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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Career Tools. I'm Sarah and this is Mark. Today's podcast, How Do I Know I have an offer? Part 1 of 1.
- [00:11]
B
As always, our content has been crafted by humans and is now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are what are the requisite elements of an offer? Why would a manager not provide all the elements of an offer? What do I do if an offer is not complete?
- [00:29]
A
If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening.
- [00:36]
C
Hi, everyone. Ali Ozanne here with the Manager Tools team. Working across departments means working across communication styles. And most professionals struggle more than they admit. They assume the friction is about priorities or politics. It's usually about style. The Effective Communicator conference gives you a behavioral framework for reading any colleague in any meeting, in any email and adapting in real time. Better collaboration starts with better understanding. For more information, visit manager-tools.com ecc
- [01:15]
A
we work with people all the time, helping them get ready for interviews. And thus we also hear on the back end of said interviews I many individuals who tell us that they've been made an offer, an offer of employment, but when we ask for details, they don't seem to have any of those details.
- [01:35]
B
Always scares me when this happens.
- [01:38]
A
Exactly. Something that you may have heard before, that we will probably reference in this podcast today is until you got something, you've got nothing.
- [01:47]
B
But something actually is. Things. Details.
- [01:51]
A
Yes, exactly, exactly. So folks, essentially if your offer, I'm going to put that in Joey air quotes, doesn't have all of the necessary elements or in legal speak, constituents. It's really not an offer until all the parts are there. It's really nothing more than a suggestion. So today we're here to talk about how to know when you really have an offer.
- [02:17]
B
Yeah. And what I don't like about this one is I think many, many managers, not all, but I would guess 60% or higher of managers who give offers without all the constituent parts. No, they're giving it without constituent parts. And they're attempting to get a yes so that they can potentially mess with the others or tell them later, oh, well, it wasn't this, it was that. And that's completely unfair. And if you do know it's unethical, it's clearly unethical. You know, think about the situation where somebody says in an interview, if I offered you $75,000 right now, would you accept? Well, people think that's an offer.
- [02:58]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. Which it's not.
- [03:00]
B
And that's not.
- [03:01]
A
It's not.
- [03:01]
B
They're trying to pre close you and they're trying to figure out what your salary thing is. And it's. And folks, if you get treated that way, it's not ethical. Okay. They're trying to use their power over you to get you to say yes when you don't know what you're saying yes to. And it's wrong. And it's just wrong.
- [03:16]
A
It absolutely is.
- [03:17]
B
Yeah. Okay, so outline. We've got five points to cover. First, have you got the job title and or responsibilities? Have you got compensation? Have you got location? And that may be assumed, but regardless, it's one of the, one of the legal requisite elements. Have you got the start date? And this is the one everybody miss. Do you have a deadline for accepting or declining?
- [03:44]
A
Yes, exactly. So we're going to start with folks, have you got the job title and or responsibilities? And we again, going back to emails that we get from people who we've helped throughout this process, sometimes they will send us notes saying things like, hmm, I took a job and it's really not what I thought it was gonna be. Which is incredibly disappointing. And folks, it's not always the case that the job title and or responsibilities weren't clear at the beginning. But if those things aren't clear at the beginning, the problem that is a person accepting a job that was different than they thought it would be is far more likely to happen.
- [04:28]
B
Yeah. And during the interview process you should have developed a good understanding of the role, the responsibilities, the scope, the relationships, the reporting structure should be clear to you. Not assumptively, but specifically. They should be said or communicated to you. If they're not, it's acceptable to ask that these things be clarified before you accept the offer.
- [04:55]
A
Absolutely. Now folks, I will say at this point that in the hiring process, if it should, let's assume your hiring process take several months as it may. Right. Especially for someone doing a using the manager tools interview process. It's not unusual for a job title to change as part of a corporate renaming or for responsibilities to be added or taken away as part of the normal business of running a team. And here we are a couple months later and voila. Changes were needed. However, the hiring manager should be able to give you a reasonable explanation for any changes which have been made.
