When You Get a Job Counteroffer: Should You Stay or Should You Go?

I tried to do a little counteroffer Jedi mind trick. It didn't go as planned.

After working almost seven years, I went on an interview that an acquaintance told me about. The interview went very well, and shortly after I left the office, they called and offered me a job. I told them I'd need a few days to think about it.

I went into work the next day and told them, then tried to see if I could get a counteroffer from them. It wouldn't have taken much for me to stay; I was working in town and the new job would be a commute. If they could have matched half of what the new offer was, I would have stayed.

But it was no dice. I took the job.

And you know what? It ended up being the best choice I could have made. The acquaintance who worked there and told me about the job I know call "friend." I moved from a solo environment to a team. My skills have improved, the pay improved, and even the commute has turned out to be a blessing thanks to audiobooks and podcasts.

Just something to think about. Honestly, I think if you think it's time to leave, you should just go. It's time. Don't fight it.

This is good, solid advice.

In general, taking your manager or company by surprise -- for good or bad -- is never a great strategy. If you're angling for a raise or a promotion, make your intentions known well in advance. Don't assume your boss can read your mind. Have a plan, get input from your manager, follow up on it, and show progress. Don't expect something to happen overnight, even if your boss wants to make it happen. He or she might have several layers of red tape to work through, or might be unable to give spot promotions and raises outside of a given cycle. (This is especially true at large companies, whose managers have less discretionary power than commonly believed.)

Protip: rather than asking for a raise at an arbitrary number, try to find out the pay-band structure at your company. Know what the bands are, where you fall within them, and accordingly, how much room you've got to negotiate within reason. This information isn't always public knowledge, but chances are, somebody at your company has it. Reducing information asymmetry is key to a successful negotiation.

I accepted an counter offer at a situation where my manager had been wanting to promote me for 2 years. The worst part was that I had no idea why it was not happening. I was asking at every performance review about areas where I need to grow to get it and my mgr had no idea - he said that I performing at a more senior level in all areas, and that I should be promoted. I did get a nice raise, but not the title. Don't get me wrong here, the title wasn't that important, what bothered me was the totally dysfunctional communication between the management layers where I was left in a limbo where felt that promotions were apparently not based on merit, but something secret.

Limbo wasn't fun, so I was happy to get a +20% offer from a another company. However I ended up accepting the counter offer when I was certain that it was too late to offer me anything to stay. I got a honest (I hope) personal apology from my managers manager, the department head, who said that he had been the one deciding not to promote me, and that he now understands that he was not clearly communicating his expectations to my manager.

That was a bit over a year ago and while it might sound that the situation was beyond repair, I'm actually happy I ended up staying. It actually changed my managers manager behaviour to take a much more visible role in many other areas and start communicating more directly to us instead of just the layer in between.

Best answer.

Most of our jobs don't mean shit. It doesn't matter.