You know when you're reallyreally looking for an answer,
especially for a question likethis, where you're asking
somebody like, hey, how much canI get paid in public health?
And if that answer ends upbeing, ah, you know, it really
depends.
We don't, we don't love that,but I won't spend too much time
(03:33):
on why it depends.
I will give you some numbersthat to work with.
But it's, it's really the truth, because you do have to think
about.
Even with a public healthdegree or background, you do
have to think about what sectoryou want to work in.
The region is also going tomatter here, and the level of
experience that you have is alsogoing to play a role in the
(03:57):
amount that you get paid fordoing public health work.
So, in short, the answer tothis question is going to vary,
and we are a global platform, soPHSpot serves a global
community.
I'm going to focus my answer onNorth America because that's
(04:18):
where I'm based and it's also Iknow it a little bit more.
I'm in Canada and a lot of thecontributions I got when I asked
this question on LinkedIn werealso from individuals in North
America.
But if you're listening andyou're from another part of the
world and you want to contribute, kind of your salary dollar
(04:41):
numbers, I'll put the link tothat LinkedIn post and I really
want you to go and engage inthat post and share your
experience, because I think whenwe can do that, we can equip
each other with you know, all ofthe right facts and points to
make decisions in our career.
So what I'm going to do firstis talk about my experience and
(05:03):
then I will also talk about theexperience of a few community
members who had contributed tothis question, and then I will
also point you to some resourcesso that you can go and do your
own research.
Okay, so when it comes to me,my first job out of grad school
out of grad school, so at thispoint I have cumulative of about
(05:27):
two plus years of public healthexperience through various
research assistant jobs I didwhile I was pursuing my master's
program, and then someexperience I had gained during
my undergraduate time and somevolunteer work I had done, where
I did some research and didsome, you know, developing of
databases or worked with somedata.
(05:50):
So out of grad school, I had twoyears of experience but they
weren't two years at a singleorganization, a single role, and
so I had an undergraduatedegree and I had a master's of
public health degree, and therole that I was hired in for was
called data officer, butessentially it was an outbreak
epidemiologist role, and thiswas in 2013.
(06:14):
So this episode is going out in2024, the beginning of 2024.
And so that is about 11 yearsago, and 11 years ago my
starting salary in this role was$64,505 Canadian dollars.
It was a permanent position andit did have benefits.
(06:34):
The job was in Canada, about anhour away from Toronto, and it
was with the federal government,and I had some of the right
skills that they were lookingfor, especially managing and
developing databases, so thatwas key.
And then I also mentioned someof the additional kind of skills
and knowledge that I had gainedfrom coursework and, as I
(06:58):
mentioned earlier, I had no fulltime work experience at this
point.
So this was quote unquote myfirst big kid job, and so I
earned $64,505 in 2013 right outof grad school, and now, about
11 years later, still with thefederal government, my salary is
(07:19):
hovering just around $130,000Canadian, and still full time
permanent role with benefits.
So next what I'm going to do isshare the salaries of other
individuals who had contributedin this post that I had made on
LinkedIn and I try to ordertheir responses kind of
(07:43):
chronologically.
But there is a point I want tomake comparing my starting
salary in 2013 to what it is nowkind of in that similar role,
and I'll do that towards the endbecause I want to go
chronologically.
So one of the posts theindividual shared that her first
job post MPH that was in 2017.
(08:04):
And it was as an evaluationspecialist at a small digital
health organization and herstarting pay was about 73,000
Canadian dollars.
It was a contract position.
She didn't have any benefitsand there were no paid vacations
, so essentially, if she took avacation it would be unpaid.
She did note that this digitalhealth organization she worked
(08:30):
for was fantastic.
The work environment was great,she felt like it was fair pay
and she added that you knowshe's found generally that when
she has gotten contract position, the pay was a little bit more
and maybe it's because you knowthere's the lack of benefits and
security and that this rolethat she got paid 73,000 dollars
(08:55):
right out of grad school thatit was more of a traditional
health care sector job ratherthan specifically within the
field of public health, whichwould also affect kind of the
salary expectations.
