10 Reasons Not to Take a Counter Offer

Let’s face it, with the pace and demands of today’s employment marketplace, counteroffers are now more common than in the past. A counteroffer is an inducement from your current employer to get you to stay after you’ve announced your intention to take another job. Counteroffers are not those instances when you receive an offer and don’t tell your boss. Nor are they the offers that you never intend to take, but mention them to your boss as a “they want me but I’m staying with you” ploy. The latter two can be shrewd positioning tactics. Used with caution, they can be effective in reinforcing your value with your current employer or understanding the present monetary value of your position. True counteroffers carry an actual threat to quit.

Personal experience as an Executive Recruiter and studies indicate that counteroffers don’t hold executives; they still quit or are fired. When faced with what appears to be a sincere form of flattery, consider the following list of ten reasons for not accepting a counteroffer.

1. What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they give you what you are worth?

2. 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.

3. Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a cheaper price.

4. You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.

5. When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who was loyal, and who wasn’t.

6. When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutbacks with you.

7. The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will repeat themselves in the
future; even if you accept a counteroffer.

8. Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of voluntarily leaving in six months
or being

9. Let go within one year is extremely high.

10. Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride; knowing that you were bought.

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