What Is A Job Offer?

What is a job offer is a simple question which seems to conjure up various answers. Because my daughter has been enduring a series of standardized tests in recent months, I thought we would take a multiple choice test to come up with the best answer. Read all of the choices before making your selection! Each participant may choose just one response to the question which I will repeat to make sure all have read it.

What is a job offer?

a) A call from a company asking you to come in for an interview.
b) An inquiry from a staffing firm about your skill sets and employment status.
c) A verbal or written offer of employment containing salary, job title, and report date.
d) Email telling you that a company found your resume online and you need to press the apply button for immediate consideration.
e) All of the above.
f) None of the above.

Hopefully, you all selected (c) as nothing constitutes an offer of employment unless the start date, pay rate, and either a title or job description has been made to you either via a conversation or in writing. There is nothing wrong with getting contact online or by a phone call from a recruiting firm. Also, nothing is better than a formal interview invitation but none of these is a job offer!

Too many folks turn down chances to interview for a great job because they told the employer they already had a great offer. Until you actually receive a verifiable offer, do not turn down any interviews!

ETC.

• Attention candidates: Do not list a skill on your resume if you have never used it at work or at least had some formal training!
• Attention hiring managers: No matter how rough the economy is, you still will get what you pay for!
• Those with full time jobs need to be happy with what they have right now.
• Those who are collecting unemployment checks need to think twice before rejecting employment offers.
• Prospects for lower unemployment rates in August are still in doubt as far as I can tell.
• Prospects for recent grads hedge on how aggressive they are in the search process.

Advice to College Seniors

March 1 will be here tomorrow. Most college seniors will be done with their studies in 8-12 weeks. If you are not heading off to graduate school, I hope you are actively pursuing employment opportunities now! A few things to keep in mind include making sure your resume is ready to go (send me a copy if you wish), your references are aware that they are on your list, and that you have visited your school's Career Services office more than once and are keeping in constant contact with them. I worked in that field for many years and assure you that the students who kept most in touch with me were the ones most likely to find a job before graduation. There are jobs available to you but you will need all the help you can get to find the right one!

ETC.

• Just when I thought the employment market was ready to take a giant step forward, it slowed down the last few weeks. Of course, part of this may be due to the Northeast being a frozen tundra distracting people from functioning at full speed.
• Rather than painting negative pictures, the media should look for markets where hiring is still occurring (medical devices, legal fields, machine design to name a few).
• More and more employers are asking recruiters to verify employment and performance before they interview potential contract employees. The rational is that if the recruiter is hiring the person to be on his/her firms payroll, then he/she should do the legwork. If you are a candidate, NEVER refuse a request for references. I had to drop a candidate this week he was unwilling to provide the needed information.
• If you are an engineer in the automotive industry, I would get ready to do some contract work in QA as I suspect all the major auto makers will be looking to ensure higher standards than ever before.