Congratulations! After months of job searching, submitting applications, stressing over cover letters, and preparing for interviews, you just got that job offer you’ve been waiting for. And you can’t wait to start! Your excitement is certainly well-earned, but before you give your current employer two weeks’ notice, let’s take a moment to make sure you’ve looked closely at the details of your new employment offer.
Now, before we dive into the specifics, let’s be very clear: there is no one-size-fits-all advice when it comes to evaluating a job offer. You’re unique, and therefore you have your own unique perspective and objectives. Perhaps your new job comes with a higher salary or offers notable opportunities for growth and development. Maybe it’s located near your children’s school. Or maybe it permits you to work in a niche field that aligns perfectly with your interests. Only you can decide how much weight to give each aspect of a job offer, and in some cases, it may be worth accepting a few drawbacks in exchange for the things you truly value.
Nonetheless, it’s important to make your decisions with your eyes wide open, so here are a few questions you might want to be asking before accepting that job offer.
Will you be bound by an arbitration agreement?
Employers use a variety of tools to protect their interests and safeguard the investment that they are making in you as an employee of their company. One such tool is the arbitration agreement.
Without an arbitration agreement, if you get into a legal dispute with your employer, you can likely file a lawsuit in court. This is often the best venue for an employee: court proceedings are public; the judge generally permits an employee to conduct broad discovery regarding their claims (and requires the employer to provide the employee with all relevant documentation); and a jury typically decides whether the employee is entitled to relief.
If your employer binds you to a valid arbitration agreement, however, you won’t be able to just publicly file your claims in court. Instead, arbitration is a private process, where a private arbitrator (rather than a judge or a jury) makes a binding decision to resolve a legal dispute. Oftentimes, in arbitration agreements, employers also give themselves the right to determine where the arbitration will take place and to limit the discovery an employee is permitted to conduct.
So, before accepting your job offer, you might want to determine whether your employer is going to require you to sign an arbitration agreement or otherwise bind you to an arbitration provision.
Will you be bound by a non-compete agreement?
Employers also try to protect their interests by having their employees sign noncompete agreements.
A noncompete agreement is a binding contract that prevents workers from seeking employment with a competitor or starting their own competitive business. Under preexisting Ohio law, noncompete agreements are lawful and enforceable so long as they are reasonable in scope, which typically means they are limited in terms of: (1) time (often expiring within one to two years after the employee’s employment); and (2) geography (often applying only where the employer actually conducts business).
Before accepting a job, it’s important that you understand whether you’ll have any post-employment restrictions. Maybe you’re a materials scientist, and you’ve spent your whole career developing coatings. When your employment ends, will you be able to find another job in your field? Or is your potential employer seeking a non-compete agreement that is so broad as to cause you concern?
What happens to your intellectual property?
When an employee joins a company, it’s not unusual for the employer to require the employee to sign an Intellectual Property (“IP”) Assignment Agreement. By signing this agreement, the employee agrees to transfer ownership of IP (like inventions and creative works) to his/her employer. This kind of agreement makes a lot of sense: if an employee is creating work-product on behalf of his/her employer, the employer is going to want to make sure that it owns the work-product.
However, before you execute an IP Assignment Agreement, there are a whole host of questions you might want to consider. Do you currently own any patents? Have you developed any inventions? How about any creative works? When you start your job, do you plan to continue developing your own IP on your own time?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” you’ll want to take a very careful look at any IP Assignment Agreement that your employer asks you to sign. You’ll want to determine whether it is sufficiently narrow—i.e., whether it only applies to IP you develop (1) during your employment and (2) with your employer’s equipment.
How much bargaining power do you really have as a prospective employee?
As a practical matter, whenever you’re thinking about negotiating the terms of employment, there’s another question you should ask yourself (not your employer). How much bargaining power do you really have?
The answer to this question depends on your individual situation. For example, perhaps you enjoy your current job. You’re open to alternative employment, but you don’t have to find a job right away. You’re not desperate. If that’s the case, maybe you’ll feel comfortable making a lot of requests in response to a new job offer. If the offer falls through, you’re still employed.
By contrast, you might be experiencing a period of unemployment, and you need to find a job right away. In that circumstance, you might want to be very measured when communicating with your prospective employer: you don’t want job-related requests to place your offer at risk.
And, of course, discussions related to job offers are not a one-way street. The employer will have its own set of considerations. The employer might be desperate to hire a candidate and might be willing to make several favorable changes to the job offer. In other circumstances, an employer may have interviewed many highly qualified applicants for a single position. That employer may not feel the need to revisit the terms of its original offer.
At McCarthy Lebit, we help employees evaluate their employment agreements and offer letters. Whether you have questions regarding a proposed employment agreement or if you need assistance negotiating specific terms, our employment team is equipped to assess your situation and offer appropriate assistance.
For more information or to seek counsel from our Employment group, please reach out to request a consultation or call us at 216-696-1422.
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McCarthy Lebit would like to thank law clerk Douglas (DJ) Carter for his work in assisting with the preparation of this legal blog post for The More Report.
