It's always truly exciting isn't it, receiving your most awaited job offer letter! After going through many stages of the application, you might want to straight away place your signature and return it to the hiring manager.
Hold your horses! Don't let the excitement blind you from missing out on important details in your job offer letter! Have you identified all the details which you previously agreed on with your employer-to-be in the document? What are some of the things you should look at?
Date & Time
Do you know what would be embarrassing? Showing up to work on a wrong day. Ugh, there goes your first impression at your new job. This is why reviewing your offer letter carefully matters. You may also want to consider requesting for the date to be pushed back if the job requires you to relocate to a different state. To be clear, discuss these matters once you receive the offer letter and have also made up your mind on accepting the job offered.
Role & Responsibilities
You have probably read through the job description of the role you applied for several times before attending the interview. But, you should go through it once again as of what's written on the offer letter provided to you. Perhaps your employer may have switched one or two things in the job description.
"Ensure that all your job responsibilities are clearly outlined and described in the offer letter. This is so that if in the future your boss tries to change your responsibilities or downgrade you in some way, you have it in writing what you are supposed to be doing", advises Valerie Streif, Mentat's Senior Advisor.
Salary
Although you may have had the salary discussion during the interview or over several emails, this is the time to ensure that the amount both parties have agreed on matches up on paper. Do not hesitate to reach out to your employer if there happens to be an error or misunderstanding in the amount agreed. Accept the offer only if you are satisfied with the pay that is given for the job.
Benefits
Benefits make the package offered even more exciting, don't you think? Companies nowadays provide many kinds of benefits for their employees. So if you're a first-timer at a company, you can check out the benefits given to you. Your offer letter should contain the benefits you are entitled to hence be sure that you are aware of them all. There are cases where employers deny some of the 'so-called' benefits employees should receive. Without any written record, there's nothing much that can be done.
Confidentiality & non-disclosure agreements
Non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are common things you would find in an offer letter. What are you required to do in this said matter? You must keep sensitive information that you learn in your tenure at the company private, or you may face consequences like getting fired or charged with lawsuits. What are these sensitive information? They can be financial reports, product design, internal documents and agreements.
Bonus
Settling for salary alone isn't something you should do. You are entitled to annual bonuses too! Well, of course you won't receive it every month, but at least find out the basic target of percentage, requirements and criteria. Bonuses are usually included in the offer letter, so if yours hasn't got any of it, you might need to enquire about it.
Now, if you have all the details mentioned above and you're very satisfied with the offer that is given to you, then by all means accept the offer! All the best with your new job!
