Free account: 5 resume reviews with AI rewrite suggestions + 10 eligible AI actions each month. See plans →
ReachRole

Guides for your first job

Compare offerswithout guessing.

Services vs product vs startup vs your internship PPO — each trades off differently on learning, brand, bond, location and risk. A worksheet, not a verdict: there is no universally right answer here.

  • Eight criteriathat actually differ by type
  • Worksheetyou can run on real offers
  • No"always choose X"

IT services major

TCS, Infosys, Wipro and similar. Predictable process, structured training, large teams, and often a bond.

Product company

A company that builds and owns its own product. Usually more technical depth per role, smaller teams, fewer freshers hired overall.

Startup

Small, fast-moving, less structured. More ownership early, less institutional training, higher variance in stability.

Internship-to-PPO

Converting the internship you already did into a full-time offer. You already know the team and the work, which is real information the other paths don't give you.

Eight criteria worth scoring

Each of these differs meaningfully across offer types, and none of them alone should decide it.

Learning

How much you will genuinely learn in year one — depth of ownership, exposure to real systems, and whether the training is structured or sink-or-swim.

Brand

How the name reads on a future resume, and how much that matters to you versus the actual skills you'll leave with. Brand opens doors; it doesn't replace substance.

Bond

Is there a minimum-service commitment, what is the exact penalty, and how does that affect your ability to move if the role isn't what you expected?

Location

Where will you actually be based, is relocation involved, and what does that cost you against what it pays?

Night shifts

Does the role involve rotational or night shifts, and how does that affect your health, social life and any further study plans?

Bench risk

At services companies specifically: is there a real chance of being "benched" (no active project) for a stretch, and how does that affect pay and growth?

Salary quality

Not just the CTC number — the fixed-to-variable split, when the first hike is likely, and how predictable the in-hand pay actually is. See the CTC guide for the breakdown.

First-year skills

What will you be able to say you did, concretely, a year from now? This is the single best predictor of how strong your next move will be.

The worksheet

  1. Write down each offer you're considering in one row.
  2. Score each on the eight criteria above, 1-5, honestly rather than optimistically.
  3. Weight the criteria that matter most to you right now — a first job with a bond matters differently if you're certain you want to stay two years anyway.
  4. Total each offer, but don't treat the total as final — re-read your two highest-weighted criteria and trust that gut check too.
  5. If two offers are close, default to the one with better first-year skills. That compounds into every offer after this one.

Before you decide

Know what the CTC actually pays, and keep every offer in one place.

Decode the CTC Track my applications

Keep going

Pricing for students How large employers hire All fresher guides

QUESTIONS? WE'VE GOT ANSWERS

Common questions

Weighing offers without a formula

Is a product company always better than a services company for a fresher?
No, and this page deliberately does not claim that. Product companies often offer more technical depth, but services companies offer structured training and often larger, more stable teams — which matters if you want a steady, well-supported first year rather than being thrown into ambiguity immediately.
Should I always avoid offers with a bond?
Not automatically. A bond is a real constraint on your flexibility, but if you're confident you'd stay that long anyway, or the offer is otherwise strong, a bond alone isn't a reason to decline. Read the exact terms and penalty before deciding either way.
How much should salary matter compared to learning?
That depends on your own financial situation and risk tolerance, which this page cannot know for you. What is generally true is that a first-year salary gap between reasonable offers is usually smaller in absolute terms than it feels, while a learning gap compounds into every future offer — worth weighing deliberately rather than defaulting to the highest number.
Is it okay to take a lower offer if it means no night shifts or no bond?
Yes, if that trade-off matters more to you than the extra pay or brand. There is no universally correct answer here — the worksheet exists precisely because this is a personal weighting exercise, not a formula with one right output.
What if my internship PPO offer is objectively worse than the other offers I'm considering?
Weigh it on the same eight criteria as everything else, rather than assuming familiarity should win by default. The advantage of a PPO is real information about the actual team and work — but if the other criteria clearly favour a different offer, that information alone shouldn't override them.
Can I ask a company for time to compare offers before deciding?
Most companies expect and allow a reasonable decision window, and asking politely for a few more days rarely hurts. Be specific about the date you'll respond by, and honour it either way.
Still have questions? We're happy to help.
Email us We usually reply within a day