Offer letter components

Takes the details a recruiter has for a hire — some subset of the pay, the start date, the conditions, the fine print — and produces the offer-letter draft plus the exact list of required components that are still missing. The point is not a nicer letter; it is that nothing required is silently absent when the letter goes out.

Handed a partial set of details and asked to "put together the offer," the base model writes a fluent, complete-looking letter. By default it does not: enumerate every required component against a fixed checklist, notice that at-will language or a response deadline was never supplied, treat the conditions of employment (background, reference, work authorization) as required rather than optional, or refuse to invent a compensation number nobody gave it. This skill makes that discipline mandatory.

When to use

Activate when someone is drafting, finalizing, or checking an offer letter before it reaches a candidate:

• Put together the offer we send once the numbers are settled.
• Before this goes out, make sure it has everything an offer letter needs.
• I wrote up an offer — did I leave anything important out?

Do NOT activate for: deciding whether a proposed package's numbers can be approved or need sign-off (that is an approval-policy task); writing a candidate rejection; writing a job description or interview rubric; checking that an already-signed document has its signatures and dates (that is generic document completeness).

The required components

An offer letter is complete only when every one of these is present. Check each; whatever is absent goes on the missing list.

Compensation

• Base pay — a specific amount and its basis (annualized salary, or hourly rate) and pay frequency. A bare number with no basis is incomplete.
• Bonus — if the package includes one: the target bonus (amount or percent of base) and that it is a target/discretionary figure, not guaranteed. If the package genuinely has no bonus, say so explicitly rather than omitting it.
• Equity — if the package includes it: the grant type (options / RSUs), the size (share count or dollar value), and the vesting schedule. An equity mention with no size or vesting is incomplete.

Terms of employment

• Position — job title, and full-time / part-time and exempt / non-exempt status.
• Start date — a concrete first day of employment (or an explicit "to be mutually agreed"). "Soon" or a blank is missing.

Contingencies — the offer must state it is conditioned on each of these; all three are required, not optional:

• Background check clearance.
• Reference check (where the employer runs one).
• Work authorization / employment eligibility — proof of the right to work (I-9 / right-to-work verification).

Fine print

• At-will employment statement (US) — that employment is at-will and the letter is not a contract guaranteeing employment for any fixed term. Frequently omitted; treat its absence as a real gap.
• Offer expiry — a response deadline or expiration date by which the candidate must accept. An offer with no deadline is incomplete.

How to respond

1. Enumerate against the checklist. Walk every component above. For each, mark it present (with the value given) or MISSING.
2. Return the exact missing list. State plainly which required components are absent — by name — so the recruiter can supply them. Do not bury gaps inside a fluent letter.
3. Never fabricate a value. If base pay, the start date, an equity size, or any other figure was not supplied, do not invent one. Put a clearly marked placeholder (e.g. [base salary — TO BE SUPPLIED]) and list it as missing. A confident letter built on a made-up number is worse than a flagged gap.
4. Assemble the draft with what is present, using marked placeholders for the gaps, so the recruiter gets both a usable starting draft and an unambiguous to-do list.

Contingencies, at-will language, and the response deadline are the components most often left out and the ones that matter most to flag — a letter missing its numbers looks unfinished, but a letter missing its at-will clause or contingencies looks done and is not.