If you’ve been tuning into this editorial series so far, you may already have an idea of your value to a potential employer. You may also already have a set of criteria that a job offer must meet before you accept it.

The job offer itself, though is different in the sense that you don’t determine its contents. How can that be dealt with?

LEARN HOW TO EVALUATE JOB OFFERS.

It is important to remember that job offer letters and contracts are supposed to be help potential hires know and understand the nature of the opportunity being offered. They are carefully written to show exactly how the business relationship between the hire and the organization will be, including the nature of employment, the workload and the amount of pay.

They can be confusing, though, because everything is completely spelled out so that the potential hire cannot later accuse the employer of being unclear about the business relationship. To be this detailed means that job offers and especially contracts are full of jargon and legal terms and sentence constructions.

So, try to vary your focus on the different sections of the offer and contract. Don’t read too much into sections that detail the nature of the employment, since you only need to worry about those if you’re in breach of the business relationship. A serious and dedicated professional, of course, will not do anything to violate the terms of their employment with the organization.

Focus on things like the actual working conditions including schedules and workload, and the compensation and benefits. These are the things that you will need to compare with the criteria that you set. Do these match your expectations? Whether or not they are in line with your expectations will be the main reason for you to accept or decline the job offer.

Don’t miss the next tips we will be discussing in this series where we show you how to negotiate job offers!