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?"
If they gave a damn about you, why didn't they pay you more before? Will you need to get a new job offer every time you want a raise?
-- Will program for bandwidth
...jump on whatever you can get. At least with the counter-offer you know what to expect. Jumping ship for another company, you run the risk of entering a completely different corporate culture than what you are used to at your current job.
That's also a damn fine vote of confidence from your boss. I'd celebrate this weekend if I were you.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
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
Don't accept it. Unless they are going to give you a bonified legal employment contract.... why...
Because otherwise you will be the first on their list when they are looking to get rid on someone to cut costs. You are not only disloyal ( not that companies are ever loyal to you ) but you are probably making more than others doing the same work.
Trust me, it's a bad game to play unless you are willing to accept that your employer will always be wondering if you are going to jumo ship again.
On whether you really like the company you work for or not. If you think they'll screw you when the time comes for cuts or another raise in the future, then you should move on. If you dig the place you work for now, then take the money. Most of the arguments on that website are BS anyway - such as "you can be bought"... Well no $hit sherlock... This is why you work, to make money. And besides, this isn't 20 or 30 years in the past where companies are actually loyal to you, I say go for the best deal!
I've never accepted one before, simply because it's a temporary solution. The company was happy paying you less, and all of sudden you get more and they can pay you ?. I guess it depends on the situation, but if you've worked your ass off, and management didn't see a need to give you a raise until you threatened to leave em, it's just a sign that they'll keep you on temporarily until they find someone to replace you. Unless you're in Job nirvana(which cannot exist), I would move to the new place. Sure there are risks when you change jobs, but you have to see your situation and take the plunge.
Never forget that these companies, will fire you even if you think the job is great and the people are great, they will fire you or.. rightsize you, if money is tight. They are in it for survival, and so are you.
I have to say this, but your loyalty should be to yourself and your family, not to anonymous shareholders or board of directors that never have lunch with you.
Take pride in your work, do it well, but do it for yourself, not the company.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. A good employer will do whatever it takes, within reasonable bounds, to hold onto good employees. You should accept that as a complement and stick with your current job if you are happy with it. Its risky changing jobs...you might end up with a lousy manager or the company culture may stink.
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.
Do you think you will retain it from your boss/co-workers?
And do you have enough of it towards your boss to give your boss the chance to retain you?
Seems only fair to give the person who hired you the chance to counter in good faith. By that I mean accept the counter and evaluate it honorably, don't give lip service about it. If it is a good offer be prepared to take it.
I think that list is a bunch of crap. Companies don't just pay what they think you are worth, they pay what they think will keep you working for them up until the point they think you aren't worth the money you want.
In otherwords if you accepted the job for $40k and they know you are worth $100k, most companies aren't going to walk over and say "you know, you are underpaid, here's $60k a year more." No, they will say "great job, here's a $5k a year raise!
But when it comes down to you demanding more, or telling them you are leaving they will pay you what they need to in order to keep you.
Too many people look at employment as a personal relationship, but it is much better for everyone to remember that it is a bussiness relationship for both the employee and employer.
Mostly people leave for other reasons than just money. Since in this case it's only about money , you can take the counter. In those other situations, money turns out to be incapable of making up for the downsides of the job.
However, 99.99% of organizations will behave exactly as the 10 reasons describe. Yes, I know, it was corporate employers who destroyed the idea of corporate loyalty in the 1980s. It is corporate employers who dump their long-timers to reduce medical costs and grab the pension money. It is corporate employers who will lay off 10,000 people to get a 1% pop in the stock price.
But the very same people who do these things will turn around and destroy the career of a person who accepts a counteroffer. Why? They have "shown disloyalty". Doesn't make sense, I know, but that is the way it is. Take the original offer and don't look back.
sPh
I also did that once. My staying power lasted 2 days after that.
It's amazing how they felt that my expressing misgivings about my position in the company invoked a nice counter offer and a simultaneous feeling that I was "arrogant", a "loose cannon", and "unmanageable".
They really needed me to stay, and I was not even using that as leverage. I was simply stating some misgivings I had about how things were going, and they offered more money to keep me on. Then they fired me.
At two different companies, I was in charge of a team of programmers and pretty close to the offer decision process. At both of them, the feeling was that a counter offer was a temporary resort, and that cheaper labor was surely available.
I'll place my two cents on the "don't take it" bet.
You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this
day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
If you are valuable to the company, loyalty isn't an issue. If you
aren't, you should worry anyway.
When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who is
loyal and who is not.
See above.
When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutbacks with you.
See above.
Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow
to your personal pride; you were bought.
You're bought no matter where you go. You think that CEOs aren't
bought? They are, and they're a lot more successful at it than anyone
reading slashdot.
Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? All companies
have wage and salary guidelines which must be followed. Is it your
next raise early?
Sounds good to me. And the company sees that as real money. They prefer to delay expenses when possible.
Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a
cheaper price.
Again, only if you aren't all that valuable to start with.
The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will
repeat themselves in the future, even if you accept a counteroffer.
So in the meanwhile you've made more money. And maybe you get another
counteroffer the next time you get fed up.
Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of
voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go in one year is
extremely high.
Again, so what?
Once the word gets out, the relationship that you now enjoy with your
co-workers will never be the same. You will lose the personal
satisfaction of peer group acceptance.
I accepted a counter-offer. Not clear if my co-workers know, but my
relationship with them gas been fine. Again, if you are worth the
money, no one in his right mind will object to you getting it.
What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign
before they will give you what you are worth?
They're all like that. Get over it.
...you should never accept a counter-offer:
0. We don't get commision if you stay in your old job!
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
The main reason is quite simple: they were seeing what they could get away with. They were not paying you what you were worth; rather, they were paying you what they thought you'd tolerate. I NEVER work for people like that. You should politely tell your manager, "Thanks for the offer, but why did you not pay me that in the first place?" It's always interesting to see them squirm.
I started my own consulting business for that very reason. When people ask me to lower my rates, I politely say, sorry, but that's what I'm worth. If you think you can find others, you're more than welcome to. Some walk, some don't. Yet, today, I've got an international client base and billables over $350K per person. It's gotta be working some way. Mercedes-Benz don't drop their prices below a certain point. That's the price of quality.
OTOH, as a guy who started and sold a dot com, I can also tell you that you should have indicated some concerns BEFORE you began looking. That gives the employer a chance to re-evaluate. Sadly, in the States, you could get fired right there. Businesses here suck about loyalty.
On a side note: I always made it a rule to tell employees that they should ALWAYS come to me with issues. No one works for me forever, so if you're not happy, that's fine. Either we can make you happy, or _I_ can help you get the next job. Who knows where you'll be in 5 years? I might need your help then! It's always worked for me, and I showed the same respect to my employees and teams as well.
Rememnber, it's all about mutual respect.
---
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
The linked 10 reasons are all bullshit. If the company likes you enough to match the offer, and you are otherwise happy where you are, take it. All you've shown your company is that you have goals, too.
Most employers like that.
Bzzt! Wrong. I'm a manager and it is not so simple. Some corporations treat offer/counteroffers very maturely, others don't.
It also depends on the employee. If you are a trooper, you have proven with the offer that you were underpaid and I'll raise your salary and leave it at that.
If you are a whiner, all you have shown is that you are an underpaid whiner. Since I need you to complete the current project I'll make a counteroffer, but I'll start searching for your replacement right away.
I expect that many corporate proxy-watchers are now raising their eyebrows because a whole whack of employees are suddenly looking at a site explaining why they should not accept a counter-offer :-)
I was in the position of having one of my employees come up with the "I would really like to stay but this other company wants to pay me so much more" story end of october last year. Well, the guy was critical for the project at this time, and was doing a pretty good job, so I was really willing to give him a little more. He demanded a pretty high "little more", though - something we thought he was not worth. So we signed in. I had him prepare the documentation with our office manager which he simply never did (really - we were willing to delay this for a week to save off his higher pay for a month - it was end of the month - but he managed not to turn up for the new contracts for two months). So what happened is that he got fired 22nd of december, just in time to end his working contract end of the year, and with his end holidays EXACTLY matching the rest of the month's work days. Sure his other company had another guy by then. Point is - you dont demand a higher salary in a project being critical and put another company onto the table as leverage. Put the market there (average pay, prooven by an independant newspaper or so), and be reasonable. But never accept counter offers. Propably you are just not replacable fast enough. THONA
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)
After skimming a lot of comments, I've noticed one thing that hasn't been mentioned-
If you take a counter-offer, you won't have to give up benefits at your current employer that you may have accrued over many years. 5 weeks vacation, becoming vested in a company retirement plan... These things take a a lot of time to work up to, and they're worth consideration.
In the ideal world, where professionalism is practiced, this isn't personal, it's just business . That being the case, you make your decision based on what's best for you financially and professionally and take the offer you want. Professional people understand that, as they would do the same in your position, and deal with it accordingly.
