What is a job offer?

Job offer definition

The term ‘job offer’ primarily refers to an offer made directly to an applicant to fill a vacancy, i.e.: to work for the company for a fixed monthly fee, a short term contract, or on a freelance basis.

This usually happens after screening the documents (e.g. CV, cover letter), conducting interviews, and the final decision for a certain candidate. 

Alternative meanings

The term “job vacancy” is often used synonymously with “job advertisement” or as a general collective term for vacancies that can be found on a job board, social networks, or an employer’s career page. JOIN’s job offer, for example, currently includes about 25 jobs.

Who is responsible for submitting a job offer?

The responsibility for making specific job offers can vary depending on the size of the company. In start-ups and small companies, it is often the management itself that decides whether to make an offer. In medium-sized companies, the decision may already be made by the relevant department heads (the future superiors of the new team member).

HR and people teams are always involved. They are responsible, among other things, for preparing and drafting relevant employment contracts (ideally on the basis of the job description drawn up at the beginning) and for drawing up an onboarding plan.

What happens after a job offer is made?

When a company makes a job offer to an applicant, there are two possible outcomes:

Acceptance of the job offer

If the applicant who has been directly offered the job accepts the job offer, it means that he or she will start working in a company. Until this happens, the following usually happens:

1. Offer from the company to the applicant.
2. Ideally, expression of interest on the part of the applicant
3. Preparation, approval, and presentation of the employment contract
4. If necessary, renegotiation of working hours, salary, etc. 
5. Final decision by the applicant (for the company as new employer)
6. Signing of the contract
7. Rejection of applicants to be rejected
8. Preparation of induction by HR team and service department

The order may vary slightly from company to company and depending on internal decision-making channels and processes. 

Both the company’s personnel search and the job search of an applicant are then considered to be completed.

Rejection of the job offer 

The actual acceptance of a job offer is often quite uncertain until the contracts are signed. If, for example, no agreement is reached during renegotiations, the favoured candidate can still reject the job offer.

In the worst case, a company makes its job offer to the preferred candidate too late, so that the candidate may have already signed another contract (with another employer).

Both cases are annoying for companies and, in the worst-case scenario, can require a complete new start in the recruitment process—a high cost factor that can hit especially fast-growing start-ups and small businesses hard.

Further literature on job offers

In order to prevent negative outcomes as a result of a job offer, we have compiled helpful guides for you in our Knowledge Base on many recruiting topics; from creating and publishing a job offer, to successful hiring and all the way to successful employee retention.