The next individual shared thatthey had another like it's
another government job thatwe're going to talk about but
(09:16):
theirs was at the provinciallevel in Alberta in Canada and
they reported a starting pay of70,500 and that was in 2018.
And they also noted that theirfirst job post bachelor's degree
was in 2012 with the healthresearch nonprofit organization
(09:40):
and their pay at kind of like afull-time role was about 43,000
dollars.
Another individual shared thatshe graduated with her MPH in
May of 2021 and it took herabout six months to find a role,
and when she did as a dataanalyst, her pay was about
70,000 USD so now we're talkingabout US dollars.
(10:04):
And then when she moved intoher second role, still as a data
analyst, her starting salarywas 80,000 USD.
And then we had two additionalcontributions and I don't have
dates for these so it's hard tokind of compare.
But another individual mentionedthat they worked for their
(10:27):
city's health department as anepidemiologist and they took
home about 50,000 dollars I amnot sure if that was Canadian
dollars or USD and anotherindividual mentioned that their
first job post MPH was as acasual employee, so it was
temporary, no benefits, and thatwas with the federal government
in Canada and that was at about55,000 dollars.
(10:51):
And then later, because she hadprevious student experience and
they were able to bridge herinto a higher level and pay her
a starting salary of $70,000 andthat was a permanent job with
benefits.
And so here's the piece that Iwanted to share was that you
(11:12):
know, roughly when we look atthis, you can earn anywhere
between 50 to 70 thousanddollars when you're a recent
grad.
And the last bit of informationthat the individual shared,
where they got bridged in frombeing that casual employee into
(11:33):
a full-time role and they wereearning about 70 thousand
dollars, that is essentially thesame kind of categorization of
that role at the federal levelthat I was in.
So I had taken on that entrylevel job at that level and
(11:55):
typically it's classified undereconomics and social science
services EC is the code and outof grad school you would
typically join at the EC3 or EC4level depending on the role.
And this information is allavailable online and I will
share that.
And so if we look at that theindividual you know, whose
(12:18):
salary information I shared atthe end, they had mentioned that
their starting was 70 thousanddollars and, if you recall, I
had shared my salary info andthat was at about 64 thousand
dollars for that same role, andso when I go to this table that
they have posted online and I'llshare the link in the show
(12:38):
notes page, the rate of pay asof 2023 is 74 thousand dollars
for the EC3 and 80 thousanddollars, starting for the EC4,
which has gone up since I was anEC4.
So 11 years ago, the startingpay was about 64 thousand
(13:00):
dollars and that same positionnow starts at 80 thousand
dollars, which I think is reallygreat to see that that increase
is happening.
So that's the piece I wanted tomention, because the year in
which these individuals, youknow, landed that job and the
salary information that I'msharing with you, it's important
(13:21):
to keep in mind the year aswell.
Okay, additionally, anotherpiece of information I want to
talk about when it comes tosalary is self-employment.
It may not be something that isobvious, I think, in the public
health world, I personally loveto talk about entrepreneurship
and self-employment when itcomes to public health
(13:42):
professionals and, in 2021, agroup of public health
consultants, ones who I'mfriends with, whose episode
actually aired a couple ofepisodes ago, so I hope you
listen to that.
They set out to understand thisgroup of self-employed
entrepreneurs a bit better, andpart of that research they did
(14:04):
was to understand how much theymade, and so they collected data
from about 120 public healthconsultants based in the US, and
they found that their netincome so this is what they took
home after the expenses theyhad to pay was about 80,000 USD
when they were doing itfull-time, and for anybody who
(14:25):
was doing it part-time, theywere earning.
28,000 dollars is their netincome.
Majority of them charged anhourly price structure, and it
averaged at around 120 dollarsan hour USD.
