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Never accept a counter-offer

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Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#251

Post by fecak »

jrockway wrote: post #231
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…

Career suicide for a software engineer? Unless you murdered someone and you're in prison for life, I don't see how that's possible in today's market. Back when I worked at a bank, counter offers were the standard way of getting a raise. If you had a competing offer, the Bank would almost always match that. Meanwhile, raises were maybe 1% a year. (I remember that Illinois raised state income tax at about the same time…

Of course it's not career suicide for a software engineer, and recruiters that make such claims should lose credibility with a candidate when they say these things. The recruiter counteroffer "script" ("career suicide", "you'll be fired once they can replace you", "you'll never get a promotion", "you'll be an outcast at work", etc.) is all stuff that could happen (other than the suicide part), but is highly unlikely just based on how many times we hear anecdotes about a counteroffer working out and the person staying for years.

Counteroffers are still a fairly common way to get a raise in software, although I think now that there is much less stigma to "job hopping" candidates are just as likely to move to new companies to get the raise.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#252

Post by vonmoltke »

wyclif wrote: post #213
tptacek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once accepted a counter that included a pay raise, a substantial equity grant, and had my requirements for role adjustments mostly met --- all offered entirely to prevent me from moving to a new job. I shouldn't have! Things were O.K. for about six months, and only then did it clear that I'd been sidelined --- after the company had put in motion its plans for post-me continuity. Basically: they bought themselves ti…

Flight risks get managed differently Assuming a large percentage of software developers leave for new gigs every 2-3 years, even in the best companies [that is an assumption on my part; I don't know if it's true or only anecdotal], why do you think the overhead for "flight risk" is so high? I mean, getting tagged as someone heading out the door is a temporary situation for most devs, not a long-term debilitation.

> Assuming a large percentage of software developers leave for new gigs every 2-3 years, even in the best companies [that is an assumption on my part; I don't know if it's true or only anecdotal]

I don't think that holds outside a certain few areas. No company I know of in Dallas, for instance, expects to turn over their developers that quickly.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#253

Post by Amezarak »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #215
cookiecaper wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it was unethical. In fact, finding out there is a salary disparity between peers is probably one of the most common ways that large salary raises occur. For that reason, and also because that disparity may result in legal liability if the peers have differing demographic profiles, some companies threaten to terminate anyone who reveals his or her salary to another employee.

> some companies threaten to terminate anyone who reveals his or her salary to another employee. In many jurisdictions, this is illegal.

It is illegal everywhere in the US. Talking about compensation is protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#254

Post by fecak »

Zelmor wrote: post #238
fecak wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through two periods of it being bad (2000 and the later recession) but I managed to do well enough. Lots of recruiters leave the market during the down cycles, and when it's up we get tons of newbies. You only need a phone/email and a LinkedIn account to jump in the field at the lowest level.

I'm working on embedded linux devices as a software tester and part technical writer, however, I have managed to get around 6 of my friends and ex-coworkers positions in the past 12 months, with another three going with counter-, or other offers. This year I have realized that I've become a lot of peoples' go-to person for creating better CVs, LinkedIn profiles and cover letters for applications. Living in the EU is…

Funny enough, I also have a second business where I do resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn optimizations/reviews, and career consults for people who need help. I don't know the laws of the EU regarding recruitment, but I know historically recruiters at least in the UK were a bit more respected than here in the US - not sure if that attitude has changed or not.

I'd go on LinkedIn and find a recruiter in your area - they may be willing to talk to you about the business. My blog (jobtipsforgeeks.com) has a handful of articles on recruiting topics as well.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#255

Post by eloisant »

cookiecaper wrote: post #173
charlesdm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest, why didn't you counter the counteroffer at $140k? Realistically, you could've probably gotten $150-155k on the spot, right there. They basically just showed their hand telling they want/need you to stay.

I don't know that it really works that way. At least in my experience, salaries are not generally set by an individual, but require multiple approvals. If they had a prepared counteroffer for $140k, it's not likely that he could've just gotten under the manager's skin and had it amped up to 160k without requiring the manager to go back through the approval process.

It depends on the size of the organization.