- [05:34]
B
Yeah. All the details given to you as part of the offer should match your understanding of the job. Unless the hiring manager does have a legitimate explanation as to why things have changed, and if they alter the job in a way that materially makes it no longer attractive to you, it is totally acceptable. To turn a position down. You earned the offer. And now they said, unfortunately, this position has changed, but we still want to hire you. It's going to work out. This is actually a weird form of a dangle, actually. We have a podcast called the Dangle. And frankly, if I had had whiffs that the manager who's trying to hire me wasn't 100% on the up and out, if they didn't answer my questions directly, or they said, oh, we'll work that out later, or they just didn't have specifics for me and then this happened and, well, it's going to change. I would say, look, I'm sorry, but I know you think I've accepted this job, but I'm going to have to know more about it. And you might say, well, I don't want to lose the job, but you're going to end up losing it. When they tell you you have all kinds of other responsibilities you're not ready for, and they might be mad at you and say, well, if you're going to turn this down after you've already accepted that, that's completely unacceptable. And in fact, that's true if there aren't changes to the core requisite elements of the job. And so it would be. They might dislike the fact that you turn them down because unethical people trying to hire people try to do it quickly and then prey upon the fact that we need revenue, we need income for our families, but it's. It's simply not right. So make sure you know what the job title is and that. And the responsibilities have been explained clearly to you.
- [07:19]
A
Yes. And I mean that. That's just another plug in my mind, Mark, for the idea that people should have six to nine months worth of salary in the bank so that when they're in these positions trying to find a new role, they don't end up having to say yes to a job that they know in, in advance isn't clear, only to then dislike that job because they're. They know they have that cushion.
- [07:44]
B
Yeah.
- [07:45]
A
All right, so the next thing then in our list of constituents is compensation. Folks, once you know what you're going to be doing, you need to know what you're going to be paid to do that thing. If the hiring manager doesn't mention it, we also recommend you ask what the payroll system is. If you're expecting to be paid biweekly and the company pays monthly, you could be seeing some unforeseen difficulties as it pertains to the cadence of your bills. There could be some issues as it pertains to whether or not you're as effective as you could be in your first month at work because of when your last employer paid you and when this first paycheck will come in and all of those kinds of things. Get those things clarified.
- [08:31]
B
Yeah. Now, we're not suggesting that in your early interview you ask, how much am I going to get paid and what the payroll system is. We're talking about the fact that the hiring manager has called you and said, I want to make you an offer and he or she says it's for this manager role or it's for this individual contributor role, whatever it might be. The responsibilities we've talked about, it's going to be location here and I, I'd like a decision this date. If he or she doesn't explicitly call out the compensation and how you're going to be paid, you don't have an offer, you do not, and you're being misled because that person knows. Look, we've already detailed what an offer is, all the constituents of an offer at the top of the cast, and we're going through them all now. But that doesn't mean there aren't managers out there who don't want to tell you the salary because they're going to be below what you suggested in the interview and they want you to accept it just because it's a great job and you know you would take that job for any pay in the world. But no, that is an unfair thing for a hiring person or an HR person to do to say, we haven't figured the salary out. If they say that, you have to say, I'm sorry, but offers have parts. It's the job, the title and the responsibilities. It's the pay and how I'm paid. It is the location and it is a deadline. I have to know all those things. So if I don't know all those things, I can't say yes. And I wouldn't want to mislead you with the yes to an incomplete offer. Now look, for the majority of our listeners, the compensation is going to include both salary and benefits. And while there are a multitude of financial and non financial sweeteners which could go into compensation, for the majority, it's a monthly payment, benefits and perhaps a bonus at the end of the year. Now, once you're given the offer, you don't have to say yes until you get those questions answered. In fact, we often say at a high level, the definition of having an offer, you know, you have an offer. When control passes to you, when you're interviewing, you know you're not in control. Right. Everyone knows that. The way you get control is when the company offers you and they say, we're offering you this much money, all the constituents we mentioned, and they give you a deadline. And the reason they have to give you a deadline is because if they don't, you're in control forever of that job. Because it's unethical for a company to offer a job to one person to not give them a deadline. And when they don't get an answer in what they thought was a reasonable time, go out and offer someone else and then take it away from you. That's why there are deadlines.
- [11:21]
A
Exactly. And folks, the last bit about compensation and then we'll go on, is, as we've said before in our interviewing series, guidance how to handle offers, and in chapter one of our career tools, never a Clock guidance called Negotiating Offers and using offers as Leverage. Negotiation of that salaried number is not wise in the majority of cases. If the number's not high enough for you or you feel it's not sufficient for the role, then we would generally recommend not knowing any other details about your specific circumstance that you turn it down. Now, if you are out there in the world and you feel like, but wait a minute, I think I have a special circumstance. You, you can send us an email to customer service manager-tools.com and we can help you evaluate that specific circumstance. But normally we'd not Recommend negotiating over $5000 a year. If you know it's going to be a long term relationship. Why, why start it there, you know?
