Why weight anything other than salary?
Two offers with a $10,000 salary gap can flip in your actual preference once you account for a 90-minute-shorter daily commute or three more remote days a week — both of which have a real, ongoing cost or benefit that a single salary number hides. Weighting multiple factors forces those trade-offs into the open instead of letting the biggest, most visible number silently win by default.
How to use the growth and culture ratings honestly
These two fields are the most subjective inputs in the tool, so treat them carefully: base them on specific signals from your research and interviews (stated promotion timelines, how current employees describe the team, how the interviewers themselves talked about their work) rather than a general gut feeling about the company's reputation.
Example
Offer A pays $130,000 with a $5,000 bonus, 2 remote days, a 40-minute commute, and 4/5 on both growth and culture. Offer B pays $120,000 with no bonus, 5 remote days, a 0-minute commute, and 3/5 on both. Despite the $15,000 gap in total compensation, Offer B's advantage in remote flexibility and commute can be enough to close — or even flip — the overall score, depending on how much weight those categories carry.
Related guides
See our guides on evaluating a job offer beyond salary and negotiating salary after a job offer.