So I think that's incredibleright to be able to earn 80,000
dollars working for yourself,have maximum flexibility in
(14:49):
terms of your schedule and time,and then even the the part-time
dollar amount I think is veryinteresting, because you can
have a full-time job, say, ataround 80,000 dollars, 70,000
dollars and you can essentiallysupplement it by being a
part-time entrepreneur withroughly 30,000 dollars more net
(15:11):
income.
So that's what you're takinghome after the expenses.
So I hope you will considerthat as an option, right,
whether you want to go intoself-employment full-time
eventually, or even consider itpart-time.
It's definitely worth exploring.
Inside the Public Health CareerClub, we have a number of
(15:32):
individuals who are exploringconsulting or entrepreneurship,
and I hold office hours in therefor anybody who's just wanting
to get their idea off the groundwe call them mentor hours for
side hustles, and so if you'reever looking for a community
where you want to either meetother people who are doing this
(15:54):
type of work or just want to askquestions in that safe
community, definitely considerjoining us.
So, to summarize, as a new grad, it looks like you can earn
somewhere between 50 to 70, even$80,000 when you're graduating,
and it's kind of that first jobthat you have, with some maybe
(16:17):
part-time, casual experiencethat you could show when you're
entering kind of this role.
I encourage you now to not onlytake this episode or the
LinkedIn post that I'm going toshare the link to as your single
piece of information, butrather to do a bit more research
yourself, and I'm going to helpwith that and point you to a
(16:40):
few different resources, and ifyou have found any other
resources that could be helpful,definitely do share them with
us and then I could update ourshow notes page.
So the first and most obviousplace to start are job postings,
right.
So organizations are definitelygetting better with pay
transparency and many arestarting to disclose the pay in
(17:00):
their job postings.
Additionally, governmentagencies are required to have
pay information listed.
So these are all great placesto look.
Whether it's your federal,provincial, territorial or local
government career pages, you'lldefinitely find some sort of
information to help youunderstand pay in that kind of
(17:20):
area of work.
You can use these along withthe organization's website.
So you know, sometimes you lookat a job posting and it might
say pay scale at level three andthey may not list out the
actual dollar amount.
So you're going to have to dosome digging around on the
government websites and fill insome of the gaps yourself.
(17:43):
So for the federal Canadiangovernment, for example, it's
the Treasury Board Secretariatthat would post the salary
information, and I'll includethat link in our show notes page
.
And, like I mentioned, right.
So the rate of pay for a newgrad 11 years ago was
essentially $10,000 to $15,000less than it is now.
(18:06):
So the Canadian federalgovernment does a good job to
even show you historicalsalaries, so it gives you a
sense of how things have changed.
Similarly, I encourage you tocheck out your government pages
Rates of Pay, whether that's inCanada or another country.
I'm sure there will be lots ofgood information there, in
(18:28):
addition to, obviously, the jobpostings, and we send out weekly
newsletters which you can signup for at phspotorg slash.
Sign up and we send out jobopportunities every week and we
do a really good job to findopportunities with salary
information and include that inour email every week.
(18:51):
So the next place I will sendyou to our public directories
and repositories.
It's not the best, I think,when it comes to public health
database, but there are twowell-known crowdsourced
databases for salary.
There are options to search byjob titles or organization or
(19:11):
company.
Like I said, the availabilityof information on public health
salaries is not plenty, but Ithink it's a good start and the
two places for you to start arepay scale and glass door.
So check those publicdirectories out.
It's essentially a place wherepeople come and post their
salary information and often youhave to either make an account
(19:33):
to see the information or youhave to contribute your salary
info so that you can get theaccess to the entire database.
So just play around with thosetwo directories and maybe there
are others as well.
And then, finally, I thinkthings like this right, talking
about it is where you're goingto find information, so make it
a norm to share salaryinformation.
(19:54):
Yeah, it's uncomfortable, justlike I did today.
I was debating should I besharing my info, but you know,
part of me was like why gatekeep this kind of information,
which is really publicinformation?
So, with that thought in mind,I kicked off that LinkedIn
thread that I keep referring toto get people to share their
salary information, and peopledid, which was amazing.
