Maybe you’ve paid your dues for years and are finally being tapped for upper management. Or perhaps you’re being recruited by a tech startup who wants you to get in early on a big venture.

In either case, a company may try to woo you with a compensation package that includes stock options, which are used to tie your total pay to the company’s performance so that if the company does well, you do well. While stock options won’t pad your paycheck right away, they can help grow your wealth in the long run.

But if you’ve never had to deal with stock options before, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the jargon. So we’ve collected eight of the most common terms you might come across and decoded them, so you’ll know what, exactly, you’re being offered. READ MORE