You need to view the terms of the contract as part of the pay / benefits / conditions package that you consider before you take a job. Very few people would ac

You need to view the terms of the contract as part of the pay / benefits / conditions package that you consider before you take a job. Very few people would accept a job before they found out what salary was on offer, and so you shouldn't accept a job before you've read the contract. It's all part of the same thing: "We will give you this much money, in return for you doing these things ..." If you've been looking for work for a while and you've only received 1 offer then you'll probably accept it even if it pays less than you were hoping for, or if the contract has clauses you don't like. You take the best that you can get. But if you've got a number of offers (or reasonably expect to have a number of offers) then you are probably willing to turn down a job (or negotiate) over salary, and you should do the same over contractual clauses. If someone verbally offers you a job with a salary you're happy to take, it's perfectly reasonable to say "That all sounds fine, and I'll be happy to respond formally once I've had a chance to read a copy of the contract", but don't accept the job until you've received and read the contract, because that is the thing that you're actually agreeing to.