Every offer you get will include some details and omit others. To perform a proper comparison between multiple offers and reach a good decision, you'll need all the details for all offers. After numerous back-and-forths with several companies, I composed a checklist ideal for anyone on the verge of deciding the next stage of their career.

• Benefits Medical, dental, vision. Yes, you're young and healthy, but root canals are much more painful when you're paying for them out of your pocket.
• Bonuses Sign-on bonus, moving bonus, refresher bonus, performance bonus, yearly bonus. Some companies have them, others don't. This affects your "total compen sation" per year.
• Career opportunities What positions are available in the event that you earn a promotion? What is the procedure for promotions and raises? Some companies require a strict number of years of experience or qualification before you can reach specific positions.
• Equity Stock options and restricted stock units are two that I've encountered. Find out the vesting conditions (when the stock actually becomes yours), and more importantly find out its value. For publically traded companies you can look up the value of each share, but for private companies 100,000 shares means nothing if you don't know how many shares there are in total. Ultimately, you want to find out what portion of the company value you are getting in the event that there is a buyout. Large and VC-funded companies will usually have less stock floating around for new hires, while smaller privately-funded companies will usually offer more stock for a lower salary. It's up to you to determine how much you think that company (and thus, your stock) is worth. I highly recommend reading Venture Hacks' writeup on considering offers from startups if you find yourself in that boat.
• Hours What is the company culture regarding the number of hours they're expecting you put in? Is it a 60hr/wk sweatshop, or do they not care how late you stumble in and how early you bust out as long as your work is getting done?
• Leaving You never know when your life might change and you have to jump ship. Keep an eye out on leaving conditions and consequences, such as having to pay back your bonuses. You don't want to find yourself in unexpected debt.
• Perks Free lunches, gym access and trainers, public transit pass, housing assistance, commute shuttles, relocation assistance, company events, corporate discounts. They don't pay the bills, but they don't get taxed and make you a little bit happier even if you refuse to admit it.
• Salary This is heavily proportional to the location and its cost of living. Your salary is worth a lot less in California than it is in Seattle where the cost of living is half, and there is no state income tax.
• Starting date How flexible is your starting date?
• Telecommuting What is the policy for working from home? What about workign abroad during an extended trip?
• Title You might not think it matters right now, but it matters to your career. That, and salaries are often proportional to your title. Find out what positions are available in your branch of specialty and figure out what bracket they're offering you. Big tech companies often have things like Software Engineer Level 1 (new graduate), Level 2, etc.
• Vacation How many days of vacation per year? Personal days? Sick days?

What did I miss?

Archived Comments

1. Greg Wilson March 7th, 2009 9:00 pm

   Intellectual property rights: what claim if any does the company assert to work you do outside your job (e.g., on open source projects)?

   Liability: what if anything are you legally liable for if something goes sour?

2. Adam White March 7th, 2009 9:54 pm

   Learning opportunities – book budget, conferences, in-house training, certifications, partial/full coverage of MBA fees

3. Isaac Ezer March 7th, 2009 10:20 pm

   Meet as many people as you can at the company, on your team, etc. My current job would suck if there weren’t tons of other cool people around my age at the company.

4. Laurie March 24th, 2009 1:47 am

   And dress code! I’m not happy unless I can show up wearing sneakers.

5. Vincent shen June 6th, 2009 10:59 am

   I will consider that the company culture and working “atomsphere” is very important. I will like to work with a group of engergic colleagues rather than a team only for working.
   This is just my opinion. Your article is really very nice and maybe i will translate it to Chinese to share with my friend.