If it's small you just have the CEO/founder who decides everyone's salary, if it's a big bigger you have a manager with a margin of negociation but can always get a signoff for a bigger raise by the CEO, and when it gets really big there is a hard grid with categories, ranks within the categories, lower bounds and upper bounds.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#256

Post by Clubber »

cookiecaper wrote: post #183
prklmn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are afraid to ask for raises and default to looking for work elsewhere.

There is great political risk in requesting a raise. Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, and for some reason, after you've gone to that substantial political risk, a lot of employers seem to think that their employees should be content with raises of 2-5%. If you do get a raise, the counteroffer issue is still valid; your employer is given cause to question your loyalty and may be more suspic…

>your employer is given cause to question your loyalty and may be more suspicious of your contributions moving forward. This sentiment has been expressed by MS CEO Satya Nadella and I'm sure it's popular in other management circles.

Haven't they laid off around 20,000 people in the past few years? Seems like MS as a company wants to have it both ways, as I'm sure many do.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#257

Post by fecak »

lliamander wrote: post #217
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…

Thank you for the honest assessment; I had not previously been fully aware of the incentives on recruiters or the source of their statements. That said, early in my career as an employee, prior to reading any advice by recruiters, I made a decision to not accept counter-offers as a general rule. My main reasons are the ones people usually cite: a) if I am dissatisfied enough with my job that I applied for other jobs,…

I try to provide transparency into the recruiting business as I think it actually helps all parties. I mentioned possibly writing a book about the recruiting industry and got lots of support, so I still might do that. Recruiting as an industry usually benefits from the other parties having a lack of information, and I hope that starts to change.

Most recruiters would rather have you believe the scary counteroffer "stats" that aren't well documented.

A counteroffer can "right a wrong" in some cases, and employees who are not sure how to ask for raises/promotions/changes to their employment situation may find that their resignation facilitates a conversation that maybe could have happened if they'd asked.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#258

Post by vonmoltke »

wtracy wrote: post #210
nbb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in our industry are already making far above the median Well, half of them are.

The median income in the US (in 2014) was $29k. The median salary for a software engineer is supposedly $95k. That's more than triple the overall median. Sources: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary-...

That's the average salary for a software engineer, not the median. Also, the SSA site uses "net compensation" for their numbers, which they define as "compensation (wages, tips, and the like) subject to Federal income taxes, as reported by employers on Form W-2" and "includes contributions to deferred compensation plans, but excludes certain distributions from plans where the distributions are included in the reported compensation subject to income taxes". It is not clear to me how that maps to salaries reported on Glassdoor.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#259

Post by eloisant »

cookiecaper wrote: post #205
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, If they do, flee. Business is business and if people are getting offended about business, something is wrong.

Easy to say, but not how it works in the real world. If you walk in to your boss's office and accuse him of underpaying you, he's going to feel hurt. That's the natural reaction. Telling him "business is business" is not likely to improve his feelings. Business would be better named "pampering giant babies", because that's what it is. Despite the mythology that we're programmed with, most of the work of being in char…

That's because they way you ask for a raise is not by "accusing him of underpaying you", and saying "business is business", there are nicer ways to bring it. You don't have to be confrontational and inelegant.

Typically, you wait for your yearly or quaterly review, tell him what great stuff you did for the company, how you will contribute again in the future then tell him you feel like a raise of x percent or n dollars would be appropriate. You don't say "you're underpaying me", but "the value I bring to the company increased, so I deserve more than I did last year"

I've never seen a boss get offended for it, at worst he'll make excuses like "sorry I can't right now, but at soon as things get better I'll think about you".

And nowadays in many companies, if you never ask for a raise you never get any. Your boss assumes you're happy with your pay, so why give more?

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#260

Post by fecak »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #185
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…

Wow. The source the author cites for his counteroffer statistic ( http://thevetrecruiter.com/news/a-perfect-case-study-for-not... ) includes this passage: > Back to my candidate. Two days after he took the counter-offer, I received a call from one of his colleagues. She said word on the street was that one of her co-workers had recently accepted a counter-offer with her employer, and she wanted me to know she would n…

These articles written by recruiters to scare candidates are clearly self-serving and make the industry look like a bunch of idiots. In the post I linked to in the top comment, you'll see a handful of other examples of similar posts by recruiting firms.
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