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Getting a job offer of any kind is a hugely exciting moment. Before you actually get started, you will receive a contract. Rather than signing it straight away, there are certain elements of it that you should check to make sure that you are happy. After all, you do not want to commit to anything that you do not fully understand and appreciate. With this in mind, here are the parts of an employment contract that you should check out before signing up for it.
Professional Return Email
If you are responding to the job offer via digital means, you need to make sure that the email looks professional. After all, by responding to this job offer, you are becoming their new employee, and, therefore, you want to make a lasting first impression. An email signature generator such as rocketseed.com can help out with this. Double-check to ensure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors as you do not want to give a bad impression straight away!
Job Description and Title
It may seem quite obvious, but you need to check out the job description and title to make sure that everything is the same as what you had initially agreed upon. Your job title is how you will represent yourself on your resume to future employers, so it is important from this point of view. The description itself should be fairly specific. If it is too general, your employer has more of an option to add elements that you may not be happy with. Essentially, you want everything to be as it was initially represented and discussed.
Salary and Benefits
Of course, you want to make sure that the salary that you discussed is the same one on the page! If not, you need to raise this issue straight away. You should also check out when and how often you are going to be paid. If there is anything regarding bonuses and expenses, you also need to know about these. If anything is based on performance, this needs to be made explicitly clear. Also, you want to have written down any additional benefits that you can expect to receive along the way.
Hours
Another key element to check is making sure that the hours you were expecting to work are made clear. You also need to check out the policy of overtime and whether or not this is paid. Also, the working location needs to be made clear, as well as the start and end date of the contract.
Holidays and Sick Leave
It is a good idea to check out the number of holidays that you will receive and whether or not there are any restrictions with regards to the time of year that you can take them. For example, you may be required to take a number of days over the Christmas period. Also, you want to know whether you are entitled to be paid for any sick days that you may take.
Make sure that you check all of these different elements before you sign an employment contract and start your new job.
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