She quit her job for a better one. Then the offer vanished 10 days before her start date. What to negotiate before you give notice

She signed the offer letter, filled out onboarding and tax paperwork, and put her two weeks in at her former job. Then, just a week and a half before she was supposed to start, a recruiter called to tell her the bad news: They’d eliminated her future role.

“I was devastated. I had already told my family and friends, and now I had to effectively un-tell everyone,” said Plainte.

Plainte is now jobless in the middle of a tough job market. Here’s what she’s going through — and what you can do to protect yourself against a similar situation.

By the time the offer was rescinded, her old role was gone

Plainte knew to be worried about job offers being pulled back going into the deal.

“When the verbal offer came through, I thought, ‘With the state of the economy and from what I’ve seen people posting about offers being rescinded, don’t do anything until you have it signed,’” she told Business Insider.

Once she had the formal offer signed and in hand, she felt more comfortable making financial decisions based around the new offer. One of those decisions was to replace her old iPhone, which had been having battery issues.

Unfortunately, a formal offer letter didn’t provide the protection she was hoping for. And as her family’s primary provider, the rescission has put both her and the people she cares about in a tough spot.

Unfortunately, Plainte isn’t alone. According to a 2024 study by Victoria University, 31% of the U.S. citizens polled had experienced a rescinded offer in the past year. A study by Resume Builder found that 34% of recent college grads had a job offer pulled before their first day.

A job offer rescission can be especially damaging if it happens after you already quit your old job, like Plainte. Like many, she knew that going back to her old role wouldn’t be an option.

“When I gave notice, my employer posted a requisition to backfill my role. When I later checked, over 700 people had applied,” Plainte told Business Insider. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, there’s really no going back.’”

Luckily, Plainte has some savings she can rely on while she starts the job search anew. But the experience has soured her to the traditional full-time job setup.

“It’s getting to the point where I feel like we can no longer depend on just a single W-2 job, because we’ve all seen how quickly those can come and go,” she said.

What to negotiate in your offer letter to protect against a job offer rescission

If you’re in the process of negotiating a job offer, or if you think you’ll need to soon, there are a few ways you can protect yourself against a sudden job rescission.

First of all, continue working and interviewing as normal until you receive a written and signed offer letter. After you sign the letter, you’ll probably need to resign from your old job before your first day at the new one, but you can keep interviewing right up until day one.