So… you’ve finally gotten the nerve up. You turn in your two-week resignation letter and exhale a quiet sigh of relief. But wait, the excruciating part has just begun. The next morning, your boss calls you in and proceeds to offer you a very charming counter offer—one that will give you more money, more flexibility and more benefits, maybe even a promotion.
What to do? At first, many people might be tempted to accept such an offer because it makes the things they didn’t like about their job seem less relevant. And it’s very nice to all of a sudden be wanted: it’s in our nature. It’s so in our nature that we might, momentarily, forget the reasons why we probably shouldn’t accept a counter offer.
First things first. If your boss thinks so highly of you, why didn’t he or she make that clear earlier? Why now? Is it the old “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s [almost] gone” feeling? In some instances, yes, it may be genuine regret that makes an employer re-think what they are offering an employee.
Most of the time, however, your boss probably doesn’t like your timing. He or she would like to be the one making the decision for you to leave—having you do it is a bad reflection on him or her—and it also means some anxiety about filling your shoes.
If you are given a counter offer, it’s very important to tally up all the reasons you began the time consuming process of finding a new job in the first place. It’s also imperative to stay logical and not let all the flattery find its way to your brain.
Have the reasons you decided to accept a new position suddenly evaporated? No… Have the things that irked you about the job you’re trying to quit suddenly vanished? Probably not… Think very carefully about this counter offer thing, and then, resist the urge to cave in to the sweet talk. Just say NO to the counter-offer. Here are a few more reasons why.
You’ve already committed to showing up for work for Employer B in two weeks, you’ve already turned in your resignation letter to Employer A, and then you change your mind, stay with Employer A? Not a nice scenario, as your reputation will definitely be tarnished to some extent (and it’s hard to say how badly).
The employer who offers you the counter offer, which you have accepted, will never forget that you were about to walk out the door, and the employer who you were committed to working for will be left high and dry, something they won’t forget either. People keep track of these things: if it’s on file and you’re seeking new work down the road, employers will likely look at who has or has not accepted a counter offer and seek out the ones who haven’t. Because in accepting that counter offer, you left people wondering about your loyalty.
Some of you may still want to accept a counter offer. Maybe there are only one or two small things that irk you about your current job. Maybe the counter offer provides a detailed and clear way to fix those issues. Maybe you sense that your employer is genuinely sad to see you go and lacked the foresight to talk about these issues before you made it necessary. Whatever the case, there are people who decide to take the counter offer. After all, it is a personal decision, and situations vary drastically.
That said, the statistics are not in favor of accepting a counter offer. In fact, they’re downright dreary. In most cases, people who accept a counter offer are gone from that job within the year anyway, and have burned some bridges in the process. Think twice, thrice and maybe more about what a counter offer is really offering. In the end, it is almost certainly not worth it.