- [12:22]
B
Yeah, exactly. Second thing on the list is location. So you got to have to, you have to know the location. It's important. Location of your work is important. Even in cases where you're being hired for a fully remote position, we recommend you inquire about the location of that company's offices in your area. As we've all seen over the past few years, sometimes companies hire for what they think will be fully remote or hybrid roles and later change their stance. I mean, is that not right now? What is maybe the most important employment topic in the world today? For years, can I work remotely for how. Yeah, exactly. Since 2020, right?
- [13:00]
A
Yeah.
- [13:01]
B
And they later changed the stance on the number of days that employees must be in the office. Now, I admit I was frankly shocked when people who worked in Silicon Valley says, oh, I can work remotely. This is knowing full well they had to know that Covid, the Pandemic was going to be temporary, but they moved to Idaho. And Idaho is great, by the way.
- [13:23]
A
Way, way, way cheaper to live there.
- [13:26]
B
Yeah, way cheap. Our employee Kate has a, has a. I was going to say cottage, but that's the wrong word.
- [13:32]
A
In the cabin in Idaho.
- [13:34]
B
Cabin, I knew it started with a C. And she and her husband Gary live in Austin, but they have a cabin in Idaho. But if you decamp to Idaho from Silicon Valley and then Apple says you have to come back, or Meadow or, or Google or Applied Materials or anybody else says you have to come back and you say, well, but wait, I live in Idaho now. Not sure the company's gonna feel that sorry for you.
- [13:58]
A
Yeah, I mean, I have a friend right now who's in that situation who's working in Silicon Valley and thinking about super commuting living down here near Pacific Grove and is worried that they might increase the number of days to in the office, thus making that, the idea of that commute.
- [14:17]
B
Right.
- [14:18]
A
Less viable. So, so yeah, it's still a thing. I mean, it's not changing, folks. People are still asking that you come to the office more days.
- [14:26]
B
Yeah. So you should know where you're working. And you'll want to know the potential impact on your life and work should the expectations of your role change as far as location is concerned.
- [14:37]
A
Absolutely. Now folks, in addition, if your role requires you to visit customers in person, having customers who are spread out can also impact your travel and your commuting requirements, which then in turn impacts your work, it impacts your family life, how many days a week or month you're going to be away from them. So for example, if you've been recruited here for a sales role and you're expecting to get a certain territory, make sure you're clear on what that territory will be, what the geographical area you'll be covering as far as customer visits is concerned is going to be.
- [15:16]
B
Yeah, that's right. And companies often say, we don't dole out territories until you come to training. Well, that may not work for you unless the company says if you're not mobile, you live very close to your aging parents, for instance, or your sister has a special needs child and you need to babysit periodically over there. You can't just up stakes and go, and it's a terrible thing to be wanted by a company and to need a job and do have a interview there because you love the company and you love the job, only to find out you won't know for six months where you're going to be living and you don't feel you can move, but it's okay to feel that way. It really is. You can't assume when interviewing for an in person role either that you'll necessarily be working in the location or building in which you were interviewed. And different work locations can have very different work arrangements. For some people, a permanent desk is very important. They're less and less common than they used to be because the price of real estate now I would argue that companies are taking advantage of that to say, we're going to cut our real estate costs down. And there's still, I think Amazon still to this day in Seattle, wants everybody back in the office. But they still don't have enough desks for them because they sold off. They stopped their rental property. Right. They stopped renting office space for them. If you find out that you're going to be working with a team which uses hot desks even in the same building as you interviewed in, this could be enough for you to turn down the job. We're not saying you should. In fact, I wouldn't, I wouldn't love that part. But it's okay to ask those questions because remember, once you've been given, quote, the offer, unquote, when you're asking these kinds of questions, remember you're now in charge, you have the offer. Now if somebody says you're asking too many questions, I'm taking the offer back. I would say two things. Technically, they can do that at any time, just for the record, okay? In the same way, technically you can accept immediately and then they can't take it away from you. Although there's 1/10 of 1% of companies who do because they're horrible people, they're careless people, okay? But if you're asking and you're getting a lot of different questions, that helps you draw the decision, conclusion that you want. And if you're married, you and your spouse can talk about what that means for you. Is it still good enough? You know, it's a great job with a great company. You always wanted to work there, but every single detail they give you is just undercutting, undercutting, undercutting, undercutting. At some point you might go, no, it's not enough. And that's when the decision gets harder. But we're trying to tell you, you have to know location. We don't want you get surprised about a location that you're not expecting. And it's totally reasonable to ask questions about them.
