Before you say 'I do' to the job...

8 questions to ask before accepting a job offer — before the flattery wears off.

Getting a job offer does something funny to otherwise perfectly sensible people. After weeks of interviews, waiting and wondering whether they liked you, someone finally says:

We’d like to offer you the job.

Lovely.

The brain hears:

THEY PICKED ME.

And suddenly all those intelligent questions you had disappear somewhere near the bottom of your inbox.

Before you sign, stop.

A job offer is flattering.

AND it is also a business proposition.

They have spent considerable time deciding whether they want you.

Now it’s your turn.

Think of a job offer like buying a house

You probably wouldn’t buy a house because you liked the kitchen island.

You’d want to know about the roof.

The neighbourhood.

The commute.

The slightly suspicious crack above the sitting-room door.

Jobs deserve similar scrutiny.

Salary is the asking price.

Your manager is the structural survey.

Culture is the neighbourhood.

Flexibility is the commute.

And what the role does for your future career is the resale value.

So before you become emotionally attached to the kitchen island, have a proper look around.

1. What are you actually being hired to do?

Job descriptions can contain an impressive number of words while saying remarkably little.

So ask:

“Twelve months from now, what would make you say hiring me had been an excellent decision?”

That question gets you much closer to the real job.

• What needs to change?

• What problem are you there to solve?

• What will you own?

• How will success be measured?

• And — importantly — will you actually have the authority to deliver it?

A grand title attached to no budget, no mandate and no decision-making power is mostly stationery.

2. What comes with the responsibility?

A role can sound wonderfully senior until you discover that every meaningful decision requires seven approvals and a meeting with somebody called Trevor.

Find out:

• What can you decide yourself?

• Will you have a team?

• A budget?

• Access to the people you need?

• Support from other functions?

• Senior sponsorship?

Responsibility without authority gets tiring surprisingly quickly.

3. Who will you actually be working for?

Company culture matters.

Your manager tends to arrive rather more frequently.

Ask them:

• “How do you like to work with your direct reports?”

• “How do you give feedback?”

• “What do your strongest people do particularly well?”

• “Where would you expect me to operate independently?”

  
  

Listen to the answers.

But also notice how they react to being asked.

That is information too.

CAREER FACT

Work itself matters more than we sometimes acknowledge when dazzled by salary or brand name.

A major meta-analysis covering 259 studies and more than 219,000 people found that characteristics of work — including autonomy, feedback and social aspects of the job — were meaningfully related to how people experienced and performed at work.

Translation:

The contents of the job matter.

Quite a lot.

4. Why is the job available?

This is such a simple question.

And such a useful one.

“Why is the role open?”

Someone was promoted?

Excellent.

The company is growing?

Interesting.

A restructure?

Worth understanding.

You would be the fourth person doing the role in three years?

Also worth understanding.

You do not need the office gossip.

You need the context.

Every job opening has a history. Find out what it is.

5. What are you actually being paid?

Salary matters.

Obviously.

But salary is not the whole deal.

Look at the complete package:

Base salary. Bonus. Pension. Equity or long-term incentives. Holiday. Healthcare. Professional development. Coaching budget. Flexibility. Working location. Travel. Title. Reporting line. Notice period. Start date. Salary-review timing.

Some of those things may be fixed.

Some may not be.

Which brings us to...

6. What should you negotiate?

There is an odd moment after receiving an offer when people sometimes behave as though asking one polite question will cause HR to snatch the contract back and shout:

NEVER MIND.

The evidence is reassuring.

A 2024 study across seven studies involving 3,338 people found that job candidates consistently overestimated the likelihood that negotiating would jeopardise the deal compared with the people doing the hiring.

That does not mean every demand is sensible.

And it certainly doesn't mean entering negotiations like a hostage negotiator.

It means this:

A professional conversation about the offer is allowed.

Work out what matters most to you.

Then ask.

• Perhaps the salary can move.

• Perhaps it can’t, but the bonus can.

• Perhaps the title matters.

• Perhaps an earlier salary review matters more.

• Perhaps flexibility is the thing that would materially improve your life.

Do not negotiate everything simply because you have read that you should negotiate.

Negotiate what matters to you in that moment in time. For instance, if you need a mortgage approval, your fixed salary becomes so much more important rather than variable.

7. What is this job going to give you besides money?

This is where a job becomes part of a career.

Ask yourself:

If I do this brilliantly for three years, what will I have that I don’t have today?

Perhaps it gives you:

• P&L responsibility.

• A stronger network.

• People leadership.

• A new market.

• Commercial experience.

• International exposure.

• Board visibility.

• Technical expertise.

• A better reputation.

• Access to people and opportunities you cannot currently reach.

• Think of this as career capital.

A strong job pays you twice: Once in money and once in future opportunity.

The second payment can sometimes be worth considerably more.

8. Would another 20% solve the problem?

Here is the final question.

Imagine they increased the salary by 20%.

Would your doubts disappear?

If yes, you may have a compensation problem.

Useful. Negotiate.

If the answer is still:

• I don’t trust the manager.

• I don't actually want to do the work.

• The culture feels wrong.

• There is nowhere interesting for this role to go.

Then you probably don't have a money problem.

You have a job problem.

A larger salary can make the wrong job more attractive.

It rarely makes it right.

Career Wisdom: The Job-Offer Scorecard

Before accepting your next offer, give each of these a score from 1 to 5:

The work — Do I actually want to do it?

The manager — Do I think I can work well with this person?

The mandate — Will I have enough authority to succeed?

The money — Is the total package right?

The learning — What will I know afterwards that I don’t know now?

The lifestyle — How will this job actually fit into my life?

The people — Who will I get to know by being here?

The future — What becomes possible because I took this role?

The health - How does this job give or drain my energy?

Now look at the lowest scores.

That is where your next question belongs.

Not everything has to score five.

But don't let one very shiny five distract you from three alarming twos.

The one thing you need to remember

The offer tells you something important: They want you.

Excellent. Now forget the flattering bit for a moment.

Your job is to decide whether you want the job — not simply the feeling of being wanted.

Every job is a piece in your career story. Move to expand choices, rather than limiting yourself. Consider the role and the set-up in the time context of today and in 5 years from now. It needs to be right for this moment, not for the long-term.

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If you like to read further...

'Getting to Yes' by Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton

A classic guide to negotiation, but particularly useful because it moves the conversation away from me versus you.

The central principle is to understand the interests underneath the positions.

References

Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D. & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features: A Meta-Analytic Summary and Theoretical Extension of the Work Design Literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1332–1356.

Hart, E., Bear, J. B. & Ren, Z. (2024). But what if I lose the offer? Negotiators’ inflated perception of their likelihood of jeopardizing a deal. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 181, 104319.