Never accept a counter-offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#281

Post by cloverich » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

> When it’s all about a feeling, things are hardly going to change even with a great counteroffer, so staying in the same place because now you have a free public transport ticket is just an apathy. That feeling will stalk you forever, it will make the relationship between you and your employer worse and there will be no winning side.

Does anyone have any personal stories about this -- having no hard / defensible reason other than not feeling right -- and leaving? How did it work out for you?

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#282

Post by adekok » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

verbify wrote: post #56

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…

> They had no incentive to.

It's usually cheaper to keep an employee than to hire and train a new one.

Sorry, as someone who runs my own company, such short-sightedness as seen above is stupid.

I keep my employees happy, and make sure they don't want to leave. I get more out of them than I would if they were underpaid, overworked, and treated like shit.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#283

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

quantumhobbit wrote: post #172

CydeWeys wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten, and I'm so glad I followed it, is to ignore details like what the product is entirely, and pick the team to join solely based on the manager. It's worked out very well. There was a survey I remember reading earlier this year about how the single biggest factor causing dissatisfaction at work is having a bad boss.

How do you identify a good manager? I ask because I've had both good and bad but no indication of which is which at the beginning. Some seemed super engaged when interviewing but disappeared once I started working.

I had a thirty minute chat with each potential manager during the hiring process, and I went with the one that I felt I had the best rapport with. It turns out that the initial impression was correct. Now of course this is far from foolproof, but oftentimes you can learn a lot about someone from just a thirty minute chat (and asking the right questions).

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#284

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

jrjarrett wrote: post #272

CydeWeys wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people don't. Hell, my last job change occurred because I was contacted by a recruiter from what was literally my dream job for the past decade (you don't ignore an email like that). I was content in my previous job and not actively looking, and had actually been promoted to lead developer not a year prior.

How DO YOU GET these? The only recruitment calls I ever get are from body-shop class contracting firms that never manage to even come close to my current compensation for scut work.

If I had to guess, it's because I interviewed with them when I was still in college and didn't get the job, but remained on their radar for later follow-up. This ended up being seven years later though, so who knows.

Another guess is that I had a recently listed promotion to Lead Developer on my LinkedIn account. Anecdotally I've heard similar experience from other people who started getting more high quality contacts once their job title on LinkedIn reflected a more senior role. I know we all hate LinkedIn but it matters because people on the hire side use it extensively, so spend some time entering details in there so that it's as impressive as your resume.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#285

Post by dlhavema » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

byoung2 wrote: post #179

kardashian007 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's possible to make many tens of thousands more in mere seconds if couched right in those situations.

I am quite good at negotiating raises, and I know when I can push and when to hold back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12122526

i definitely am not. that is one skill i hope to learn before i move on. Granted, i'm pretty happy where i'm at right now, but it could useful in the future...

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#286

Post by dlhavema » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

acveilleux wrote: post #266

loeg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, have had good results accepting a counteroffer. The problem was pay; I got two offers and asked for more pay; they fixed it (40% salary raise and much better bonuses). This was probably 4 years ago; I'm coming up on 6 years with this employer. Not everyone who accepts counters leaves immediately.

When the main pain point is money, counter offers can be great. When the problem is the job itself or the environment, accepting counter is probably a bad play (except maybe a lateral move in the org, if large enough.) That's my experience anyway.

I can agree with that, i interviewed at a couple of other places when i worked at my last job, mainly to see what i was worth, and found it was clearly higher than i was making. I loved the team i was working with and didn't really want to leave. i ended up getting a pretty decent size raise, and planned on staying a while...

Sadly 6 months or so later started multiple rounds of layoffs, while i didn't get hit, our team size went down 30% in one round of layoffs. Being my team was the reason i stayed, i ended up leaving another 6 months later...

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#287

Post by 67726e » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

adekok wrote: post #282

verbify wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> They had no incentive to. It's usually cheaper to keep an employee than to hire and train a new one. Sorry, as someone who runs my own company, such short-sightedness as seen above is stupid. I keep my employees happy, and make sure they don't want to leave. I get more out of them than I would if they were underpaid, overworked, and treated like shit.

I don't know you, but thank you for being a good boss.

I said this to a manager right before I quit. There are a million ways to demotivate your employees and precious few ways to motivate them again. Finding out that you've been totally screwed and then not having that fixed will kill morale damn near instantly. The best managers I've had gave me a fair shake and they had my loyalty.

At my first software job I worked there while I was going to school. I hated the program for myriad reasons so I dropped out. At the time I was getting paid hourly and there wasn't budget that year so my boss commuted my hourly pay into a salary which ended up shafting me due to overtime, but promised to give me a raise at the first review. He was a man of his word and gave me what I perceived to be an insane raise (something like 60-70%). To my incredulity I got another raise a year later of something like 30% and suddenly I'm a twenty year old kid making more than anyone in my family.

Thing is it wasn't the money that earned my loyalty and hard work, it was the fact that I knew I had people looking out for me and that I could trust. There was many a day where I'd go to the office 6.00 - 16.00 or so, go to the gym, go home and then get bored and go back to the office for an hour or two. I sure as shit wouldn't have done that if my boss fumbled around and made excuses, put things off. All of the great managers I've worked with knew that if you treat folks with respect and treat them right, you get results and that goes beyond salary. Simply having your manager come to you and point out you've been busting your ass and should take a couple days off really kinda clues you in that you're not just a widget factory.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#288

Post by cookiecaper » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #259

cookiecaper wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dolla…

Yeah, annual employee reviews are undoubtedly the sanctioned time to bring it up. The boss won't be offended if you wait until then because they're expecting your compensation to be a point of discussion in that meeting anyway. However, you'll find that since they're expecting it, they have their hand-wavey excuses ready and won't take the request seriously. I'm sure a lot of people "ask for raises" in those routine reviews.

So if you do sit on your hands for 11 months so that you only ask your boss at the time when he won't find it offensive, you're still most likely going to walk away with nothing or a pittance, since as I said, bossess appear to believe any raise in excess of 5% is outrageous (again, a large bump is like an admission that they're cheapskates, so they don't like doing it).

On the other hand, most programmers can go out and get a new job offer within 2-4 weeks, and unless they're at the top of the pay scale for their industry and area, probably get a 20-40% pay bump. Which option is more attractive?

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#289

Post by imagist » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:24 PM UTC

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'll add this to the list of reasons why recruiters' incentives are in direct competition with yours--and why you should not use a recruiter.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#290

Post by imagist » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #5

> employees who accepted a counter-offer are leaving the company after an average of 15 months. 15 months MORE. Damn. I wish I could stay that long in a single company. Either the project is long finished, or the startup went bankrupt, or the entire department is redone, or there is somewhere else offering a significant raise, or... Sometimes, I wonder what's the average tenancy for competent employees in a hot tech…

As of a few years back, the tenure of software developers when leaving a job averaged at 18 months. I'd guess that silicon valley drags that average down, and the rest of the industry drags it up.