(20:17):
It became the inspiration forthis episode and I really hope
it inspires you and more peopleto talk amongst themselves,
right, whether that's casually,to be like hey, I just got a job
and I get paid this much, or ina more systematic way and
through different projects andon LinkedIn and conversations,
(20:41):
whatever it is, I really hopethat we can start having more
conversations around pay andearning potential in public
health.
So if you would like tocontribute to this thread,
please go find the link in theshow notes page and tell me how
much you make in your publichealth job and share that with
our community.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and found it to be super
(21:05):
valuable.
I know I was desperate for thisinformation when I first
started off.
I really didn't know what toexpect or how to even handle pay
coming out of grad school.
So you know, I'm just reallygrateful that I'm in a place
right now, grateful for thecommunity to have contributed
information and theirexperiences so that I could
(21:28):
create this episode and shareall of this information with you
.
So until next time, this isSujani, and thank you so much
for being a part of thiscommunity.
Welcome to PH Spotlight, a community for you
to build your public healthcareer with.
Join us weekly right here, andI'll be here too.
Your host, sujani Siva from PHSpot.
Hey, welcome back to anotherepisode here on the PH Spot
Podcast.
(00:22):
This is Sujani, and today wehave a episode which is me.
It's one of those solo episodeswhere I bring you either career
advice, some tips, somereflections, and there won't be
a guest, it will just be me, andthe topic that we're going to
explore today is one that isquite popular, I think,
(00:45):
regardless of the industry orfield you're in.
When we think about careers andjobs and work, it's a question
that comes up a lot, right?
And that question is how muchcan I get paid and specifically,
how much can I get paid inpublic health?
And everyone asks this questionat some point in their careers,
(01:10):
and I don't think you only askthe question once.
I think you ask this questionto yourself, maybe on Google,
maybe you ask other people, butit's a question that likely
comes up at multiple points inyour career, right?
But I bet that if you're earlyin your career, it is a question
(01:34):
that probably comes up a lotfor you, and if you are someone
who's been asking other peoplethis question.
Good for you.
I think it's a topic that wedon't bring up enough and the
resources.
If you dig around and do someresearch on the internet, you
(01:54):
will be able to find answers.
But I think if we can maketalking about earning potential
how much one can earn a normalpart of our conversations, I
think it would be quite nice.
I think it will allow you toplan the future of your career a
little bit better.
It will allow you to make moreinformed choices.
(02:19):
For me, I think I've tried tobring up this topic wherever I
can.
One of the first times I thinkI brought it up was probably
through a blog post.
Somebody had contributed a postaround this topic and then,
kind of, the next time I hadbrought it up was on my LinkedIn
page and I'll be sure to sharethat link so that you can go and
(02:44):
read it for yourself.
And actually this episode isinspired by that post that I
made and the contributions ofpeople on LinkedIn who are part
of my community that also addedsome of their experiences and
their salaries when they firststarted off in public health.
And so I'm going to start off byanswering this question with an
(03:10):
answer that you probably won'tlove, which is it depends and I
know nobody loves that answer.
You know when you're reallyreally looking for an answer,
especially for a question likethis, where you're asking
somebody like, hey, how much canI get paid in public health?
And if that answer ends upbeing, ah, you know, it really
depends.
We don't, we don't love that,but I won't spend too much time
(03:33):
on why it depends.
I will give you some numbersthat to work with.
But it's, it's really the truth, because you do have to think
about.
Even with a public healthdegree or background, you do
have to think about what sectoryou want to work in.
The region is also going tomatter here, and the level of
experience that you have is alsogoing to play a role in the
(03:57):
amount that you get paid fordoing public health work.
So, in short, the answer tothis question is going to vary,
and we are a global platform, soPHSpot serves a global
community.
I'm going to focus my answer onNorth America because that's
(04:18):
where I'm based and it's also Iknow it a little bit more.
I'm in Canada and a lot of thecontributions I got when I asked
this question on LinkedIn werealso from individuals in North
America.
