(First of all, just to confirm, an offset variable functions basically the same way in Poisson and negative binomial regression, right?)

Reading about the use of an offset variable, it seems to me that most sources recommend including that variable as an option in statistical packages (exp() in Stata or offset() in R). Is that functionally the same as converting your outcome variable to a proportion if you're modeling count data and there is a finite number that the count could have happened? My example is looking at employee dismissal, and I believe the offset here would simply be the number of employees.

And as an added question, I am having trouble conceptualizing what the difference is between these first two options (including exposure as an option in the software and converting the DV to a proportion) and including the exposure on the RHS as a control. Any help here would be appreciated.