Darlene hadn’t expected to get the job offer, which was kind of funny because she had done her best with her resume, cover letter, and interview. Maybe her surprise at the offer was because she had heard that they interviewed several others for the same position. Darlene didn’t even think she’d done that well in her interview. When she got the call with the offer, Darlene was a little taken aback. Fortunately, the person conveying the offer said that they’d follow up with an email and letter for her to consider. Darlene had just enough composure in the telephone call to thank the caller and say that she looked forward to receiving the email and offer. But something told her she wasn’t really looking forward to the offer. Had she applied for the wrong job?
Offers
So, you’ve gained a job offer. Should you take it? An offer is not an acceptance. Offers may assume your acceptance, but you still have a choice. Presumably, if you went through the hiring process far enough to get an offer, you had a strong, earnest, and honest interest in the position. But offers can change the position, compensation, or terms of employment from the job posting to which you applied. And you may have learned something in the application process, including in the interview or even after your interview, that has you rethinking your interest. You may even have gotten another offer in the meantime. This chapter gives you some guidance on how to handle offers and how to decide what to do with them. An offer may relieve you greatly. A bird in hand is worth two birds in the bush. But an offer brings a new set of issues. Prepare to address those new issues.
Advice
You may have your own clear and firm thoughts about what to do with an offer of employment, whether to accept or reject it. You may not need or want advice. Yet pause for a moment before going through with your decision. You may owe others who are important to you the courtesy of consulting them before accepting or rejecting the offer. Those whom you consult may include any mature family member who depends on your employment and helped you through the application process, particularly your spouse but potentially a parent, sibling, or child no longer of tender years. Your objective in consulting them includes not just learning what they think to see how it affects you but also not to shock, disappoint, or alarm them with your decision. Also consult others who do not depend on your employment but whom you involved in the process and might involve again, such as recommenders or references. If instead you haven’t decided, then consult anyone who you think could help, but do so only confidentially and if you can trust their confidence. You don’t need scuttlebut getting around about offers you received and rejected, or your reasons why. Listen carefully to advice, whether or not you follow it. You might learn something that can help you, even if the advice doesn’t change your mind.
Fielding
The first important thing about offers is to field them correctly. Don’t be caught flat footed with an offer. When you complete an interview, your interviewers should tell you how soon to expect their word on the position. If they don’t tell you, you may ask politely, so that they don’t leave you wondering for days afterward. But no matter, as soon as you leave the interview, start preparing to field an offer. Rehearse what you will say when the employer’s representative calls, so that you don’t blunder into an awkward situation. If you know that you are accepting, then you may say you intend to accept but will patiently await their written offer to do so properly. It’s generally acceptable, though, and some employers even prefer, that you respond with a thank you for the offer and your intention to respond after you receive the written offer. In other words, employers don’t generally expect you to jump at the offer, and you generally shouldn’t do so. Instead, express composed gratitude and excitement.
Communicating
Read the written offer of employment, typically presented in a letter attached to an email, carefully. It may refer to employment policies in a handbook that is unavailable to you. But it should at a minimum state the usual material terms sufficient for you to make an informed decision. Those terms include the employment position and title, and the salaried or hourly, full-time or part-time, and exempt or non-exempt status of the job. The offer letter should also state the compensation and benefits. The offer letter should also state whether the position is for a definite term, such as on an annual contract, or for an indefinite term. The letter may also indicate how long the offer remains open or the date and time by which the employer expects your response, including how you should respond, such as by countersigning the letter and returning it by email as an attachment to a specific person at a specific email address. The offer letter may then hint at the process following your acceptance, such as a start date and orientation period. See the example offer letter, also called a letter of retention or retention letter, among the forms at the end of this guide.
Security
The offer letter may also state that you would start as a probationary employee for a certain period such as 90 days, followed by a review and move to regular status if meeting performance expectations. Probationary periods are common in some fields, not in others. The offer letter should also state whether the position offers job security, such as dismissal for good cause only, or is instead an at-will position. American employers generally employ at will, meaning without job security, except in union and executive positions, government positions under civil service protections, and academic positions with tenure protection. Don’t expect job security in a field that doesn’t ordinarily provide it. At-will employment disclaimers typically appear on the job application, in the employee manual or handbook, and in offer letters. See the example employee manual among the forms at the end of this guide.
