Dear Joyce: I've received a job offer that includes a substantial stock option as part of my compensation package. Talk about bad timing! Financial pundits widely report that the initial public offering (IPO) stock window is being yanked down with Internet company failures. Start-up money is drying up, and investment banks are said to have canceled more than 50 planned IPOs just since March when the Nasdaq peaked. What are your thoughts on accepting stock options in lieu of some salary? What are some things to watch out for? -- I.R.C.

Dear I.R.C.: Stock options are a new kind of payment in compensation packages, and everyone should become far more skilled in their use. Not only higher-ups but the broad workforce is increasingly faced with stock-option decisions today.

You're right that funding ardor has recently cooled for dubious IPOs. And a lot of employee stockholders, after being lured by visions of riches beyond belief, wept as their stock's value sank to a shadow of its first-day price.

But IPOs are with us for the long run. For one thing, they're needed to meet the capital demands of constant innovation, in information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. The back-to-new difference: Investors again are insisting that no company be IPOed before its time, that earnings and cash streams count and that profits do matter.

Further, IPOs aren't the only reason to get up to speed on stock options: Traditional corporations, like the Walgreen Co., are getting in on the stock-option act; the nation's largest pharmacy is extending equity benefits to its 110,000 employees nationwide to attract and retain workers in a highly competitive job market.

As to whether stock options are a good deal for you or not, employment stock option expert David E. Gumpert knows a lot more about it than I do. A former business reporter for major publications, Gumpert has both received and given stock options as payment and so he advises from the trenches. Gumpert has authored and published "Better Than Money," the first book about equity incentives and rewards to be presented from your point of view. Extremely well-written and hitting the exact points we need to know, this groundbreaking, five-star guide is the year's freshest book in the career-guide lineup.

What should you know before accepting equity compensation? Gumpert goes into far more detail, but here are data-bites of questions to which you must find good answers: