GREENSBORO, N.C. - Congratulations! After months of searching, you've finally found a new job. Now you just have to quit your current position and spend some money. You might have to move to a new city. Put a down payment on a place to live. But what happens when you do all of that, only to have your new employer cancel the job offer?
According to several Minnesota news outlets that's what happened to dozens of people hired by Target. The retailer decided it couldn't afford all the new employees it hired.This story had 2 Wants To Know wondering what are your rights are when it comes to job offers here in North Carolina. So we figured out the fact from the fiction for you.
FICTION: In North Carolina an employer can't take back a job offer.
In fact, one Triad employment lawyer tells me she sees job offers canceled for hard working people every couple of months. Unless you have a contract, North Carolina is what's called an "employment at will" state.
"You can hire and fire for good and job just as long as it's not discriminatory. But the opposite of that is that as an employee, you also have the ability to walk off the job or terminate your job with basically not any repercussions," employment attorney Karen McKeithen Schaede said.
FICTION: You could file for unemployment since the company canceled your job offer.
All North Carolina law sees is that you walked away from a perfectly good living. It doesn't matter the new one fell through.
FACT: You can protect yourself legally from canceled job offers.
The key is to spell out a few key terms before accepting the job offer.You want to know: how much they'll pay you, what you get for moving expenses and when you're supposed to start. And you want it writing.
"If you get an offer letter that spells all of these things out and hopefully a job description, you may possibly be able to get the employer for negligent misrepresentation – meaning they knew this was going to come up and didn't alert you," McKeithen Schaede said.
One more piece of protection: Don't hide bad stuff from your new employer - make sure they know your skeletons and how you plan to fix them.the attorney said the number one reason she sees job offers canceled - the company calls your references and finds out things you didn't tell them in interviews.
