An Offer Letter or an Employment Offer Letter
An offer letter is a signed and stamped document which is provided by a company to a candidate, who is selected for his position for which he has applied. It contains all the details like: the salary package, designation of the candidate, in which department he is entitled to work in, what are the timings of the candidate; what more benefits the company will provide to the candidate, and what all he/she will receive on his ending of his employment. The offer letter indicates that the candidate has got the job only when both the parties have duly signed it, after reading each and every word of it.
What Does The Offer Letter Contain?
Job Title
This includes the designation or the position of the candidate for which he/she is selected. Mentioning their designation will help them to know more about their duties, tasks, roles and responsibilities.
Privacy Policies
These are the policies that are company’s private policies which will always remain between the employees and the employers, or among all the employers, managers, supervisors and employees of the company.
Salary Breakdown
In the offer letter, the salary that were decided in the interview will be mentioned, that what will an employee get in return of his/her work, how will he/she get it either monthly, weekly, annually or hourly.
Joining Date
The date on which a candidate had to join the company as an employee should be mentioned in the offer letter, which should also be decided in the interview.
Working Hours
The working hours for which an employee has to work in a day, should also be mentioned in the offer letter.
Restrictions
The employee should be aware of the restrictions that are there in the company, which every employee of the company should follow.
Termination Conditions
The employee should be aware of the termination conditions that are set by the company for all the employees.
Benefits
The employee gets some benefits in return of working for a company, and an employee should be aware of it.
Company Name
The most required element of an offer letter, a candidate should know in which company he/she is working.
Reporting Structure
A candidate should be aware of that to whom he/she has to report in a company.
These are the important things that an offer letter of a company should have in it, which almost clear all the doubts of a candidate who will be an employee of the company in his/her future.
Purpose of an offer letter
An employer provides its candidate an offer letter because of the following reasons:
• As it is a legal document which will act as a confirmation between an employer and a candidate that a candidate is willing to work at all the terms and conditions of the company.
• As it marks the beginning of a positive employee-employer relationship, when a candidate understands a task given to him/her at a time with honesty and completes it with full confidence then he/she can do any task given to him/her with full honesty and confidence.
• Makes a candidate aware of his roles, responsibilities, duties, compensation, benefits, and other terms and conditions of a company.
Types Of An Offer Letter
Written Offer Letter
In this type of offer letter, a printed formal letter is given to the candidate, which follows the standard business format. It contains the company’s representatives signature. And most of the companies ask the candidates to come to the office and personally collect the offer letter from the company.
Email Offer Letter
An email offer letter is sent by the company to the candidate via email. This type of offer letter is mostly common in online work. It’s almost like the written offer letter, just it’s sent via email to the candidate with the company’s representatives signature. It’s easy to organize and it travels very fast to the candidate as it is sent through mail and takes no longer than a minute or two.
Formal Format Of An Offer Letter
Date
Candidate’s Name
Candidate’s address
Dear [candidate’s name]
Congratulations! We are delightful to offer you a position of [designation] in our [company’s name], with a start date of [joining date]. You will report directly to our [manager/supervisor] at [location of work].
We feel that your skills and background will be valuable assets to our team.
In this job role, you will be required to [ mention the roles, duties and responsibilities of a candidate].
Your salary for this position is [salary amount], which will be paid to you on [monthly, weekly] basis, by [direct deposit, cheque].
As our employee you are also be eligible for the benefits program, which includes [medical insurance, vacation time, and other benefits provided to an employee].
We welcome you to our company and hope this journey with you will be successful and rewarding.
Please confirm your acceptance of this offer letter by signing and returning this offer letter by [last date of returning the offer letter].
We are excited to have you in our team! If you have any questions till then, feel free to reach us out at any moment.
Sincerely,
[Signature of company’s respective authority]
[Printed name of authority]
[Job title of authority]
Address of company: _________________
Email address: ___________________
Phone No.: _________________
This is a format of a formal offer letter that almost every company follows, and it contains all the main elements that an offer letter should have within.
Now let’s discuss something more about an offer letter.
A most frequently asked question – “does a candidate get the job when he gets his or he offer letter?”.
So, the answer to this question is simple and a big “Yes”. When a company offers you to join their company, they send you an offer letter regarding the same, which contains their terms and conditions which are same for every employee, and if you want to join the company you should also follow the same. If you accept the offer letter and want to work with the company, then you can accept the letter by signing it and returning back the signed offer letter to the company before the expiry date of the offer letter submission.
But the offer letter indicates that a candidate has got the job when both the parties sign the offer letter.
An offer letter does not guarantee your employment, meaning, an employer may also withdraw the offer letter or a candidate may also reject the offer by the company. Therefore, getting an offer letter doesn’t mean that a company is guaranteeing you employment or that your job is being secured with the company.
What do you have to do when you receive your offer letter?
The answer can be the following points described below:
• First and foremost, you should read all the terms and conditions and the information provided by the company, very carefully.
• You should compare the discussions held with the company in the interview and what they have written in the offer letter.
• You should respond within the prescribed time given by the company to accept the offer. If you want to reject, just inform the employer once.
• You can have a discussion with an employer if you want any change in your offer letter, as per your discussions which held earlier at the time of interview.
• You should be open to further discussions with the company which will be advantageous to you and the company too.
This is all basic about an offer letter, that every single person should know. When accepted, an offer letter can make a candidate who has applied for a job an employee of the company.