Unfortunately, we don't live in the ideal world, there is no such thing a professionalism in modern business and people WILL take it personal. Because of that, you HAVE to treat the situation as a personal relationship and not a business relationship. Yes this is sad but, unfortunately, a fact of life. What you have done is equivalent to going to your significant other and stated, I've been seeing someone else and I would like to end our relationship. At that point, there is no turning back. Oh, the other will beg you to stay, say that things will change and ask you to try to work it out and be one of those rare couples that use this as a way to make your relationship stronger. However, while you think it's all behind you, there will be hidden resentment, hurt feelings, feelings of insecurity and sometime down the line YOUR the one who is left as they have gone out and started looking for YOUR replacement.
As I said, while this may be a very sad and a very cynical commentary, it's simply human nature and a fact of life. Take the new job and remind yourself of the reasons you left in the first place. I'm sure that if you looked deep enough you'd discover that money wasn't the ONLY reason you wanted to leave. Even if the new job doesn't work out, you'll be better off in the long run.
--I don't mind the school of hard knocks, it's those darned refresher courses I hate. =)
At first read, I thought it was rather vague, too. However, upon closer inspection, they use the adjective extremely, thus cleaning up any uncertainties about those extremely high probabilities.
As far as being unsubstatiated or unaccountable claims, perhaps you missed the first word, statistics. Statistics show these claims, thus substatiating them. The statistics are accountable for the probabilities.
I ask this question because frankly I'm not convinced about the correct answer, but is it really better to have business relationships that are not personal? It seems that this is one thing that distinguishes american business from the vast majority of the rest of the world. That may be why we are by far the richest and most powerful country in the world, but I wonder at what price?
How many corporations do layoffs in the interests of boosting stock value? That is the ultimate in tossing away personal relationships in the interest of the business. Surely sometimes a business has to cut staff to save the business but there are countless times where a profitable company cuts employees in the interests of increasing shareholder value.
It just seems to me that this immense detachment from personal relationships in business might really be doing us a lot of harm in the long run.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
First, a general note: Many companies are remarkably unaware of the going rates until departing key employees enlighten them. Hence counteroffers occur because you showed them the hard way that they miscalculated your market value before. If everyone is adults, that is probably all there is to it. If your boss isn't emotionally adult, don't miss an opportunity to leave...
* You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
Loyalty??? How 1950's... It depends on the company culture. If they bothered with the counter-offer, either it isn't too big a problem, or else they really, really need you to stick around while they hunt for a replacement. Better understand your own company well enough to tell the difference.
I am assuming here that you repeatedly told your boss the salary was inadequate _before_ you started looking outside. If your outside jobhunting was a complete surprise, whether because you never asked for a raise or because the boss is an idiot whose forgotten all the times you showed him salary surveys, etc., then you'd better get out, because you have pissed off a powerful idiot...
* When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who is loyal and who is not.
You expected a promotion on top of that big pay raise?
* When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutbacks with you.
Or maybe if they needed you bad enough to make the counteroffer, you'll be the last one they lay off. But usually in a real crunch the question is not you, it's whether the work you are doing is still vital considering the product lines they are dumping.
* Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride; you were bought.
If there's any chance your boss is as childish as this, by all means get out. If you are as childish as this, I hope it wasn't my company that made that offer...
* Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? All companies have wage and salary guidelines which must be followed. Is it your next raise early?
Whether you can expect continuing raises beyond the counteroffer is a question you must ask. However, in most companies wage and salary guidelines matter only as long as employees believe they are a reasonable excuse for not keeping salaries competitive. They'll tell you they can't give you a raise because of the guidelines, but it's just an excuse. If they really can't break the guidelines to hire and keep the people they really need, you should have been looking for a new job a long time ago, because this company is doomed to death by bureacracy.
* Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a cheaper price.
Maybe. If you work on a project by project basis, they might be just stringing you along to the end of the current project, but otherwise, if they thought they could replace you they'd have said goodbye already.
* The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will repeat themselves in the future, even if you accept a counteroffer.
If you were looking for other work because of working conditions, don't even think about counteroffers. (Unless it's to promote you to CEO so you _can_ fix the problems.) But if it was just about pay raises, just make sure the counteroffer is big enough that you won't need another raise before the next merger/split/reorganization/corporate bankruptcy makes it irrelevant anyway.
* Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go in one year is extremely high.
Source? I can make up statistics too.
* Once the word gets out, the relationship that you now enjoy with your co-workers will never be the same. You will lose the personal satisfaction of peer group acceptance.
Refer back to what I said about loyalty. Your office isnt like a Little League team, I hope
* What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they will give you what you are worth?
A typical one. That's partly because so many companies don't know what their employees are worth until they have to think about replacing them, but also it's in the fundamental nature of commercial negotiations. You are selling yourself. In any negotiated sale, a person who lets it be seen that he isn't willing to walk away is going to get screwed.
To go back to "loyalty": in this context, it's a trick to put you in the ready-to-be-screwed frame of mind.