Candidate Resources
Beware Of Counter Offers
they may beg you to stay now......and give you the boot later
You have been approached by a recruiter, you have
answered an ad in the paper or at an association meeting a
fellow professional has interested you in looking at another
opportunity.
You have gone through the interviewing process and have
received a fine offer, a better opportunity from a better
company. You have analyzed and agonized over the
decision to leave a good (or bad) job for what could be a better
one, and have accepted (or decided to accept) the offer.
However, upon resigning, your current boss asks you to stay and
has made you a counter offer.
Career changes are tough enough as it is, and anxieties about
leaving a comfortable job, friends and location and having to
reprove yourself again in an unknown opportunity can cloud the
best logic. But just because the new position is a
little scary does not mean it is not a positive move.
Since counter offers can create confusion and buyers remorse,
you should understand what's being cast upon you.
Counter offers are typically made in conjunction with
some form of flattery, e.g.:
Counter offers usually take the form of:
Of
course we all prefer to think we're MVP's, it's natural to want
to believe these manipulative appeals, but beware!!! Accepting a
counter offer is often the wrong choice. THINK ABOUT IT;
if you were worth "X" yesterday, why are they suddenly willing
to pay you "X + n " today, when you weren't expecting a raise
any time soon?
Also consider how you have felt when someone resigned from your
staff. The reality is that employers don't like to be
"FIRED". Your boss is likely concerned that he will
look bad their career may suffer. Bosses are judged in part, by
their ability to retain staff. Your leaving may jeopardize an
important project, increase workload for others or even foul up
vacation schedules. It is never a good time for anyone
to quit. It may prove time consuming and costly to replace you.
It is much cheaper to keep you, even at a slightly higher
salary. And it would be better to fire you later, on the
company's time frame.
Accepting a counter offer can have numerous negative
consequences.
Consider:
-
You have demonstrated your
unhappiness or lack of blind loyalty, and will be perceived
as having committed blackmail to gain a raise. You will
never be considered a team player again. Many employers will
hold a grudge at the next review period, and you may be
placed at the top of the next reduction-in-force "hit list".
-
Apart from a
short-term, band-aid treatment, nothing will change
within the company. After the dust settles from this
upheaval, You will be in the same old rut. A rule of
thumb among recruiters is that more than 80% of
those accepting counter offers leave, or are
terminated, within 6 to 12 months anyway. Half of
those who do succumb reinitiate their job searches
with in 90 days.
-
Finally, when
making your decisions, look at your current job and
the new position as if you were unemployed. Which
opportunity holds the most real potential? Probably
the new one, or you would not have accepted it in
the first place.
Beware of Counter Offers!
(Part of the above
material was taken from an article by R. Gaines Baty, which
appeared in the National Business Employment Weekly.)
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