Speaker 1: We've talked about some of the red flags that you should look for in a job offer, but what about the flip side? What are some signs that you should look for when you should accept that offer? We'll stick around because in this video, I'm going to share with you some things that you should be looking for when you consider your next employer. Hey everybody, it's Brian from A Life After Layoff. And today I want to share with you some signs that you should be looking for in your offer that indicate that it's a good employer and that you should go ahead and accept it. I was a corporate recruiter and an HR professional with over 20 years of experience interviewing and hiring thousands of people into some of the world's largest and most well-respected companies. I know a thing or two about job offers. So in this video I'm going to share with you some signs that you should be looking for when you're assessing that new job offer and whether or not you should accept it. But before we get too far into it, if you're interested in more videos just like this one directly from a corporate recruiter, make sure you hit that subscribe button and you might want to consider hitting that notification bell so you don't miss any future posts. All right. So without further ado, let's get into some of the signs that you should accept that job offer. The first one is if you're treated fairly and respectfully throughout the interviewing process. A company who treats its job candidates with dignity and respect is probably a company that's going to treat you with dignity and respect after you start. So think about your experience throughout the application and the interviewing process. Was the application easy to complete and relatively painless to get through and not requiring you to fill out things like assessments where they waste everybody's time. And if you watch any of my previous videos, you know how I feel about those. And then once you add into the interview itself, was the process relatively painless? Did they get back to you in a reasonable timeframe? Did they make you go through extra interviews that weren't necessary? Because some of the best companies I've ever encountered have been able to hire people in as little as two interviews. So if the company requires you to go through six or seven rounds of interviews, filling out assessments, making you do some take home project all to make a decision on your candidacy, you've got to ask yourself, is that the kind of company that you would want to work for? Because all of this stuff is kind of packaged up and what we'd like to call candidate experience was the experience as the candidate pleasant because let's face it, interviewing is up there with going to the dentist as people's least favorite things to do. So great quality employers try to smooth that out and be as nimble as possible to attract the best quality talent on the market. And going right in line with that, the next thing is just was the boss engaged in the process with you? Did they seem genuinely excited about your candidacy? Were they genuinely excited about the opportunity that they had? Were they generally excited about the company they were working or the product or service that they were selling? Because if the boss was engaged and it probably means the team was engaged and that's a good indicator that the type of environment you're going to be walking into will be very positive. And the next thing we look for in a great quality employer is the job description is clearly defined and realistic. So when you read through the job description, it's not overly short or overly vague or on the flip side, overly long and everything in the kitchen sink is thrown in. It should be just right and clearly defined and you should be able to get a very good understanding of what's expected of you. And if it's even realistic to achieve with one person, because you certainly don't want to be walking into a situation where the expectations for you are hopelessly out of reach. The next time of a great quality job offer is that they offer you a very competitive wage right out of the gate. And to take it even a step further is if you gave your salary expectation and it was below their range, they actually brought you up even higher. That's an indicator that they truly care about the employer and they're not going to let you low ball yourself. And I know that nobody really wants to low ball themselves, but sometimes you inadvertently don't price yourself correctly, or maybe the company that you're considering is a very high quality employer who tends to be a pay leader in the space. And if they are a pay leader and they invest in their people, it's definitely an indicator of a type of company that you probably would want to work for. So if you get the job offer and they give you a great number out of the gate and you don't need to do a bunch of back and forth negotiating all the better. And let's also look at benefits. If they have a great benefits package, that's got a very competitive medical and dental and vision program. That's another indicator that that company is investing in their employees and another subtle trend to look for. And it might be a little difficult to figure this out, but if you can figure out whether they've been continually improving the benefits package, that's a great indicator of a company that you would want to work for because let's face it in a lot of organizations, companies are looking to cut benefits costs. So each year it seems like those medical benefits are getting more expensive and you're getting less for them. They're cutting things like 401ks and other retirement programs and they're replacing traditionally expensive benefits with freebies or things that are very low value. So if the company that you're interviewing for is offering you truly valuable benefits, that's probably an indicator that that's going to be a great place to work. Furthermore, in a great job offer the company shows that they value the work life balance and they'll do that in the form of encouraging people to take time off. So if they offer you more than the traditional vacation time company paid holidays or things like flex time, that's a definite indicator of a great quality employer. Now there is a popular new trend of going to this unlimited vacation and I have mixed feelings about it. However, there are some companies that are implementing it very successfully and I fully support it. And one company comes to mind in particular that is doing this really effectively because they state in their benefits program that they have an unlimited vacation policy, but that they require a minimum of three weeks be taken each year. For, so for those of you who are banking up your PTO time, there's really no need to at a company like that because they understand that employees that are recharged and ready to go are more productive than employees that are burned out. Then you can also look at things like maternity and paternity leave and how accessible those benefits are to you. All of those things will show you whether or not the company truly values the work life balance. The next thing that you want to look for when you're deciding whether or not you should accept that offer is how do they value their current employees and especially in times of economic uncertainty. And let's face it, we had one pretty recently where they quick to lay off people at the first sign of trouble. Have they been improving the benefits packages? Do they pay lead or pay lag? Have they invested in the proper tools to allow their employees to be successful? Do they develop their employees? Do they promote professional development in terms of sending people off to seminars, giving allowances for things like tuition reimbursement and continuing education because a great quality employer is committed to developing their employees and preparing them for bigger and better opportunities. The next indicator to look for is are they sharing in the profitability of the company in the form of either performance bonuses or equity has great quality employers know that employees who have a stake in the business will be more motivated to see great results. So sharing those results with all employees, everybody's going to be rowing towards the same direction. So if there's a generous equity stake in that job offer, that's a great indicator that that might be an offer you want to accept. Of course, that's assuming that they've got great products and services because all of that equity doesn't mean anything if they shut other doors six months from now. So if they're an industry leader or they're doing something really exciting in their space, then that's a sign that that's probably a company that's growing and going to give you future opportunities, which leads us to the last one, which is that they've got a great reputation. If you can get a great quality employer on your resume, it can make a huge difference in the trajectory of your career. Similarly, if you find a bad quality employer, it can really stunt your career growth. So it behooves you to really focus on those top quality opportunities and all of these other things should fall into place. All right, there you have it. There's some signs that you should accept that job offer and you're dealing with a great quality employer. Hopefully you're sitting on multiple job offers and this gives you a little bit of clarity on deciding which job to accept. But if you're somebody that is struggling and not getting any job offers at all, that's actually something that I specialize in. I've got a website called a life after layoff.com. It's loaded with tips and tricks all from an insider's perspective. And I share some of my deepest and most intimate knowledge in the form of some training courses. The first one is called resume rocket fuel, and it's designed to teach you exactly how to write a resume that is going to give you the best chance of getting noticed by that recruiter for that first round interview. Now, once you get that first round interview, it's up to you to sell yourself throughout the rest of the interviewing process and ultimately to land on the dream offer. And that's where the ultimate job seeker bootcamp comes in. It's going to give you all the tools necessary to get through each step of that interviewing process and ultimately land your dream offer. So if you're somebody that's struggling in your job search, I highly encourage you to check those out. And I'm also available for some limited private one-on-one coaching. You can reach me at my website. I'll leave a link for that below. Hey, happy job hunting. Congratulations on that offer. We'll see you on the next one.