How to Compare Two Job Offers (or Two Apartments) Before You Decide

Two offers on the table is a good problem, and a surprisingly hard one. The documents are long, the clauses are worded differently, and the thing that matters most to you (can I leave early? what happens to my bonus?) is rarely on the first page.

This guide shows how to compare two contracts without a spreadsheet, and how the compare view in Contract Analyzer does the lining up for you. It is informational only and not legal advice.

Compare the same things, not the whole document

Reading both contracts top to bottom invites you to be swayed by whichever one you read last. Instead, pick the handful of areas that decide the outcome and look at both contracts through each one:

• Money that is certain vs money that depends on triggers (bonus thresholds, rent reviews, fees).
• How you leave: notice period, break clause, early-termination cost.
• How they can change the deal: unilateral changes to duties, rent increases, fee changes.
• What you give up: non-compete, exclusivity, IP, deposit deductions.
• What is missing from one and present in the other.

Put a number on each area, from your side

A single overall score hides the trade-offs. What you want is a rating per area so that "offer A pays more but locks me in for two years" is visible at a glance.

Contract Analyzer rates each area of a contract from your side (favorable, balanced, unfavorable, severe) with a fixed rubric per contract type, and the compare view places those ratings next to each other with the better one highlighted. The key terms are aligned by name too, so "notice period: 7 days" sits next to "notice period: 30 days".

Watch the dates

A great offer with a start date you cannot make, or a lease whose break clause only opens after two years, is not a great offer. The compare view aligns the dated items from both reports and shows which dates are fixed and which depend on a trigger.

Read the unique issues last

Once the shared ground is clear, look at what only one contract flags. Those are the trade-offs you are actually making. Contract Analyzer lists the findings unique to each side and the ones they share, so you are not re-reading the overlap.

How to do it in Contract Analyzer

1. Upload both documents into one folder, choosing the same role for each (for example "Candidate" or "Tenant") and the same concerns.
2. Open the folder, tick the two reports and press Compare.
3. Start from the verdict line, then the score breakdown, then the key terms, then the unique findings.
4. Use the Negotiate tab on the weaker contract to ask for the terms the stronger one already has: the suggested wording is written to be pasted into a reply.

If a revised draft arrives later, upload it from the original report with Upload revised version and the same page shows what changed, including a line-by-line diff.