Slashdot Mirror
Is it Wrong to Accept an Employment Counter-Offer?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I was happily working away at a low-paying but otherwise good job I'd had for several months, after taking a huge pay cut when the dot.bomb bubble burst. Then a recruiter contacted me with a very nice potential position - I interviewed and received an offer with a 50% increase in pay, everything else nearly the same. When I received the offer and decided I was interested, I broke the news to my current employer - to my surprise they extended a counter-offer with a matching salary, thereby eliminating my only reason for considering the other job. However, I talked to some friends and checked the web for ideas and realized that there are a *lot* of ppl out there who believe you should never accept a counter-offer. They make some good points, and there are a lot of those pages - but on the web popularity breeds increased popularity, in a self-feeding cycle, so I'm wondering if the numbers are skewed unrealistically. Is it really that rare to do well by accepting a counter-offer? Do Slashdot readers have experience with counter-offers from present employers, positive or negative?"
Ah, back when a monkey could become a well-paid programmer... Those were the days.
If you feel the company really wants you to stay and isn't simply keeping you around to finish the current project, then I'd say stay.
The points on that page are very good, but it all really boils down to your relationship with your employer. If you feel like part of the team and you feel comfortable with the people you work with, stay. If you think this is just a ploy to give you your raise early and give you nothing when evaluations come around, then leave.
I have been pwned because my
I accepted a counter-offer from my current company three years ago when I had an opportunity to take a lucrative contracting position elsewhere. I told my boss that I had no desire to leave the company, but that I have a responsibility to my family to be the best provider for them that I can be. He accepted that explanation, tendered a counter-offer, and I chose to stay. I have survived two layoffs since.
Thank you for observing all safety precautions.
> If they gave a damn about you, why didn't they pay you more before?
I doubt there were any dirty motives behind the company not raising pay by leaps and bounds.
It's in a company's best interest to pay workers as little as they can get away with. If said worker happens to be one of those quiet non-complaining sorts, it's easy to get lost in the paperwork and never see a raise.
That does not by implication indicate they don't value the employee, nor are unwilling to pay more for the same employee. They're just being practical, and assuming that if no one is complaining then everyone is happy and there's no reason to rock the boat.
Trying to keep the employee with a counter-offer is surely better than them shrugging it off and making sure the door doesn't hit him in the ass on the way out.
Not only that, but the company's web site that wrote the 10 reasons is a RECRUITER! Of course they don't want you to take a counteroffer--THEY WON'T GET PAID. It's just as biased as if Microsoft offered a 10 reasons not to use Linux page.
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
About a year ago I had an offer from a contracting agency for almost double my existing salary. After some thought, I decided to give my current employer a chance to match. I didn't really expect them too... However, after presenting my boss with the information, it took less than an hour for them to not just match, but offer me more than the contracting agency!
My point is this. If you want to increase your salary well beyond the (typical) annual 4%, you usually have to go out and find a new job. However, if you _really_ enjoy where you work, it's definitely worth the risk of asking for them to match. What do you have to lose?
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
I worked for my last employer for nearly six years. In all of that time, everyone I knew of who accepted a counteroffer got fired in less than a month. This is not to say that every company is the same. But if you have tried to gently offer your objections first and that hasn't worked, I don't believe you should ever go to your employers and let them know you have another offer. It's just an invitation to get screwed.
Nope, there was no need to mention that.
I have to agree with this parent...but for a different reason. I am an IT Headhunter. (OK, get your booing and hissing out of your system).
First, you have to look out FOR YOURSELF.
The company HAS NO LOYALTY. They have NO FEELINGS. They are NOT concerned for your well being.
Second, If you do not show growth in your career, in terms of skill and salary you will simply stop advancing. Opportunities will pass you by.
I know this sucks. I know how it feels to jump ship. I did to start headhunting. Now I make more money. I am constantly leearning (Mostly from talking to you guys!)
Best of luck out there.
tdutton@mac.com
IT Headhunter
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
There is serious debate going on about the approriateness of milk as calcium source. There are three major questions, the first is that milk doesn't have the same balance of minerals as our bodies need, and therefore someone using milk to ensure that they have enough calcium in their diet may end up being deficent in other minerals, it's much better to eat a well balanced diet which gives all the minerals from a variety of sources. The second question is how available is the calcium in milk anyway. With the majority of adults being lactose intollerant, many people find it difficult or impossible to drink enough milk to make a significant difference to their diet. The third is of course the high percentage of fat, sodium and potassium, all of which tend to be already in our diets at too high a level.
Two experiences from two different employers.
One, less than a year out of college I got an unsolicited offer from within 50 miles of home. Considering I was now 1500 miles from home, and considering they were offering a 20% raise, I considered it a nobrainer. But my current employer offered me a promotion and 30% raise for me to stay. In the end, I figured longevity at my first job would look better on my resume, and with some apprehension, stayed with my then-current employer. Right decision. 2 more promotions and five years later, I left on my own terms because I didn't like the new projects being handed to the group, and my not liking that wasn't going to change anything.
Then several years ago, I vented at my boss after being asked to give up an already-planned weekend vacation that considering the sacrifices being asked of me and considering the positions and salaries of those around me, I was underpaid. It was not an ultimatum, just a firm statement of opinion. I concluded (in person) that "while this isn't enough for me to go distribute my resume, on the day that I do do that, if you ask me when I first became disenchanted with my job, I will probably say today."