But if you're listening andyou're from another part of the
world and you want to contribute, kind of your salary dollar
(04:41):
numbers, I'll put the link tothat LinkedIn post and I really
want you to go and engage inthat post and share your
experience, because I think whenwe can do that, we can equip
each other with you know, all ofthe right facts and points to
make decisions in our career.
So what I'm going to do firstis talk about my experience and
(05:03):
then I will also talk about theexperience of a few community
members who had contributed tothis question, and then I will
also point you to some resourcesso that you can go and do your
own research.
Okay, so when it comes to me,my first job out of grad school
out of grad school, so at thispoint I have cumulative of about
(05:27):
two plus years of public healthexperience through various
research assistant jobs I didwhile I was pursuing my master's
program, and then someexperience I had gained during
my undergraduate time and somevolunteer work I had done, where
I did some research and didsome, you know, developing of
databases or worked with somedata.
(05:50):
So out of grad school, I had twoyears of experience but they
weren't two years at a singleorganization, a single role, and
so I had an undergraduatedegree and I had a master's of
public health degree, and therole that I was hired in for was
called data officer, butessentially it was an outbreak
epidemiologist role, and thiswas in 2013.
(06:14):
So this episode is going out in2024, the beginning of 2024.
And so that is about 11 yearsago, and 11 years ago my
starting salary in this role was$64,505 Canadian dollars.
It was a permanent position andit did have benefits.
(06:34):
The job was in Canada, about anhour away from Toronto, and it
was with the federal government,and I had some of the right
skills that they were lookingfor, especially managing and
developing databases, so thatwas key.
And then I also mentioned someof the additional kind of skills
and knowledge that I had gainedfrom coursework and, as I
(06:58):
mentioned earlier, I had no fulltime work experience at this
point.
So this was quote unquote myfirst big kid job, and so I
earned $64,505 in 2013 right outof grad school, and now, about
11 years later, still with thefederal government, my salary is
(07:19):
hovering just around $130,000Canadian, and still full time
permanent role with benefits.
So next what I'm going to do isshare the salaries of other
individuals who had contributedin this post that I had made on
LinkedIn and I try to ordertheir responses kind of
(07:43):
chronologically.
But there is a point I want tomake comparing my starting
salary in 2013 to what it is nowkind of in that similar role,
and I'll do that towards the endbecause I want to go
chronologically.
So one of the posts theindividual shared that her first
job post MPH that was in 2017.
(08:04):
And it was as an evaluationspecialist at a small digital
health organization and herstarting pay was about 73,000
Canadian dollars.
It was a contract position.
She didn't have any benefitsand there were no paid vacations
, so essentially, if she took avacation it would be unpaid.
She did note that this digitalhealth organization she worked
(08:30):
for was fantastic.
The work environment was great,she felt like it was fair pay
and she added that you knowshe's found generally that when
she has gotten contract position, the pay was a little bit more
and maybe it's because you knowthere's the lack of benefits and
security and that this rolethat she got paid 73,000 dollars
(08:55):
right out of grad school thatit was more of a traditional
health care sector job ratherthan specifically within the
field of public health, whichwould also affect kind of the
salary expectations.
The next individual shared thatthey had another like it's
another government job thatwe're going to talk about but
(09:16):
theirs was at the provinciallevel in Alberta in Canada and
they reported a starting pay of70,500 and that was in 2018.
And they also noted that theirfirst job post bachelor's degree
was in 2012 with the healthresearch nonprofit organization
(09:40):
and their pay at kind of like afull-time role was about 43,000
dollars.
Another individual shared thatshe graduated with her MPH in
May of 2021 and it took herabout six months to find a role,
and when she did as a dataanalyst, her pay was about
70,000 USD so now we're talkingabout US dollars.
(10:04):
And then when she moved intoher second role, still as a data
analyst, her starting salarywas 80,000 USD.
And then we had two additionalcontributions and I don't have
dates for these so it's hard tokind of compare.