Gaps
If your offer letter does not include the above material terms, your reply asking for clarification on missing terms may be reasonable. If you cannot make an informed decision because the offer has not communicated terms you need to know to decide, then you have little choice but to ask for those terms. Asking for missing terms is not technically a rejection of an offer, if the terms are material to forming an employment contract, such as compensation. But be careful not to indicate that you are unable or unwilling to accept without more information on additional terms. If your reply constitutes a rejection of the offer and a counteroffer seeking additional terms to gain your agreement, you may lose the opportunity to accept the original offer. The employer may offer the position to someone else, following your rejection. Only ask for clarification if you would reject the offer without it. Otherwise, accept the offer, while asking for clarification of the material term the offer left open. If the clarification causes you to regret your acceptance, then you may withdraw your acceptance as a mistake and misunderstanding of an absent but material term.
Negotiating
If you will not accept the position on the offered terms, then you may be in a position of negotiating for better terms. Some employers welcome or even expect negotiation, while other employers neither expect nor welcome or entertain negotiation. Generally, the more fungible the position and candidate for the position, the less likely the employer will entertain negotiations. Employers who advertise a compensation range when posting the job position may, on the other hand, entertain negotiations over job offers at less than the top of that range. You may, in other words, reply with a request for compensation higher in or at the top of that range, especially if you believe that your credentials deserve the higher end of the range, when compared to the position’s minimum qualifications. Employers posting a position with a compensation range are generally ready, willing, and able to pay at the top of the range, making your request more reasonable. Other terms may be harder or impossible to negotiate.
Counteroffers
Beware making a counteroffer to an offer letter. A counteroffer rejects an offer. Once you reply with a request for greater compensation or other more-favorable terms, you have technically rejected the offer. The employer is not bound to hold the offer open for you, although it may reply declining your counter and renewing its original offer or reply with a counter to your counter. You must judge the employer’s interest in your candidacy, strength of your candidacy, and reasonableness of your counteroffer, often with little to no reliable information. One way to potentially get some information is to speak with the employer’s representative who conveyed the offer or shepherded your application through the hiring process. You might, for instance, speak with that person expressing your question or hesitancy over the offer and asking that person how the employer might feel about a counter on compensation or other terms, without actually making a counter that constitutes a rejection of the offer. You be the judge. Employers may generally withdraw employment offers at any time for any reason or no reason. Don’t accept an offer you’ll regret accepting. But also don’t fool around and lose an offer that you would have preferred accepting. The old saying is don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Every job has good and not-so-good things about it. If you get an offer good enough to accept, you might be better off doing so than trying to marginally improve your position and losing the job.
Compensation
Compensation can indeed be the make-or-break term in an employment offer. Have reasonable compensation expectations, as far as you are able. Employers generally pay compensation within a labor market set by other employers and employees in the same field and region. Employers generally have little or no reason to pay compensation well outside the labor market’s bounds and may instead owe fiduciary duties to keep compensation reasonable. Employers also have their own compensation structure they must respect, to avoid inequities and internal strife and morale issues. You can generally learn the average and median compensation and compensation ranges in your field, role, and region from government labor statistics or professional or trade associations. Gaining confidential compensation information from private employers is much more difficult and sensitive, although state laws generally prohibit employers from preventing their employees from disclosing their own compensation. In that respect, compensation is not necessarily confidential, just difficult to compare within specific employers. Get what public information you can without violating confidences, so that you can make an informed decision on whether the employer made you a reasonable compensation offer.
Terms
You may have other, more-important employment terms you wish to negotiate, such as remote work, vacation time, personal or sick-leave days, job schedules, expense reimbursement, or other particulars. Only negotiate terms in advance of your acceptance of the job offer that would affect your decision to accept the offer. Don’t negotiate over immaterial terms and risk losing the offer. Instead, accept the offer, and then negotiate over those immaterial but helpful terms with your supervisor, manager, or human-resource department. You may or may not find them accommodating, but at least you’ll have a job. Credentialing, though, is one potential term to clarify before reaching agreement on the job offer. You and your prospective employer should both know if you have or need to acquire a state or local license, certification, or permit to begin in the role the employer offered you. Be sure you and your employer know and agree on the delay acquiring that credential may cause and who bears the credential’s cost, if significant.
