Questions to Ask About a New Job

The job hunt­ing process. Isn’t it just the most fun thing you’ve ever done? What could pos­si­bly be bet­ter then end­less­ly mak­ing cov­er let­ters and throw­ing your resume at a mil­lion poten­tial employ­ers? Oh gee, Gwen, I don’t know, actu­al­ly hav­ing a job? [side­note: results not guar­an­teed for the resume throw­ing process. Bet­ter results come from gen­tly set­ting it on a desk.]

Right. Let’s face it, the job hunt sucks. Hav­ing to wear fan­cy (and EXPENSIVE) clothes to talk to peo­ple who prob­a­bly already filled the posi­tion inter­nal­ly is ter­ri­ble. But! Sup­pose you find some­one who thinks you’d be a great fit for the job. AWESOME!! Con­grats! Now, what most peo­ple strug­gle with is what hap­pens after the inter­view- that gray area between inter­vie­wee and employ­ee. The one where you and your spark­ly new employ­er come to the bar­gain­ing table over ben­e­fits. They know you’re not going to work for free, but it’s in their best inter­est to pay you as lit­tle as pos­si­ble. Con­verse­ly, it’s in YOUR best inter­est to get the best pos­si­ble ben­e­fits pack­age you can.

“But Gwen, I would­n’t even know what to ask them!”
“If I ask too many ques­tions, or am too pushy, they’ll just decide not to hire me. Then all my hard work will be for nothing.”
“I should just be grate­ful I have an offer. I’ll accept what they offer me and fight for more later.”

ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE NOT OK. You are obvi­ous­ly spe­cial. Yes, you. Oth­er­wise, they would­n’t have even both­ered to inter­view you more than once or offer you a position.

Gen­er­al­ly, after you inter­view, there’s a wait­ing peri­od and then they will noti­fy you in some fash­ion. The wait­ing peri­od can vary from 2 hours to 2 weeks. (Once I did­n’t even make it back home before I had a job offer.) After you get your offer let­ter is when you should talk about ben­e­fits. If you have mul­ti­ple offers, this is an excel­lent way to decide between them. (I high­ly rec­om­mend a spread­sheet. I love spreadsheets!)

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THINGS TO CONSIDER:

PAY:

-Hourly or salaried? How will over­time work? Flextime?
‑How often are you paid- week­ly, biweek­ly, bimonth­ly? The first and 15^th, or the 15^th and 31^st?
‑What method can you access this? Direct deposit or a paper check?

-What do rais­es look like? Are they on a set time scale or mer­it based? Some com­bo thereof?
‑Are there bonus­es? How are they decid­ed? (Individual/Company performance?)

BENEFITS:

-Do you get paid time off? How does that accu­mu­late? Does it rollover from year to year or is it use it or lose it?
‑How do sick days work? Will they com­plain if you use them?
‑Is there any option to work from home? [<super impor­tant if you have a ser­vice call at your place for cable/plumbing/etc]

-Is there health insur­ance? Who’s the provider? Do they have paper­work you can look over lat­er? How long until you’re eli­gi­ble for it?
‑Is there a plan with an HSA available?
‑Do they offer a 401(k)? Do they offer match­ing? What’s the vest­ing period?
‑Is there a pen­sion? What’s the vest­ing period?
‑Are there any oth­er ben­e­fits? (such as free child­care, onsite gym, dis­counts on prod­ucts, trans­porta­tion reim­burse­ment, relo­ca­tion package?)

PERFORMANCE AND IMPROVEMENT:

-Are there reg­u­lar per­for­mance reviews? How often?
‑Who would you report to? Who would be doing your reviews? Would you work with this per­son directly?

-How are pro­mo­tions han­dled? Senior­i­ty, per­for­mance, set goals?
‑What does a typ­i­cal career path look like for this position?
‑How does train­ing work? Do you get the chance to attend con­fer­ences, or will all train­ing be han­dled by a senior coworker?

CULTURE:

-What’s a typ­i­cal day look like? Do employ­ees reg­u­lar­ly hang out or are they just coworkers?
‑What’s the turnover rate?
‑What’s the per­cent­age of employ­ees vs con­trac­tors? Is there a clear sep­a­ra­tion between the two?
‑Will you get face­time with high­er ups or are they most­ly removed?

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Now, don’t go down this list like a robot in one set­ting. These are all things to con­sid­er, and often­times will come up with­out you hav­ing to ask. Be sure to check out sites like glassdoor.com for an inside look in a com­pa­ny. Also make sure you know the aver­age salary for the posi­tion you’re apply­ing for and bar­gain accord­ing­ly. I did­n’t know I need­ed to ask these ques­tions and slight­ly regret not ask­ing them, although I got lucky and got a posi­tion with a com­pa­ny that offers an excel­lent ben­e­fits pack­age. Learn from my mistakes!!

 

Did I miss any ques­tions? What did you ask before you got your job?