- [18:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I would say, Mark to your point, I think that if it's me and I'm asking questions and I'm not even, I don't even work there yet. I mean, I'm just, I'm just trying to get all the information from my offer. If I'm asking questions and they're annoyed by the number of questions I'm asking, I definitely don't want to work there
- [18:19]
B
because I don't like it.
- [18:20]
A
What if I come work to work there? I'm also going to want to ask questions about my work and about other things at work. If you're annoyed with me right now because I need the answer to five simple questions, you're gonna get real annoyed with me if I decide to actually come back there.
- [18:36]
B
And folks, let me take that to the next level. Suppose you've got an offer and now you're getting annoyed, as Sarah said, and I agree with her. If I got too annoyed, I would say, no, I'm sorry, I can't do this. I'm just not feeling like I know enough. So on. You could also. Let's say you're in a tough situation financially and you need a job. Okay, You've run out of your savings or you mistakenly didn't have enough savings to survive a layoff for longer than six to nine months. Okay, fine, take the job, but immediately start a search for another one. Please go listen to the Career Tools cast about searching and finding the right opportunity. Expand your network, warm them up, and use that as a temporary position because you don't want to be holding out for a whole bunch of stuff that the company's not going to give you and then not have a job and then run out of money. So we're okay with that. That's completely reasonable. There are companies that hire people that they know in three years they're not going to need because they're doing a strategic realignment. So two can play at that game. Now, we don't ever recommend you accept and having gotten all your questions answered and then later having gotten a better offer, go back and decline what you accepted. That's grossly unacceptable. In the same way that a company makes you an offer, they shouldn't ever take it away from you before the deadline. That's the way the world works.
- [20:03]
A
In the ethical world, yes, that's exactly it.
- [20:07]
C
Most resumes look the same. The Manager Tools resume workbook makes sure yours doesn't. Step by step guidance, expert tips, and proven strategies built specifically for professionals who are serious about their next move. Available exclusively when you hold a Career Tools license. If your Resume isn't working. This is exactly why. For more information, visit manager-tools.com licenses all
- [20:39]
A
right, next up, start date. Now folks, a start date is not always firm, but in the vast majority of cases it's a sign of commitment to you by the company. And until you have a start date, you've got again, as I mentioned earlier, nothing. Once you've got a start date, you've got something. Now I will also say though, if you don't have 1, 2 and 3 from above, you still don't have anything. But right, if you have those four things, you got something.
- [21:11]
B
Yeah. A start date generally means the company is making preparations for your arrival around that time. That activity doesn't happen until they're pretty certain the role has been filled. And therefore you can take it as a sign of commitment to you. Now if they say we're not fixed on the start date, then you have to say look, financially I have to plan for this once. I can't resign my job. I won't resign my job until I have another offer and I've accepted it. An offer is not enough, I have to accept it. If I don't know until I accept that it's six months from now, then I've accepted. But now I'm going to have to stay employed here for six months. Now some companies would say no, no, we can't do that. And like wow, what, what? Because they're thinking about themselves. So you have to be careful because start date is both the date that helps you plan your exit from where you are, but it's also a commitment to pay you then.
- [22:13]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [22:14]
B
And that's the logistics of it that matters.
- [22:16]
A
Yeah, yeah, well and I mean going back to our conversation about location, Mark, what if it will require a move? And let's say it's going to take you, I'm making, I'm making this up. But 4 months to pull up stakes and yeah, they're expecting you kids school. Yeah, exactly like and they, they want you to start three weeks from now. That could also be a problem. So it's kind of, it's the combination of all of the factors associated with it that, that really make it matter more than people would realize.
- [22:45]
B
I think this is one of those things in the corporate world that has always bugged me that you get an offer and they say yeah, the start date is immediate. And you say actually I need two months to finish my kids school. And they say no, I'm sorry, you have to come to work immediately. Just resign. Give them two weeks or even just one week. And actually they'll probably pressure you to give them immediate resignation to take effect immediately, which is an unprofessional thing to do to your existing employer. But then they say no, you have to come and you have to pull your kids out of school or whatever. Let's assume you're a single parent so you one parent can't go and start working there before the move happens. And this happened years ago to a friend of mine and he said no, I'm sorry then I can't do it. And they're like well we can't believe it, this is a great offer and everything else. And he said I'm sorry, I can't do it. And he was kind enough not to tell them, folks, I'm sorry but my family has to come first. If I say my family is first and then I always put them second and always pulling kids out of school and so on, I don't feel like, at least in my way of thinking about values and ethics and so on, I don't feel like I'm putting my family first. And he turned the offer down and the company came back two weeks later and said okay, we'll wait, we'll wait, we'll wait.