But another individual mentionedthat they worked for their
(10:27):
city's health department as anepidemiologist and they took
home about 50,000 dollars I amnot sure if that was Canadian
dollars or USD and anotherindividual mentioned that their
first job post MPH was as acasual employee, so it was
temporary, no benefits, and thatwas with the federal government
in Canada and that was at about55,000 dollars.
(10:51):
And then later, because she hadprevious student experience and
they were able to bridge herinto a higher level and pay her
a starting salary of $70,000 andthat was a permanent job with
benefits.
And so here's the piece that Iwanted to share was that you
(11:12):
know, roughly when we look atthis, you can earn anywhere
between 50 to 70 thousanddollars when you're a recent
grad.
And the last bit of informationthat the individual shared,
where they got bridged in frombeing that casual employee into
(11:33):
a full-time role and they wereearning about 70 thousand
dollars, that is essentially thesame kind of categorization of
that role at the federal levelthat I was in.
So I had taken on that entrylevel job at that level and
(11:55):
typically it's classified undereconomics and social science
services EC is the code and outof grad school you would
typically join at the EC3 or EC4level depending on the role.
And this information is allavailable online and I will
share that.
And so if we look at that theindividual you know, whose
(12:18):
salary information I shared atthe end, they had mentioned that
their starting was 70 thousanddollars and, if you recall, I
had shared my salary info andthat was at about 64 thousand
dollars for that same role, andso when I go to this table that
they have posted online and I'llshare the link in the show
(12:38):
notes page, the rate of pay asof 2023 is 74 thousand dollars
for the EC3 and 80 thousanddollars, starting for the EC4,
which has gone up since I was anEC4.
So 11 years ago, the startingpay was about 64 thousand
(13:00):
dollars and that same positionnow starts at 80 thousand
dollars, which I think is reallygreat to see that that increase
is happening.
So that's the piece I wanted tomention, because the year in
which these individuals, youknow, landed that job and the
salary information that I'msharing with you, it's important
(13:21):
to keep in mind the year aswell.
Okay, additionally, anotherpiece of information I want to
talk about when it comes tosalary is self-employment.
It may not be something that isobvious, I think, in the public
health world, I personally loveto talk about entrepreneurship
and self-employment when itcomes to public health
(13:42):
professionals and, in 2021, agroup of public health
consultants, ones who I'mfriends with, whose episode
actually aired a couple ofepisodes ago, so I hope you
listen to that.
They set out to understand thisgroup of self-employed
entrepreneurs a bit better, andpart of that research they did
(14:04):
was to understand how much theymade, and so they collected data
from about 120 public healthconsultants based in the US, and
they found that their netincome so this is what they took
home after the expenses theyhad to pay was about 80,000 USD
when they were doing itfull-time, and for anybody who
(14:25):
was doing it part-time, theywere earning.
28,000 dollars is their netincome.
Majority of them charged anhourly price structure, and it
averaged at around 120 dollarsan hour USD.
So I think that's incredibleright to be able to earn 80,000
dollars working for yourself,have maximum flexibility in
(14:49):
terms of your schedule and time,and then even the the part-time
dollar amount I think is veryinteresting, because you can
have a full-time job, say, ataround 80,000 dollars, 70,000
dollars and you can essentiallysupplement it by being a
part-time entrepreneur withroughly 30,000 dollars more net
(15:11):
income.
So that's what you're takinghome after the expenses.
So I hope you will considerthat as an option, right,
whether you want to go intoself-employment full-time
eventually, or even consider itpart-time.
It's definitely worth exploring.
Inside the Public Health CareerClub, we have a number of
(15:32):
individuals who are exploringconsulting or entrepreneurship,
and I hold office hours in therefor anybody who's just wanting
to get their idea off the groundwe call them mentor hours for
side hustles, and so if you'reever looking for a community
where you want to either meetother people who are doing this
(15:54):
type of work or just want to askquestions in that safe
community, definitely considerjoining us.
