I’m curious to hear opinions on employment agreements/contracts. I’m in the process of deciding between jobs and have already had two “offers” given to me without an actual written offer or agreement. I used the quote marks around “offer” because these were merely verbal offers, to which I requested an agreement stating their terms of employment, and received an answer that was basically “we don’t have an employment agreement” and told that the closest approximation they have to one is a policy manual given on the first day of work. Right, so I need to say yes before I know what to say yes to? :dubious:
This is the first time in my experience this has ever happened. It’s pretty standard procedure to receive both an offer and an agreement so that a candidate knows what their exact compensation and benefits will be, and what the company’s expectations are for them as an employee.
I already know that not receiving this up front is a huge red flag and the situation just screams AVOID to me, which is likely exactly what I’ll be doing. This practice of not having an employment agreement is, however, apparently not illegal, at least not in America as far as I can tell. There are some regions where the absence of a written agreement IS illegal, but for the sake of conversation I’m curious what others think about the particular situation of basically being told what amounts to “we’ll give you the employment agreement on day one, after you accept the offer.” For what it’s worth, this seems pretty common in unskilled jobs and sales and for the record, it should come as little surprise that at least one of these jobs was for commissioned sales. I’ve already been in commissioned sales for a few years but this is a new one on me. Ugh.
Have you experienced this and if so, what was your experience like? Have you ever made what is presumably the mistake of accepting something like this either out of desperation or inexperience and if so, what is your ultimate takeaway from the experience?
Are you saying they refused to make you an offer in writing? Or that they didn’t have a comprehensive employment contract available?
The first would surprise me, the second would not. Most employees in america do not work pursuant to a contract, unless they are unionized.
Perhaps your request for an “employment agreement” confused them, made them think you wanted a contract that sets out terms of conditions of work (other than compensation) when all you wanted was a written offer stating title and total compensation. HR people are generally rather stupid and easily confused.
If you ask for their offer in writing and they refuse to do that, run far away.
Heh, well he was basically the Sales Manager, not HR, though I understand how making an informed request for written agreements is not something a majority of people are educated or experienced enough to do, so I can understand why it might catch HR people off guard if somebody specifically asks for one.
This situation was basically a bit of both: refusal to provide a written offer AND no comprehensive employment agreement provided prior to employment. Maybe “employment contract” is the wrong word, even though an employment agreement and an employment contract are effectively the same thing. I’ve never been in a union but I’ve always received SOME kind of agreement stating everything in written form prior to accepting an offer, hence the red flag and why I’ve already pretty much made up my mind to avoid. This is more about me wondering if others have made the decision not to avoid and ended up regretting it. Curious to hear stories.
I am not completely clear on what you are expecting either. I have usually gotten a conditional offer from the hiring manager after the interview. The final interview itself was when we discussed what the actual job was and gave me a chance to ask for any clarifications. HR then followed up with an official offer that told the position title, salary and sometimes the start date. That is usually verbal as well but they sometimes follow it up with a letter. You get benefits information either from the package they give you at the interview or by asking HR follow-up questions before you accept the offer. That is it really it. Most positions in the U.S. don’t have contracts and benefits can change year to year so all the can tell you is what the current ones are.
I have worked at a lot of companies of all sizes over the years and that is the way it is usually done.
I was expecting exactly the situation you just described, as most anyone might. This, however, was simply an interview, after which I sent an e-mail thanking them for the interview and that “I would welcome an offer.”
The exact response to that was that he was “thrilled to hear that I was ready to get started” which I never really said. He basically went from A to C and skipped the official offer step, as if I’d already said yes.
To make clear to him what I meant by welcoming an offer, I replied again requesting an agreement or any other information in the form of an official written letter stating all those mentioned items (title, salary, start date, etc.) and his response to that was that they didn’t have any such official offer letter or employment agreement, and that instead I would receive a policy manual containing all of these things on the first day of employment.
This is less about seeking personal advice about what to in my specific situation (as I said, I’ll be passing on it) and more about hearing other people’s experiences in a similarly unusual situation as it’s not something I’ve experienced before either.
That is odd then. I am guessing there is some type of internal miscommunication. If I was in that situation, I would just politely tell them that you can’t accept an offer yet because you don’t know what the offer is. I know you said that you already indicated a version of that but maybe they aren’t getting it and it needs to be rephrased.
You could just tell them that you don’t necessarily need anything in writing but you do need to know what position you are accepting, what the salary range for that position is and what benefits the company is currently offering new hires so you can consider it.
