Job Seekers

Career Resources: Articles and Advice from the Recruiter

THE COUNTER OFFER

If you make a commitment to leave a company, the decision should be final. When you find another position, your employer may try to keep you by making a counter offer: a promotion, a higher salary, a promise to head up a new project. It is crucial that you never consider taking a counter offer.

The problems in your old company that caused you to look for another job still exist. Whatever quick fix seems to beckon within that counter offer is a false hope. And if you were motivated enough to spend weeks and months exploring the job market and make a commitment to another company, it’s time to move on.

Studies have found that a high percentage of employees who accept counter offers end up leaving their employer within six months anyway; for one thing, your employer may well be conditioned not to trust your commitment to his company anymore. The truth is that accepting counter offers is bad business. You put your integrity in question and stay in an environment where someone above you feels like you slapped his child and stole his bicycle. “Good luck with your career in that environment,” says Tim LaBruyere, Vice President with Kimmel & Associates. He adds, “take a counter offer and you will doom yourself to a very uncomfortable, and probably short-lived, existence at that company.”

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