Beware the Counter Offer … it may jeopardize your career!
Consider the Following Scenario:
You’ve been a good employee, but now it’s time to move on. You receive an interesting offer and accept it. Then you meet with your supervisor to submit your resignation. Suddenly Corporate Management is making a fuss. They’re making it seem as if all your goals and dreams can be met by staying where you are.
A Counter Offer is next, and you’re feeling conflicted, uncomfortable and confused. What should you do?
Understand the Stakes!
Before considering a Counter Offer, make sure you understand what’s at stake:
- By resigning, you have brought inconvenience to your company and embarrassment to your boss.
- It’s only human nature for your supervisors to feel they’ve been “blackmailed” into making concessions when you resign. Any promises made then will tend to be offset by the fact that they were made under duress.
- You may well now be a marked person -- your future growth compromised by questions about your loyalty, your job security at risk during restructuring or economic down turns.
- These are the reasons behind the startling statistic that over 80% of those people who accept a Counter Offer and stay, are no longer with that same company six months later.
Ask Yourself These Questions:
- If your company is suddenly willing to pay you “X+Y” dollars today, why were you worth only “X” dollars yesterday?
- How can you know for sure that your present company isn’t using the Counter Offer to “buy time” until they can find a suitable replacement? (Even if they offer you a huge increase and replace you in 90 days, their total expenditure will still be much less than the cost of doing without you.)
- Is the Counter Offer going to change everything that was wrong with your present job? Have all the good reasons why you decided to leave been so easily erased?
- Is it really worth losing the new opportunity given the uncertainty that your resignation has injected into your relationship with your current company?
Make These Promises to Yourself
There’s no getting around the damage a Counter Offer can do to your career. If you accept one, you’ll jeopardize your current job, and you’ll damage your relationship with the new company as well.
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Here’s a better strategy:
- If you are having problems at work that can be fixed, promise yourself that you’ll exhaust every reasonable effort to resolve them before placing yourself on the market.
- When you receive an offer from a company where you want to work, consider it carefully. When you decide to accept, promise yourself you’ll resign and report to work with proper notice.
- When it’s time to resign, promise yourself that you’ll do so respectfully, but that you will neither entertain, nor accept a Counter Offer.
- By keeping these promises to yourself, you’ll accelerate your career and enjoy the respect of past and future employers.
Ten Reasons for Not Accepting a Counter Offer
- What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they give you what you are worth?
- Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? Is it your next raise early? All companies have strict wage and salary guidelines, which must be followed.
- Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a cheaper price.
- You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
- When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who was loyal, and who wasn't.
- When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutback with you.
- The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will repeat themselves in the future; even if you accept a counter-offer.
- Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go within one year are extremely high.
- Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride; knowing that you were bought.
- Eighty percent of all employees who accept a counteroffer are no longer with the employer after one year.
