Karen presented to 75 women at St. Catherine University’s Leadership series. Watch the website for a streaming video of the presentation.
To Work or Not to Work
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Free Job Search Advice From National Experts at Your Fingertips
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3 questions to ask when receiving a verbal job offer
After a long job search, when that call finally comes with a job offer, job seekers are often so excited that all they think about saying is a resounding “YES”! But this is a time you want to keep your composure so that you know exactly what you are signing up for. Asking some key questions will ensure that you don’t prematurely agree before knowing all the details.
Question #1 : Ask them when you can expect to see the offer in writing. Too often a verbal job offer entails just base salary. A written offer typically includes other details like bonus potential, vacation eligibility, and start date. I advise job seekers that they will want to see the whole picture of what an employer is offering before accepting the offer.
Question #2: Another question to ask when you get a verbal offer is who should you follow up with once you review the offer. This indicates who you will be negotiating with in the event you choose to do so. Typically you will be negotiating with either the recruiter, human resources or the hiring manager. Whenever possible try to negotiate with the hiring manager, they have the need and the budget.
Question #3: When you get a verbal offer be sure to ask when they need a decision by. This will give you time to review the details of the offer, consider a negotiation strategy and even leverage other offers you may be considering. One word of caution however. Be careful not to put a prospective employer off too long, they may question your intentions and commitment to take the job.
It is very exciting when that call with a job offer finally comes, keeping your composure and asking some key questions will help you say “yes” without reservation.
The Disappearing Job Posting
While scrolling through job leads on the Internet have you ever stumbled upon the “perfect job” and the very next day you go back to look at it again and it’s gone – it had disappeared? This can be a maddening occurrence for job seekers which leads to speculations abound regarding what could have happened. As a former HR insider let me shed some light on what is happening from the employers perspective.
First of all there is no law or universal rule dictating how long a job needs to be posted. Each company can set its own policy or guidelines on this. A job can be posted for as little as a single day. When this occurs it typically means the company has either an internal or known candidate already identified.
Another reason a job posting may disappear is that funding or internal support for the position has been lost. This doesn’t necessarily mean the job is gone for good, just for now.
Sometimes a job posting disappears because it needs to be amended or revamped because it wasn’t attracting the right type of candidate or the company realizes they need something different.
On the contrary, sometimes jobs seem to stay on a website well after a pool of candidates is selected for interviews. This is because an employer wants to be sure they continue to collect resumes in the event the existing pool doesn’t produce a finalist or the finalist declines the job. This way they don’t have to start from scratch.
The best advice I can offer is as soon as you see a job online that looks good – print it out right away. This will give you time to review it more closely, before it disappears.