And they apologized, agreed, and offered me a small raise (about 3%) with the promise that this was above and beyond my salary review (due in a couple of months.) And they were good to their word.
There are three things that make me want to work somewhere: 1) The people I work with, 2) The things I am doing, and 3) What I get paid. On any given day, these can be in different order of importance. Whenever I feel any two of them are out of whack, I start looking for a new job. If only one is out of whack, I talk to my manager about it to see if something can be improved. So far, in almost all cases, it could. In those cases when it couldn't, I found a new job and entertained no counter offers, because the counters, I felt, didn't address ALL of my concerns.
Loyalty now is to people, not companies. If I respect my manager I'll try to work with him or her. If I respect my co-workers, I may actually stay because of them. But loyalty to a company is an (unfortunately) outdated concept, because companies are no longer loyal to employees.
And hey, guess what -- I'm not afraid of my managers reading this because I've already had this conversation with them.
I've got a very different point of view.
About two years ago, I interviewed for another job, got an offer, and told my current employer that I was leaving. I actually didn't really want a counter-offer.
But they made one anyway. And I ended up taking it. And it was probably the smartest decision I ever made.
The catch is, money wasn't really an issue. There were other things I was unhappy about at work. I wasn't planning on leaving because of money - in fact, the new job was a moderate pay-*cut*, with very small chances of actually paying off financially in the long run.
But I'm just not a money-obsessed person. I'm payed very well, and to me, once you reach the point where you can afford a car and a house and a reasonable amount of entertainment, more money just doesn't matter.
So the counter-offer didn't really involve any money. The only financial component was that the new job offer came the week before we were supposed to be told about our regular raises, and mine was impressive. But the only reason that mattered was because of what it told me about what my management thought of my work, which hadn't been communicated very clearly before that.
So the counter offer was an offer to change some of the things about my job that I was unhappy about. And I ended up taking them up on it.
I couldn't be happier with my job now. And my management seems very happy with me, as well. It's been over two years, so I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just a ruse to keep me long enough to let them fire me.
So... The moral of the story: if you're leaving a job that you're happy with, and that you're getting payed fairly for, counter-offers are probably a bad deal -- for exactly the reasons detailed in the parent post.
On the other hand, if you're unhappy with your job, sometimes the outside offer will get people to take your unhappiness seriously. Sometimes
it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
But finally: never use a job offer as leverage if you don't really intend to take it. I gave notice at my current job, and I was 100 percent serious about leaving. If you make the threat to leave, and you're not serious, you're probably going to wind up unemployed.
-Mark
Don't kid yourself; business relationships in the United States are extremely personal, at least until it is to the business' advantage to pretend that the relationship is NOT personal.
Most workers in the U.S. spend more time tending their business relationships than they do their personal relationships with their friends, their spouses, their children. Not content to simply perform the job for which their time has been leased, they will attempt to mold their (allegedly) off-work hours to suit their employers' whims: go to employer's 'events', favor hanging about with the people with whom they've already spent most of the day working whether or not those people would be the sort they'd normally care to associate, even old friendships gradually will wither and die if a competitor is involved. The worker will even try to mold his psyche to something more to the employer's liking by litening to motivational tapes and buying ghost-written biographies of heads of companies who either managed to inherit wealth or be in the right place to lead a parade they didn't necessarily start.
American business demands much more than just time-and-quality-work for money-and-benefits. Loyalty to the company is sometimes demanded to the point of near-worship. You bet it's personal. At least until the equation reverses and the employee expects a consideration that's not covered, pro or con, in the Policy manual. Then you will hear that "the age of the paternalistic American company is over", "only the interests of the shareholders can be considered", and a lot of other things that translate to: don't make it personal. And yet we get puzzled when some postal worker starts spraying away with a gun or a fast-food worker decides to cut open something other than a carton of fries after the morning Corporate Hymn.
Before the libertarians start piling on about how anti-American this screed sounds, it isn't. What I mean to point out is a wretched, hypocritical duality that is driving at least some people bonkers in the U.S.: you can't give someone only what you like of the old-style Japanese culture with its worker loyalty without the other part, which was "we hardly fire anybody and we'll take care of you". Business can't just take what it wants from Column A and ignore Column B and expect to maintain a sane workforce. There's a balance that's being ignored. Each individual business needs to decide how personal things are allowed to be, and it needs to be that personal both ways, and not just with expectations flowing in one direction.
I've had greatly rewarding business relationships of both kinds: ones with clearly defined, rigid limits and parameters for major multinationals and ones with more closely held local companies where the employess could go out and carouse with the owners. I've either been smart or lucky because I've negotiated certain hard limits and exclusions on my time in advance; my skill set is sufficiently in demand that I can do that. Some companies were frankly aghast that I held them to those pre-negotiated limits even though they'd advertised themselves as having had "family values" (isn't it funny how so many that yell "family" the loudest are those who will take you away from it the most?) I countered that perhaps I should start looking elsewhere if they were unhappy with what I'd negotiated; nobody's ever taken me up on that.
As far as accepting counter-offers goes: I agree with those who have said that the only loyalty in business is that flowing from employee to employer. Regarding the other direction, with few exceptions:
Trust is just a name on a bank.