Offer letter delay, but received verbal yes | Hacker News Reader

Offer letter delay, but received verbal yes

3 pointstechyvibes12 comments

so i got an offer from a tech company. they are hiring 2-5 people for a new team, and i am one of them.

they gave me the offer few days after the interview, but did note that paperwork would take some time. of the 3-5 people on the team, i was the last to say yes (and know for a fact that the others have received their paperwork).

it's been almost two weeks now, and no paperwork. mind you my start date is in a few weeks and the HR person said this week that I should get it shortly. i want to ask for a specific ETA, but recognize that given i am the last to start and join from the group (and it's in a few weeks), they are prob concentrating on the others who are starting before me. BUT not seeing an offer letter is also misleading.. no? all i have right now is email confirmation. which is not legally binding.

Is this normal? should i reach out to the hiring manager?

am i just a paranoid mess?

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@westcoastjustin- I did email at the beginning of this week. HR said I will def get offer my way soon/shortly.

@fsk I hear you

@vinit pretty big company. Top 10 tech companies globally right now

@dudul: I confirmed many times that this is good to go. They sent me the 'offer' (salary, start date, etc) in an email. They said they are fully confirmed when I officially accepted the offer (again via email). They got the background check going after that. Given this is a new team they said paperwork would be delayed so I assumed that was normal. I spoke to someone else who accepted the offer and said their process was sketch too - he/she didn't see the full offer either (but got more paperwork than myself at least), though this person is starting before me.

This is not twitter -- there is a reply button below every comment.

Ha, touche. Fair enough.

Yeah, because I look at my own comments page, and wouldn't have noticed you posted a reply unless I came back to the OP.

Regarding OP - Did you give notice at your last job? If so, and this falls through, you learned a valuable lesson.

1. Don't give notice at your last job until your offer is confirmed and all the details are sorted out. For example, they might have an overly broad non-compete you want to negotiate (matters in NYC), and you won't know til you get the contract. I saw one non-compete clause that said "You can't work any financial software job in NYC.", which I refused as overly broad.

2. If you're concerned about the offer being revoked, ask for a signing bonus or for them to guarantee the first 1-3 months' salary, so you don't get screwed when they flake on you.

3. I've had several job offers that included options in the verbal offer, but they never came though with a formal option grant letter. You need to get that sorted out if it matters to you. Fortunately, those startups failed, so it didn't matter that I got no options.

I had one offer revoked because their financing round fell though, and they had to do layoffs instead of hiring.

I have given notice, yes. I know, stupid. 1. Wouldn't the broad terms invalidate the clause? 2. Agreed. 3. so there was no 'verbal' offer - the offer came in an email format with the salary, options, compensation breakdown, start date. Then we chatted on phone to negotiate offer. I know the email holds no legal soundness but given the company's name and me asking three times 'so All confirmed on your end?' and receiving responses like 'we are SO excited you're on board! Yes absolutely, all confirmed on our end'

I think HR might just be swamped. Time will tell.. Very soon.

One more thing - when you refused that as overly broad, did they modify it? Did you end up taking the gig?

They did modify that clause.

Thanks for your help!

> Is this normal? should I reach out to the hiring manager?

Yes, sadly HR departments earn their reputation for bureaucratic sloth and myopia.

Reach out to the Hiring Manager. Play it cool, like Fonzi. Suggest saying something like-- Looking forward to getting started, I wanted compare notes with you on next steps. BTW, I haven't received the formal paperwork, would you know of its status? The inquiry should be enough to get things rolling.

Incidentally, recommend reading George Bradt on starting your new role> http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108444.The_New_Leader_s_1...

"they gave me the offer few days after the interview" "BUT not seeing an offer letter is also misleading"

Wait, what? Did they give you an offer or not? Until you see an offer letter signed by both parties you don't have a job.

How big is the tech company? My offer letter was retracted after me having signed it as well. Their reason was that due to all of the people would sit in one single room(it was a startup) adding one more person would breach their fire hazard safety threshold. Point being, if the company is big and even somewhat reputed, an email is not really bad right now. Give it a 2-4 days and if you still dont receive a reply, just go for it

I've had job offers revoked, both with verbal AND written offers.

With an "at-will employment" clause, nothing prevents a revoked offer. It sucks if you already gave notice at your current/last job.

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