Deciding
Deciding whether to accept a job offer can involve so many variables, and such sensitive weighting of variables, that your decision can look and feel intuitive and subjective. Do your best to consider factors objectively, but respect the complexity of the decision and sensitivity of your judgment. In other words, you may not feel great, or at least clear and confident, either way about your decision. Do the best you can for yourself, your family, and your commitments. Things can change quickly once you begin employment, often clarifying questions, accommodating interests, and improving circumstances and even job conditions and terms. Accepting a job offer is only a start to, you hope, a long and rewarding relationship. Treat it as such, and move forward with confidence. If instead it turns out that you’re working for a stingy employer who won’t budge on minor things that could improve your situation without significantly affecting the employer’s operations or bottom line, at least you have a job and can look for a better job while employed.
Accepting
Follow the employer’s instructions to accept the offer of employment. As indicated above, those instructions will likely be to sign and return the offer letter by email to a specific person within the stated time for responding. If the employer does not say how or by when to respond with your acceptance, then respond to the person who conveyed the written offer by the same written means (email, letter, or both), accepting the offer. Beware, though, that an attempt to accept that instead proposes different or additional material terms is not an acceptance. Conditional acceptances, like I’ll accept if this or that occurs, are not acceptances. They are instead counteroffers. If you desire and intend to accept, then do so as soon as you have reached that decision. Do not wait out a given response period just in case you change your mind, if you know that you won’t do so. The employer may rescind the offer at any time. And save the quibbling, negotiating, or filling in of non-material terms for after the acceptance.
Rejecting
If instead you intend to reject the offer, do so as soon as you have firmly determined rejection to be your course. If the employer has given you a specific time within which to respond, such as twenty-four hours or three days, and you believe that you’ll reject but aren’t yet sure, then take more of the given time to decide. Otherwise, respond with your rejection in the same manner in which the employer made the offer, whether by email, letter, or telephone. If you reject by telephone, follow up with a writing conveyed by the same means, whether email or letter, as the written offer. Be entirely gracious in your rejection, even if the employer stumbled in some way that disappointed or offended you, causing you to reject. If your reason for rejecting was the employer’s stumble, such as a compensation offer below the stated range or an offer for a different position than the one posted, and the employer asks your reason for rejecting, then say so. Otherwise, if your reason was personal, such as a better offer from another employer or a decision that you’d never work for the employer making the offer because of something the employer’s representative said or did, do not give a reason unless you would welcome a better offer addressing whatever reason you give. The employer should respect a gracious non-answer like the position isn’t right for me at this time, expressed with appropriate regret. Don’t get into arguments over rejecting an offer. Reject politely and with gratitude for the offer, and move on.
Journal
Add a section titled My Decision to your Career Journal, after the section on Applications. In this new section, record those whom you should consult, such as a spouse or mentor, when deciding whether to accept an offer. When you have an offer, record your reflections over it in this section of your journal. You may have many or few thoughts. Either way, writing them down can help you process, organize, clarify, recall, and reflect over those thoughts. Also write down what advice others share with you. Again, writing down their thoughts can help you clarify your evaluation of them. As you write, discern your intuitive evaluation of the offer and reasons to accept or reject it. Organize your reasons into a pro and con list, and assign weight to the pros and cons, to objectify your discernment. Going with hunches may be appropriate, but elaborating those hunches into solid grounds can be better. Return to what you’ve written down, for additional review and reflection, several times over the course of the hours or couple of days that you take to decide. In the end, record your decision and its grounds. Doing so may help you rethink any last loose ends.
Key Points
Job offers initiate a period of intense reflection over whether to accept.
Prepare to field an offer as soon as you complete the interview.
Do not respond on the offer’s conveyance but instead after deliberation.
Consult those close to you who helped with the application process.
Get clarification if the offer does not communicate all material terms.
Expect an offer of at-will employment unless union or civil service.
Negotiate over terms only if you are willing to lose the offer.
Learn the reasonable compensation range in the field and locale.
Evaluate with objective pros and cons and intuitive discernment.
Accept as soon as you decide, by the same route and means as the offer.
Reject graciously without reason unless willing to negotiate the reason.
Use your Career Journal to support your concerted reflection.