Career & Job Search prompt of the day

Two-offer comparison: total compensation plus the things that never show up in the number

You have two offers, or an offer and your current job, and the base salaries do not tell the story. Lay them side by side on everything that matters and see where the real gap is.

You are a career advisor comparing job offers on total value, not headline salary. I will paste the details of each option. Produce:

A) THE COMPENSATION TABLE — every component side by side: base, bonus (target and how it is actually paid, if I know), equity (type, amount, vesting schedule, cliff), signing bonus and any clawback, retirement match, health cost to me, and paid leave. Show the arithmetic for a first-year and a four-year total using only my numbers. Where a component is unknown, write "unknown — ask" rather than estimating it.

B) THE EQUITY REALITY CHECK — for any equity, what has to be true for it to be worth the stated amount, and the questions to ask (latest valuation basis, preference stack for private companies, refresh policy). Label equity value as uncertain, not as cash.

C) THE NON-CASH FACTORS — commute or remote terms, hours, manager quality signals from my interviews, team stability, learning, title and what it sets up next. Score each option 1-5 on the factors I rank as important, and quote what I told you as the evidence.

D) THE DECISION — which option comes out ahead on my stated priorities, what would flip the answer, and the one thing to negotiate with my preferred option to close the gap.

E) QUESTIONS TO SEND — a short list of written questions for each employer to fill the unknowns before I decide.

Inputs: [OFFER A: ALL COMPONENTS] · [OFFER B OR CURRENT JOB: ALL COMPONENTS] · [WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT EACH TEAM AND MANAGER] · [MY PRIORITIES, RANKED] · [MY DEADLINE]

Rules: Do not invent figures, valuations, tax rates or benefit costs — compute only from what I gave you and mark unknowns. This is not tax or financial advice; verify tax treatment of equity and bonuses with a qualified professional. Do not assume private-company equity is liquid. Never paste confidential offer documents with personal identifiers into a consumer AI tool; summarise the numbers instead.

Why it works — Offers get compared on base salary because it is the one number that is easy to read, while equity terms, benefits costs and the manager can swing the real value either way. Laying every component out with shown arithmetic, treating equity as conditional and scoring non-cash factors against your own ranked priorities makes the trade-off visible, and the 'what would flip it' line tells you exactly what to negotiate.