When you’ve made the decision to leave your current employer and accepted a new offer with a different company, few things can throw you off guard quite like a counteroffer from your present employer. Instead of shaking your hand, wishing you well, and sending you off to a new and exciting phase in your career, your employer may use your exit interview as an opportunity to try and hang onto you.
Whether your current employer offers you an incentive to stay in the form of that long overdue raise, a considerable performance bonus, or perhaps even that promotion you’ve always dreamed of, you should always be wary of such counteroffers. Whatever form the counteroffer takes, there are a variety of things you need to consider before accepting it. Yes, the offer is appealing, as is the prospect of staying in your comfortable old world. The counteroffer may seem particularly inviting since it offers a way to avoid facing the sometimes daunting prospect of setting off into a new and foreign employment scenario.
However, when faced with an inviting counteroffer you should always remember that there is a reason you considered leaving your current employer. After all, if you were content with your current company, you wouldn’t have been out there looking for a new job at all. There are some additional concerns that you should be aware of before accepting that counteroffer.
- Too little, too late? You have given your employer years of dedicated service, so why is the company only now choosing to recognize you in any significant way? Far from being a true recognition of your value to the company, the counteroffer is little more than a last ditch effort to keep you around. Hiring and training your replacement is going to cost the company far more than your raise, promotion, or bonus, after all. Keeping you around – even if this means providing you with some unplanned for incentive – is far cheaper than replacing you in the long run.
- How will this affect your relationship with your current employer? The truth is, you did have one foot out the door. Will your employer continue to trust you after this almost abandonment? In reality, your employer will likely lose some faith in you, and you may be excluded from important decisions or better opportunities within the company. By accepting your employer’s counteroffer, you may inadvertently lose their respect and leave them with the impression that is is all too easy to manipulate you.
- Will you be sabotaging your career? If management at your current company didn’t bother to recognize your worth until you were on your way out the door, then there is likely little room for advancement with your present employer. If your employer really valued you, then that promotion or raise would not have come in the form of a counteroffer. If you stay with an employer who only values you when you’re headed off to a better opportunity, you may be killing your career.
