Possibly converting from intern to full time. When / if to ask about pay?

Question

My internship ends beginning of June and my boss John has put in the request to move me from an intern to a full time position yesterday. John's boss, bob, has emailed me mentioning that in two weeks he will likely have an answer from upper management on whether or not the hire request is approved. Bob requested I setup a meeting with him to discuss any questions I may have, either now or after the two weeks.

After looking around, I understand it is generally a good idea to negotiate pay, even when moving from an intern to full time position. So I'm wondering how to proceed. Given that I intend to ask about pay:

• When should I set the meeting? (before or after the two weeks)
• How should I bring it up?
• If accepted, I expect some of sort response like: "You're an intern new to the profession so we'll start you $35/hr and based on your performance will proceed from there." Should I accept this since I am new (and this is my first real job) or should I push for the median $43.5/hr?

Additional Context:

• I am a college student graduating in June and this would be my first real job

• The position title is IT Class C (there are 3 tiers, A, B, and C)

• Based on 2018 wage data, the going rate for IT Class C is $35 - $52 per hour. I assume these figures are true because the position is for government and all wage data is required to be made public. I looked up the values for IT Class C positions in the data table on the government website.

• I currently do NOT have other offers to use as leverage, but I am still actively looking around / attending career fairs.

Answer 1

When should I set the meeting? (before or after the two weeks)

After two weeks since you would know if you are being hired as an employee or not.

How should I bring it up?

When you will sign the new contract terms it will have the details of compensation. Most probably they will ask you about your expectations before making the contract.

I expect some of sort response like: "You're an intern new to the profession so we'll start you $35/hr and based on your performance will proceed from there." Should I accept this since I am new (and this is my first real job) or should I push for the median $43.5/hr?

This is totally dependent on your ability to sell your skills, demand/supply, company's budget etc. I think you should ask for median wage since they offered to hire you after interning there for some time so they know you will be a valuable asset to the company.

Answer 2

Not sure what country this refers to, but I’d suggest that for the moment, you consider the job offer in light of alternatives, but not to go in with a baseline expectation based on any median. At the moment, the question that would need to be answered would be what rationale would there be to be paying out above the low end of the range and without experience, unless there are other factors, there’s nothing obvious.