20 Feb How to deal with a counteroffer
You’ve been offered a better position at another company with higher pay.
Knowing you’re about to leave forever, you start the long, slow walk to your boss’ office. You won’t enjoy having the conversation but it’s a necessary part of the process.
When you tell your boss you’re leaving, rather than the usual empty and awkward good wishes, you receive an instantaneous counteroffer: the same salary as your current offer with no disruption to your routine, perhaps with a promotion and more flexible working conditions.
Sounds tempting, right?
Unfortunately, too many highly skilled and intelligent employees fall into the trap of playing it safe and staying where they are after going through every stage of recruitment with a competitor.
There are several ramifications that will hurt these people in the long run.
Short-term thinking
We tend to get blown away by bigger numbers without stopping to consider why we wanted to make a change in the first place.
Changing jobs is never just about money. There is a litany of other factors at play.
Healthier workplace culture, easier transport options, more flexible working hours and greater consideration for family needs are all things people often prioritise above their salaries.
If better pay is what matters to you most of all, that’s understandable. However, if you’ve already taken steps to look elsewhere, there’s obviously something not right with your current setup.
Be it dissatisfaction with management, poor transport options or a lack of appreciation for your work from superiors, a pay rise will solve none of these things.
Your salary could increase tenfold but if you’re still unhappy with going into your workplace, it’s not worth putting yourself through it.
The ‘caring’ fallacy
It’s easy to think that if your boss is willing to keep you for an extra $20,000 a year, the company is clearly willing to sacrifice a great deal to keep you on board.
Don’t be fooled by this.
If you’re making your company $1 million a year, what’s an extra $20,000 to them?
Keeping you also ensures the company avoids plenty of other expenses, like the loss of income created by your vacancy, the cost of engaging a recruitment agency such as Blended to find a replacement and the time and effort put into training your replacement.
All things considered, it’s far cheaper and easier for your employer not to rock the boat and pay you a bit extra to maintain the status quo.
Ultimately, if you’re such a great asset to the company, why weren’t they already paying you more?
Burning bridges
The recruitment process can be extremely testing at both ends.
For you, CV submissions, repeated phone calls and multiple interviews can be gruelling.
For your potential employer, having to process and work through all of these is even more strenuous. It takes weeks to sort through candidates and arrange times and dates for interviews.
If you then turn them down just before or after signing on the dotted line, you can expect to never work for them again.
Creating such a waste of time and effort on their part is a giant middle finger to your would-be employer.
Accepting your boss’ counteroffer may have felt right at the time, but it will come back to bite if you leave anyway in six months, knowing you made the wrong call. Doubly so if there’s another offer at the company you turned down, because they won’t let you take them for a ride again.
By telling your boss you’re resigning, you’re also damaging the level of trust between you, regardless of whether you stay or go.
No matter how much longer your boss gets you to stay, they will always know you intended to leave and that you ultimately don’t want to be there.
The decision to leave is never an easy one but once you’ve started to feel like you’ve moved on from your current position, you can’t fall into the trap of thinking a counteroffer will fix it.
A change is as good as a holiday and it’s an opportunity you should always grab with both hands.
