After several weeks of job interviews and perhaps a pre-employment assessment test or two, you finally receive your job offer. Salary and benefits seem acceptable. But before you accept that offer and tender your resignation from your current job, there are a few things you need to know about your new employer and the position you’ll be filling.

During the interview process, if you have been making careful observations and asking the right questions, then you should know the answers to all, or most, of the following:

1. How long has this position been vacant and how long has the previous employee held this position? What you want to know is whether employees walk through this position like a revolving door. If the last employee held this position for less than a year, and the employee less than six months, then you know there is something wrong with the position, the manager, the department, or all of the above.

2. What is the career path for this position? Has the previous employee who held this position moved on to bigger and better things? What he wants to know is if there is room to grow within the department or organization. Some companies post their job openings on an internal website, before searching publicly. Others have a policy of hiring internally first. These are positive signs.

3. What are the job deliverables and what resources do you have to complete your job duties? What you want to know is whether you can complete your job assignments on time, without having to work overtime and weekends, on a continuous basis. If the department appears to be understaffed or under-resourced, this should give you pause.

4. Who do you report to and who are your stakeholders? Everyone knows that your boss is the one you need to impress when it comes to doing well on your performance reviews. But when you have to report to two or more managers, things get complicated, because not all managers have the same priorities, goals, and time pressures. The more managers you have to report, the more effort you’ll have to put in balancing their competing interests.

5. What is the management style of your future boss? Your boss is the most important factor in your success in your position. During the job interview process, you may want to ask politely about your management style.

There’s no sure way to know what your boss’s job will be like, so you’ll need to follow her lead during the interview process: Does she carefully and patiently explain what you’ll need to do in this job? Does she seem direct and sincere when answering her questions about her work? Aside from using her best objective judgment, she will have to go with her instincts to know if this is the person she wants to work for.

If your answers to any of these questions seem unfavorable, it does not necessarily mean that you should decline the job offer. It could mean a few more inquiries to make, either with the hiring manager himself or with trusted sources within his network. Sometimes, despite the red flags that appear during the interview process, one can take the position as a “stepping stone” to something better, and that’s fair enough.

But no matter what, don’t take the job just because the company makes an exciting electronic device, or is considered a “cool place” to work, or because the company serves ice cream on Fridays. Instead, focus on the substantive aspects of the position, as listed above.

Good luck!