$10k sign on with a 2 year clawback, or $4/hr more with no bonus?

The question

1. EAEmerson asking about payRN, 11 months in, med surg

   Run the arithmetic before the feelings. Four dollars an hour at 36 hours a week is about $7,500 a year, and it repeats every year you stay. The $10,000 happens once, gets withheld at the flat supplemental rate, and lands closer to seven than to ten in your account. On raw pay, Offer B passes Offer A somewhere in year two and never looks back. One thing to check first: ask what Offer A pays with the night differential added, because part of that $4 gap may be nights versus days rather than a real raise.

2. Nursing Mastery

   Three lines decide whether a sign on is worth anything. The payout schedule: a lump at 90 days is very different from an amount split across 24 months. The trigger list: resigning and being terminated are standard, dropping below full time status is the one that surprises people. The proration: leaving at month 18 of 24 should leave you owing a quarter, and if it does not, that is most of your answer. Then ask whether you repay the gross or the net, because plenty of contracts claw back the full gross even though you only ever received the after tax version.

3. CPCasey packing for travelRN, 2 years, first travel contract starts in 5 weeks

   I broke mine at 22 months, two months short of the finish line, and paid back the last slice without regret. Proration is what made that cheap, so get the proration language in writing before you look at anything else. If you are counting toward 14 months to travel eligible, the two year lock is the expensive part of that offer and the $10,000 is the cheap part. Price the exit before you sign, and then the exit is a decision instead of a trap.

4. MNMaya on nightsRN, 9 months in, PCU

   Unpopular in this thread, but I took the bonus offer and I would take it again. The money was not the reason. The bonus place gave me 14 weeks with one preceptor, and the other one was 5:1 on nights with six weeks of orientation. A ratio is every single shift for as long as you are there, so make Offer A tell you its ratio and its orientation before you let $4 an hour decide. If Offer A comes back 4:1 with a real residency, the lock is the point and the bonus is the rounding error.

5. QMQuinn moving statesRN, 1 year, moving states next month

   Ask what happens if you move. Mine had no relocation exception, so a spouse job in another state would have triggered the full repayment, compact license or not. Get every trigger in writing, not in a recruiter's summary of it. The one I read too late was the clause about dropping below 0.9 FTE, which a coworker hit by going part time after her baby.

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