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Sometimes you just know it’s time to leave a job. You grind through the complex machinations of a job search and emerge victorious with a written job offer from a new company that’s sweet as a pot of honey.
You feel great as you walk into your manager’s office and tender your resignation, but the reaction you get is unsettling. Faced with an unexpected staff shortage, recruiting and acclimating a new employee, and impending questions about his or her ability to retain talent, your manager suddenly seems like an aggrieved party.
Later, your current manager calls you into his or her office. You expect an informal exit interview but instead you get an official written counter-offer with a new title, expanded responsibilities, supervisory authority, and a 5% compensation increase over whatever the other company offered you. Now you’re not so sure you want to go.
It’s human nature to stick with the familiar especially when the familiar just became a lot more lucrative, but the conundrum of the counter-offer is simple to solve – don’t do it. While some counter-offers are legitimate attempts to reward you, and may lead to a positive change in your work circumstances, the motives behind your company’s newfound desire to keep you are most likely dubious at best.
When considering a counter-offer it is imperative to consider the following:
1. If you accept an offer with a new employer and the change your mind, you will burn a bridge and your professional reputation may suffer.
2. If you felt your employer valued your contributions and was committed to your overall professional development, you might not have wanted to leave in the first place.
3. Did your company need a resignation letter to compel it to offer you a promotion and a raise?
4. Your skills are needed and replacing you impacts immediate corporate goals.
5. Incentives to stay may be an unspoken trap. Once you accept a counter-offer, you’re branded as a malcontent and, even with the seductive deal points that coaxed you back, your future with the company flat lines.
6. If you accept a counter-offer, there is a very real possibility your company will conduct a confidential search to replace you and you will be sucker punched with a pink slip in due order. Please revisit #1.
7. Be cautious before interpreting the increase as a reevaluation of your value or worth to the company. Your company knows you are unhappy, but it has calculated that it is less expensive to retain you by throwing more money your way than replace you.
8. Your raise might not be as big as it seems. Promotions are all fun and games until Uncle Sam takes his share. You might now in a higher tax bracket and your actual increase in take home pay is much smaller than you expected.
9. Regardless of your raise and new parking spot, the reasons for your discontent that led you to seek new opportunities will remain the same.
10. Your relationship with your manager just got a bit more difficult. Even though it was not your intent to trigger a counter-offer, you put him or her in a difficult position and resulted in the company spending money to keep you. Some managers may perceive this as a semi-public condemnation of their leadership skills, and be cautious in dealing with you.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercareerstrategies.com.