- [24:04]
A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well Mark, wasn't it relatively recently our friend Matt Dubois, the new company wanted him immediately but he, but, but that would not have allowed him to give notice. Like it wouldn't allow him to give the requisite six weeks notice for his other like it was just, it's also those things, it's like they might try and pressure you to start immediately meaning you can't give notice to your previous employer which is that a bridge you want to burn?
- [24:32]
B
Yeah. And because you now have the power when control passes to you is when you have an offer you can negotiate the start date including things like the appropriate amount of time to my pre, my present employer and my kids school years and so on.
- [24:49]
A
Exactly. All right, the last bit then is the deadline. The final constituent folks is deadline for your acceptance. It's the part that the hiring manager is most likely to leave out.
- [25:01]
B
Yes, yes.
- [25:03]
A
They tend to be at this point just so focused on imparting the other information which seems really, really important. And folks, they're likely preparing for or hoping for you to accept immediately. So because of that they may not have even thought about the date from by when they need your acceptance because they were hoping to get it immediately and thus didn't think that piece through. On the other hand though, regardless of whether or not they're prepared for it, you need the information. So if you don't get this information, if they. They don't share it. What's the word? If they don't share it.
- [25:43]
B
Proactively.
- [25:44]
A
Proactively. Thank you. Make sure that you ask for it.
- [25:48]
B
Yeah. Suppose they don't give you a deadline. Oh, take your time. What they're essentially saying is, we might offer this to somebody else if you take too long.
- [25:56]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [25:57]
B
If they're not prepared. And the manager says, I would never do this to anyone ever, because it shows if I'm hiring somebody, I'm not prepared. Prepared. If a man. If hiring manager, HR says, well, how long do you need? The minimum time you should give yourself is a week. If that week includes a weekend. Okay. A week is not. Get an offer Monday, decide by Friday. We don't mean a work week. You always reserve the right to have a weekend when you're not working. And let's say you and your spouse work on different shifts or whatever.
- [26:31]
C
And.
- [26:32]
B
And you're not going to have a chance to talk about this in detail and maybe even ask some more questions until Tuesday of next week. And it's Monday now you say, I'm really sorry, the decision date has to be next Thursday because my spouse and I don't get a chance to talk about this until Tuesday and Wednesday when we're both off work. We work different schedules, and that's completely reasonable. Now, some companies will try to pressure you, and for the record, when they pressure you, you can ask for more time if you like. You're probably not going to get more than two weeks. I would be very uncomfortable. A company said take a month.
- [27:09]
A
Yeah, that's. That's suggestive of another problem, I think.
- [27:14]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:15]
A
Like a lack of urgency, a lack of excitement about you starting. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
- [27:20]
B
Yeah. And if you haven't accepted in that time, we might offer to somebody else, which, again, is unethical, unprofessional, but it does happen.
- [27:27]
A
That's absolutely it. All right, so to wrap it up, folks, if you're expecting. When. I suppose when you're expecting an offer, it's good to have this checklist, these five constituents nearby, so that you can make sure you've got all the pertinent details in the offer itself. And I wouldn't necessarily think ill of your potential employer unless you've got due cause. If they don't have some of these details.
- [27:57]
B
Yes. Give them show some grace here. Just ask.
- [28:01]
A
Yeah, just ask. They're not necessarily. If they don't proactively share these things. Trying to be evasive. They just might not be prepared. This could be their first ever offer. Maybe. HR usually does it and this is their first time.
- [28:16]
B
Yeah.
- [28:17]
A
And of course, if they were a manager, tools manager, they would have been prepared. But we can't have everything and we're not in everyone's ears.
- [28:24]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [28:26]
A
All right, well, thanks, Mark. This was great.
- [28:27]
B
Thanks, Sarah.
- [28:28]
A
Thank you folks for joining us. We hope this one helped you. Now help us help others and tell your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. Remember, five stars only. Please.
- [28:45]
B
Sa.