So, to summarize, as a new grad, it looks like you can earn
somewhere between 50 to 70, even$80,000 when you're graduating,
and it's kind of that first jobthat you have, with some maybe
(16:17):
part-time, casual experiencethat you could show when you're
entering kind of this role.
I encourage you now to not onlytake this episode or the
LinkedIn post that I'm going toshare the link to as your single
piece of information, butrather to do a bit more research
yourself, and I'm going to helpwith that and point you to a
(16:40):
few different resources, and ifyou have found any other
resources that could be helpful,definitely do share them with
us and then I could update ourshow notes page.
So the first and most obviousplace to start are job postings,
right.
So organizations are definitelygetting better with pay
transparency and many arestarting to disclose the pay in
(17:00):
their job postings.
Additionally, governmentagencies are required to have
pay information listed.
So these are all great placesto look.
Whether it's your federal,provincial, territorial or local
government career pages, you'lldefinitely find some sort of
information to help youunderstand pay in that kind of
(17:20):
area of work.
You can use these along withthe organization's website.
So you know, sometimes you lookat a job posting and it might
say pay scale at level three andthey may not list out the
actual dollar amount.
So you're going to have to dosome digging around on the
government websites and fill insome of the gaps yourself.
(17:43):
So for the federal Canadiangovernment, for example, it's
the Treasury Board Secretariatthat would post the salary
information, and I'll includethat link in our show notes page
.
And, like I mentioned, right.
So the rate of pay for a newgrad 11 years ago was
essentially $10,000 to $15,000less than it is now.
(18:06):
So the Canadian federalgovernment does a good job to
even show you historicalsalaries, so it gives you a
sense of how things have changed.
Similarly, I encourage you tocheck out your government pages
Rates of Pay, whether that's inCanada or another country.
I'm sure there will be lots ofgood information there, in
(18:28):
addition to, obviously, the jobpostings, and we send out weekly
newsletters which you can signup for at phspotorg slash.
Sign up and we send out jobopportunities every week and we
do a really good job to findopportunities with salary
information and include that inour email every week.
(18:51):
So the next place I will sendyou to our public directories
and repositories.
It's not the best, I think,when it comes to public health
database, but there are twowell-known crowdsourced
databases for salary.
There are options to search byjob titles or organization or
(19:11):
company.
Like I said, the availabilityof information on public health
salaries is not plenty, but Ithink it's a good start and the
two places for you to start arepay scale and glass door.
So check those publicdirectories out.
It's essentially a place wherepeople come and post their
salary information and often youhave to either make an account
(19:33):
to see the information or youhave to contribute your salary
info so that you can get theaccess to the entire database.
So just play around with thosetwo directories and maybe there
are others as well.
And then, finally, I thinkthings like this right, talking
about it is where you're goingto find information, so make it
a norm to share salaryinformation.
(19:54):
Yeah, it's uncomfortable, justlike I did today.
I was debating should I besharing my info, but you know,
part of me was like why gatekeep this kind of information,
which is really publicinformation?
So, with that thought in mind,I kicked off that LinkedIn
thread that I keep referring toto get people to share their
salary information, and peopledid, which was amazing.
(20:17):
It became the inspiration forthis episode and I really hope
it inspires you and more peopleto talk amongst themselves,
right, whether that's casually,to be like hey, I just got a job
and I get paid this much, or ina more systematic way and
through different projects andon LinkedIn and conversations,
(20:41):
whatever it is, I really hopethat we can start having more
conversations around pay andearning potential in public
health.
So if you would like tocontribute to this thread,
please go find the link in theshow notes page and tell me how
much you make in your publichealth job and share that with
our community.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and found it to be super
(21:05):
valuable.
I know I was desperate for thisinformation when I first
started off.
I really didn't know what toexpect or how to even handle pay
coming out of grad school.
So you know, I'm just reallygrateful that I'm in a place
right now, grateful for thecommunity to have contributed
information and theirexperiences so that I could
(21:28):
create this episode and shareall of this information with you
.
So until next time, this isSujani, and thank you so much
for being a part of thiscommunity.
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