Is your OFFER a REAL OFFER?
Situation:
- Danielle is focused on Business Analytics and sponsorship for H-1B
- Her first choice is ABC Co. ABC sponsors international students
- Her second choice XYZ Co. XYZ just gave her an offer (or so she thought...reason for this blog post)
- XYZ cuts short her time to decide from 10 days to 1 day
- She is still waiting to hear back from ABC and now has pressure from XYZ
Danielle: "ABC is my first choice but is taking extra time to let me know their decision. XYZ has already given me an offer, and they want to know an answer right away. What should I do"?
Question to you the reader: Should she contact ABC firm and ask them to "hurry up"? This is the basic situation Danielle is asking herself (At this point she assumed she really had an offer).
Me: OK this is a good question. Let's gather the facts.
When we look deeper we see something else....
This is the exchange:
It would be ideal if Danielle could hear back from ABC now so she could turn down the offer from XYZ.
But then XYZ puts on the pressure:
- 10 Dec told her she had an offer and could have until 21st to decide
- Then called to pressure her: "sorry, you need to decide tomorrow (14th Dec).
So then I ask one question: let's see the offer letter:
With nothing on paper, there is no real offer to begin with.
But that many not stop an HR teams from basically trying to bully a candidate into making a decision, meanwhile, the terms of the offer have not even been stated:
XYZ has given Danielle nothing to accept yet.
Maybe they were basically testing to see whether they could lock her in (without any terms offered)?
Could be. But we are not in the game of guessing. We are in the game of keeping our best interests in mind as we negotiate / dance with employers.
Because an "offer" could turn into a NIGHTMARE. What if Danielle just said "yes" to XYZ and the next day her first choice firm calls with an offer? BAD situation.
So now we've got XYZ giving pressure to accept something...that's still nothing.
And worse than that...pressure to accept unconditionally...that terms that were not even stated.
What to do now?
Danielle and I discussed what to do:
She went back and requested the offer in writing. She got it right away. Check the time stamp.
They had it all lined up....but were playing games.
Moral: it's not an offer unless it is in writing.
Until you have a written offer, you have no offer, no basis to make a decision, so you need to request the offer.
I coached Danielle on what to say in order to get the letter as you can see above.
What an offer letter should contain within it, on company letterhead:
- Job title
- Department, manager’s name
- Start date
- Hours of work/schedule
- Status (full time, part time, regular, temporary, specific duration)
- Exempt vs. nonexempt status
- Rate of pay (hourly, weekly or by pay period) and pay period frequency
- Contingencies on which the offer may be predicated (e.g., drug testing, reference checking, physical exam, security screen)
- Paid leave benefits Y/N
- Eligibility for health/welfare benefits plans Y/N
- Work location
- If travel is involved, approximate percent of travel required
- At-will employment statement
Is your offer letter missing something? Want to discuss how to get offers? We can find a time here.
To your success.
Stuart
