Never accept a counter-offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#51

Post by fidget » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

byoung2 wrote: post #36

fecak wrote: post #18

Recruiter here, almost 20 years. Do a search for articles warning about counteroffers and you'll find almost all are written by agency recruiters. Why is that? It's because agency recruiters lose probably millions in fees every year when candidates accept a counter. I have personally lost 30K on a single fee due to counteroffer on more than one occasion. It hurts quite a bit - that's a car - which is why if you accep…

My recruiter practically broke down in tears when I accepted a counteroffer in 2013. Counteroffers can be great tools to increase your salary, whether you accept or reject them. In my case it was purely about money. I was making $117k and I wanted a raise, but the company only wanted to give options. If it were an early stage Google or Uber, I'd go for it, but not this company. I wanted cash. They played the old "not…

> my ace in the hole was an unsecured network share drive where I found an offer letter for a coworker showing he made $135k.

Eww

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#52

Post by ryandrake » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

Do you want to keep working in a place where the only way to get a substantial raise is to threaten to quit? Accepting a counter-offer basically encourages this bad behavior on the part of companies, and I would not accept one on principle. When you get a counter-offer, whatever they say, you should be hearing "Ahh, we got away with paying you this little for so long--now I suppose we have to pay you market rate."

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#53

Post by beachstartup » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

econner wrote: post #41

byoung2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recruiter practically broke down in tears when I accepted a counteroffer in 2013. Counteroffers can be great tools to increase your salary, whether you accept or reject them. In my case it was purely about money. I was making $117k and I wanted a raise, but the company only wanted to give options. If it were an early stage Google or Uber, I'd go for it, but not this company. I wanted cash. They played the old "not…

Why did you quit to freelance?

probably more money, and more time.

people get what they ask for. when you make nearly 200k working for someone else you quickly start to realize what you are actually worth in the open economy compared to someone who is trying to imprison you professionally.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#54

Post by huehehue » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #26

fecak wrote: post #18

Recruiter here, almost 20 years. Do a search for articles warning about counteroffers and you'll find almost all are written by agency recruiters. Why is that? It's because agency recruiters lose probably millions in fees every year when candidates accept a counter. I have personally lost 30K on a single fee due to counteroffer on more than one occasion. It hurts quite a bit - that's a car - which is why if you accep…

I took a counter once. When you're miserable at a place, for whatever reason, a big pay raise will make you forget it for about 4 months, then you'll be miserable again. Life is too short to be miserable 8+ hours a day.

There are exceptions -- I've been hired multiple times by companies who were just getting into software and didn't really understand what they were hiring for.

In all cases there were failures on both sides (me for not realizing what I was getting into, and them for bragging about a technical branch they didn't have); however, I very much enjoyed working at those places and would have stayed if they upped my compensation to match my [actual] responsibilities.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#55

Post by ryandrake » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

kevan wrote: post #38

Clubber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a counter once. When you're miserable at a place, for whatever reason, a big pay raise will make you forget it for about 4 months, then you'll be miserable again. Life is too short to be miserable 8+ hours a day.

I'd guess plenty of people are in a situation where they're not miserable at the current company but they would like to get paid more.

If you are only able to get more by threatening to quit, that sounds like a pretty miserable place to me.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#56

Post by verbify » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

shaneos wrote: post #28

I completely agree. I went through this at my first job 13 years ago. I was hugely underpaid. I'd gotten the highest rating and highest raise each year for two years, but still made barely more than new grads coming in as the job market had improved. I did a job search, found 10 jobs I was overqualified for that were offering 60% more money, and took the list to my manager as part of my argument for a raise. For six…

> They could clearly have done this at any time in the past six months, when I was pressing my manager on it every single week.

They had no incentive to.

I was recently in the same situation - doubled my salary after years at another place.

Until you bring proof positive that you could bring in more elsewhere there's no reason for them, there's no reason for them to take your word for it that the market would pay you more.

Companies often rely on the sunk cost of employees laziness/sunk cost.

Depending on the company, if companies gave out raises whenever anyone asked, they'd be broke pretty soon (this applies more to a company like Walmart that relies on a lot of low-paid workers compared to Bell Labs).

> I was at the next company for a very enjoyable four years, and even got promotions and raises without having to lobby for them and explain my impact.

It's likely that you started working a lot harder at the second place. I know I did.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#57

Post by rubyfan » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #26

fecak wrote: post #18

Recruiter here, almost 20 years. Do a search for articles warning about counteroffers and you'll find almost all are written by agency recruiters. Why is that? It's because agency recruiters lose probably millions in fees every year when candidates accept a counter. I have personally lost 30K on a single fee due to counteroffer on more than one occasion. It hurts quite a bit - that's a car - which is why if you accep…

I took a counter once. When you're miserable at a place, for whatever reason, a big pay raise will make you forget it for about 4 months, then you'll be miserable again. Life is too short to be miserable 8+ hours a day.

I agree. The only way the counter makes any sense is if your only problem is you want more money. That's an easy fix, being unhappy at work is not easy to fix. Life is to short, move on.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#58

Post by jondubois » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

It depends on the situation.

If the codebase is a mess and you're the only person who understands it and the boss is aware of this; and your absence would cause the business to lose a ton of money and the boss offers you an amazing deal then you should definitely accept the counter-offer.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#59

Post by DominikR » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

Okay, so if I were to believe what this person wrote, in specific that no one is going to profit from accepting counter offers and that on top of that the relationship between employer and employee will alway get worse and that there will be lots of apathy then I have to ask why would any employer ever make a counter offer?

What do they have to gain from an employee that hates working from them?

> Now, all of a sudden Problem A gets solved in just some 10 minutes. Why wasn’t it solved before?

Because this employee is very likely a weak person in this regard. If it can be solved within ten minutes then it is very likely that you would have been able to get what you wanted without threatening to quit your job.

The one thing that I agree on is that one should follow through on his decisions, but this shouldn't be done in an irrational way. You usually decide to do something because you want some kind of improvement. If it is possible to reach an agreement with your current employer that gives you exactly that then why shouldn't you accept?

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#60

Post by ineptech » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #20

throwaway4job wrote: post #7

Counterpoint, I accepted a counter offer two years ago. Since then, I have been promoted twice. I am now one of the highest-paid, and highest ranked individuals in my organization. Additionally, I have been given many opportunities specifically designed to help me grow my career in the direction that I preferred. This has included everything from project assignment, to introductions to board members and VCs, to educa…

You got really lucky. Normally when a company extends a counter offer what they're doing is buying time to ease you out on their terms.

This is the "razorblade inside a candybar on Halloween" of employment advice. I've been warned about it a million times, never even heard of someone who has heard of someone to whom it happened.