You must have ________ an offer and an acceptance in order to have a valid employment contract.

• A. Accepted
• B. Counteroffer
• C. Both
• D. Consent

Answer: (C)

Mutual assent requires both an offer and an acceptance to form a valid employment contract. An offer is a definite proposal by one party to be bound on specified terms if the other party agrees. Acceptance is the unequivocal agreement to those terms by the other party, communicated to the offeror. When both occur—an offer is made and there is a corresponding, clear acceptance—the minds meet and a contract is formed.

A counteroffer isn’t acceptance; it rejects the original offer and creates a new offer, so there’s no binding contract based on the original terms. Consent is important for genuine agreement, but by itself it isn’t the mechanism that creates a contract; you still need a specific offer and a corresponding acceptance. That’s why the best fit here is that both an offer and an acceptance are required.