MT/MLT job demand & salaries

Question

I am beginning a Medical lab technician program in the fall (2 yr. degree) and am wondering if any of you could help me get a better idea of a good career ladder, and realistic job growth/demand in this field. i do plan to continue on and get a bachelors to become a medical technologist, and i also think i would enjoy cytotech or even histotech as well.

i would be very grateful if any of you have experience with this and could mentor me a little.

thanks so much!!

Answer 1

this is the ladder:

you get a job as a technician

you work for 5 or 10 years.

you build your salary from mid 40K to possibly mid 60K over that time frame.

you then make it your goal to get a job in management.

this is why:

the longer you work, the more experience you obtain, and the more money you demand due to your experience.

at a certain point, however, the company reaches diminishing returns with your labor, and fires you and hires a fresh graduate for 20K less than what you were paid.

the only way to avoid the inevitable layoff is to get out of the lab work, and get into management where you develop skills that cannot be taught in the classroom.  in management you also control, to an extent, who gets hired and who gets fired, so you have much more control over your job security.

let me also say that low level technicians rarely ever break 60K.

you would, essentially, have to be "lucky" to break that salary barrier.  big companies are NOT going to be the places where you get lucky.  small biotech startups are really the best bet if you want to increase your salary with an AA

one more piece of advice:

if you want to make money with a bachelors in a science, there is really only one possibility:

engineering.

engineers can make 80-100k right out of undergraduate if they are "pimps" (great letters of rec from recognized engineers or companies, excellent grades, and overall impressive personalities and skills)

the AVERAGE highest paid degree right out of college is chemical engineering.  I believe the average salary is 55k, although that was a few years ago, and so it is probably much lower right now.

finally this:

a masters degree is a complete waste of time for a scientist.

if you want an advanced degree get a phd, otherwise dont waste your time, because the extra year of work versus year of school will net you the same amount of money that an MS would get you.