Evaluate Your Job Offer

What is This?

This tool is designed to help you evaluate your job offer and plan for your future. Not only does it help you, but it also helps the company you eventually work for. When YOU make better decisions, THEY can make better decisions too!

How do I use this?

There is a 3 step process that was developed, with an acronym of E.N.E. This stands for Educate, Negotiate, Evaluate. Each step of the process has a tool assigned to it. For the first step (Educate), the tool is called Junk the Jargon. This is a compilation of the most common benefits and aspects of a job offer that students aren't as familar with. It allows you to explore the ones you are unfamilar with and gain a better understanding of aspects of a job offer to consider.

EDUCATE: Junk the Jargon

 

The second step of the process is called Negotiate, and the tool for it is called Broke or Not. The purpose of this tool is for you to see how your salary will breakdown after taking into account all the costs of living, such as taxes, food, retirement contributions, and many more. You can download the excel sheet and input numbers when prompted. This will result in a net monthly income of leftover money. If this number is in the red, then you either have to negotiate for more money or reevaluate your lifestyle. If it is in the green, then great job!

 

NEGOTIATE: Broke or Not: Download Broke or Not

 

The third and final step of the process is called Evaluate, and the tool for it is Take or Toss. This tool is designed to be as free use as possible. Once it is downloaded, follow the instructions. The basis of Take or Toss is to input aspects of the offer you wish to evaluate. Then, you input how important that is to you when making a decision, then you input your happiness with that specific aspect. All inputs are on a 1-7 scale. To put the numbers into perspective, a 4 is "average", a 7 is very much above average, while a 1 is very much below average. In the end, it is a weighted-average calculater that lets you easily see how well you match with the job offer. If the final number is highlighted red, then it might not be a great match for you. If it is yellow, then it is an average match. When that number is green, that means your job offer is a great match with you!

 

EVALUATE: Take or Toss: Download Take or Toss

Junk the Jargon

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401K

What is a 401K?

Employer based retirement plan that takes a personally determined percentage of your salary and deposits it to an investment account. With this investment account, you are responsible for your investment choices and opportunities. A company will usually provide a "match" to your financial contribution to the account. The match is money that the company will put up in addition to the money that you are putting into the account. This is usually a percentage and varies by company.

How can I calculate 401K value?

Check out this website to calcualte the your 401K valvue over the course of your career.

Free 401K Calculator

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Relocation Assistance

What is a Relocation Assistance?

The process of moving outside of your home state is a disruptive, and often costly one. If you accept a position that involves moving to a new state or community, companies sometimes offer a bonus to compensate for differences in cost-of-living and relocation difficulties. Additional bonuses to cover the cost of moving into a new location are often necessary for an employee making the transition. These bonuses typically have a payback period where if you leave the company within a designated time period, you have to pay back the relocation assistance. It is extremely important that anyone seeking a position that requires moving far from home look into cost-of-living differences and what steps the company takes to address this. Without proper compensation these positions can end up being worth far less than they seem.

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Health Insurance

What is Health Insurance?

Health Insurance: Insurance is a contract, in the form of a policy, provided by insurance companies to help protect individuals from incurring financial loss. Health insurance is one type of insurance that covers the risk of a person suffering medical expenses. (Premiums) This is the amount the insurance company charges individuals. Charges are usually paid in the form of a monthly plan. Aside from premiums, insurers typically charge individuals for additional costs related to their health care. This can include a deductible, copayments, coinsurance, etc. However, one silver lining is that if you have a marketplace health plan, you might be able to lower your costs with a premium tax credit. (Deductibles) In an insurance policy, deductible is out-of-pocket money an insurer has to pay in order to kickstart their health insurance plan. For example, with a $1,000 deductible, you are required to pay the intial $1000 of covered services yourself, after which only a copayment or coinsurance for is further needed to cover anything further. (Fine print) Fine print is incridibly important and the prime reason many people prefer to consult lawyers before signing any contracts. Essentially, fine print is unnoticable information or conditions printed in an agreement that usually has negative connotations attached to it. Individuals can unknowingly agree to something while signing a contract that could present to have dire consequences for them.

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Taxes

What are Taxes?

Taxes are payments that local, state, and federal governments recieve from companies and residents. Most common taxes consist of income tax, capital gains tax, property tax, payroll tax, corporate tax, and sales tax. Make sure to understand what taxes impact you. Most likely, those will be income tax, property tax, capital gains tax, and sales tax.

What is Income Tax?

Income tax is a tax enforced by the government on income. Fixed tax is not measured as a percentage of the base tax but is instead a lump sum tax. Progressive tax is based on the ability to pay by the taxpayer. Some states do not have a state income tax.

How much am I Taxed?

Check out this website to see how much you could get taxed on your income.

Free Income Tax Calculator (State and Federal)

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PTO

What is a PTO?

PTO stands for Paid Time Off. Employers use this to pay employees their same wage for certain personal days that an employee may take off. These usually include a predetermined number of sick days, vacation days and personal days. Some companies may use an accrual system, where an employee can earn time off through working a predetermined number of hours or days, a banking system in which different types of time off are bundled, such as vacation and sick time, or an allotment system meaning the number of days are totaled to be used for any reason rather than a set amount of sick days, vacation days and personal days and these days will either expire at the end of a year or roll over.

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Education Assistance

What is a Education Assistance?

Different positions can offer a variety of education assistance programs. Typically, this will come in the form of tuition reimbursement, as well as provisional grants and scholarships for employees. The requirements for these benefits will vary depending on your employer. In some cases, companies will only provide assistance for the pursuit of very specific degree programs relevant to your position, while in other cases education assistance acts more as a direct employee benefit. Always make sure to identify with your employer what the exact requirements and expectations are for your assistance program.

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Stock Options

What are Stock Options?

Stock options is when a company gives an employee the right to purchase a certain amount of shares at a pre-determined price, which is generally lower than the current market stock price. These options can be given to employees in the form of a "vesting schedule". This means a certain amount of stock becomes available to the employee each year during their vesting schedule. For example, if an employee was granted 10,000 shares in a 4 year vesting schedule of 2,500 shares each year, that means at the end of each year those 2,500 shares become available to the employee. Some companies have a "backend-loaded" vesting schedule. An example of that would be a company has given 10,000 shares in a 4 year vesting schedule, in which they give the employee 10% the first year, then 20% the second, 30% the third and 40% the fourth year. This is to help encourage employees to stay longer than 2 or 3 years in order to get most of their shares.

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Commission

What is Commission?

Commission is how a salesperson earns money. Commission is directly related to the number of sales and the margin of the sales. It is calculated by taking the salesperson’s percent commission and multiplying it by the margin (the profit on the sale).

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