Based on your OP, I thought that you just wanted some type of contract/written followup to something that had already been discussed. That may be what they are assuming as well.
It does seem odd for a professional job. Most companies will provide what Shagnasty described. A simple HR offer letter telling you your position, title, salary, start date and number of vacation days.
There is almost no risk to you. You can always quit at will. The worst thing that can happen is you waste a couple days on a job that isn’t what you expected. However the fact that they won’t provide you an offer letter comes across as shady and unprofessional.
Is this a smallish company? Because I’ve had some similar experiences with companies that were smaller, but still large enough that they should know better (less than 200 employees).
One wouldn’t put together the offer letter until I accepted the job, saying that it was a significant amount of work to do so. I thought this was weird. It’s a freakin form letter. Send me you offer package and take your chances if I will accept. Since I was waiting to hear back from another company, I ultimately “accepted” the offer and then rescinded it once the other company made me their offer.
Another kind of strung me along for months. I wouldn’t care about that as small companies get busy but it got to the point where they were having me meet their clients and passing me off as if I was a managing consultant already working for them. Totally sketchy as I didn’t even work for the company yet. By the time they finally made me an offer, I had already been at my new job for 4 months (and been promoted). I offered to come work for them if they gave me a 20% salary bump but I guess it wasn’t worth it to them.
My advice (dependent on your personal financial situation) is to evaluate the hiring experience at a company as if that is the best they will ever treat you. Because it often is. If the company is being evasive or shady now, how do you think they will be 6-18 months from now? At best it shows they don’t have their shit together and at worst they could be bringing you into a shit-show or pre-emptively covering up or obfuscating your employment history with them in anticipation of some future unethical or unprofessional activity (although I’m not sure what that might be.)
I’d sooner blame it on incompetence than malfeasance. But either is a red (or at least dark pink) flag.
You could try writing up and sending back what you want them to send you. Specifics of position, salary, vacation, etc. And send it in electronic document form so they can either accept it in writing or change it and send it back. Tack a few thou a month onto the suggested salary for your efforts. Can’t hurt & might work.
I think it could be a little bit of both, but mostly just an attempt to provide an escape clause for any possible discussion of negotiating compensation since it’s commission-based, I think.
Not a bad idea either. Thing is, I’ve actually done business with (and have friends at) this company, and may even do business with them in the future, so I don’t want to put on airs or play hiring games and I’ll just be declining as stated earlier so there aren’t any awkward situations later on. Thought it might be fun to work for them but I didn’t expect this and I’d rather save face than burn bridges, but for anyone not in that situation with nothing to lose and desperate for work, I suppose there are worse ideas! Still and all, I’d be curious to hear more horror stories.
Short answer, analyzing business processes is a big part of my job.
Entirely possible. Commission-based implies a sales driven organization. Which means they tend to neglect aspects of the organization outside of sales because they are cost centers. It also creates a lot of potential for gaming the system to avoid paying out bonuses and commissions and other scumbaggery. i.e no formal offer letter means fewer records of when you actually started working at the company. That could affect the timing of recognizing sales and paying out commissions.
For my examples, I suspect with the first company, either the manager didn’t want to look bad by sending an offer that might be rejected. Or they were just lazy. Considering they were acquired and the hiring manager left the company a few months after I declined, I think I made the right choice.
For the second example, basically they couldn’t afford to hire me and have me sit on the beach (consulting term for unassigned to a project) for months until a project started. So they gambled that I would be available once those projects were ready. They lost that gamble. But it sent a message to me that they were more concerned about short term staffing of projects than any longer term career plan. If they were so tight that they couldn’t have me spend a couple months waiting for a project to start, how long would they let me sit around once a project ended?
I’ve worked in the commission payout world in the past; it can be incredibly complex, many more details than a simple letter that states you make x/hr or Y/year. It can be a whole book & they may consider that proprietary so they won’t give it to you until you sign a NDA (non-disclosure agreement).
Even with a simple payout like:
0-5000 - 5% payout
5000-10,000 - 10% payout
10,000-15,000 15% payout, etc.
What happens if you get a back-dated or cxl’d sale in the next month? Does it get paid at the current month’s payout or last month’s payout? What if you have a cxl that takes you from 5005 back to 4990? Do you then adjust all of the other sales to payout at only 5%? Same with a back-dated sale, if it’s the magic sale that pushes you up a tier, do they then adjust all of your sales to the higher commission level?
Are there any rules about you don’t get credit until the customer does x? This is especially true regulated industries like securities or insurance where the customer has to fill out account paperwork & suitability forms & show government ID to open a new account.
