Never accept a counter-offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#21

Post by otterley » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:35 PM UTC

throwaway4job2 wrote: post #19

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…

Counter counterpoint: I accepted a counter offer. Turns out my boss was literally lying about the counter offer. Raise never showed up in my paycheck despite my repeated bringing up the issue, and the repeated assurance it was just a payroll issue. The original job offer was no longer good, they'd hired someone else, so I spent another few months looking for a job. When I quit the second time around (boss had been fi…

Was the counteroffer on paper?

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#22

Post by Teichopsia » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:37 PM UTC

throw_away_777 wrote: post #16

rajivtiru wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always exceptions, even more, there are cases when accepting a counter-offer is a right decision The author admits as much and is not actually giving out blanket advice.

The author titles his post "Never accept a counter-offer", and says: "By saying you have to be prepared for it, I meant that you should never accept a counter offer." Just because he later contradicts himself, doesn't make it good writing. You can't have it both ways.

The way I see it with the author stating "(your cat dies and you need bunch of money to save her)." is that only the person that is in the situation can assess the situation. The article talks broadly, but one should still take that particular situation (edge case) into consideration. Tough, it's rarely possible to judge an outcome correctly.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#23

Post by fecak » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

vtorosyan wrote: post #4

mtmail wrote: post #2

"I have seen researches showing that more than 90% of the employees who accepted a counter-offer are leaving the company after an average of 15 months." Can you add a link to those studies?

Thanks for pointing it out. I've added a link and removed the number as actually there are different studies with different numbers. Here are few other resources of such examples http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/counter-offer-could... http://thevetrecruiter.com/news/a-perfect-case-study-for-not... http://www.careercast.com/career-news/pros-and-cons-countero...

Look at how poorly these articles describe the surveys. One mentions a Pittsburgh recruiting firm - they couldn't even give the firm's name? These surveys are mysterious - nothing even on sample size.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#24

Post by niccaluim » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:43 PM UTC

Counter offers are a little silly. People in our industry are already making far above the median, which makes it extremely unlikely that money is the motivation behind resignation. More often it's a bad manager—there's a saying that people don't quit jobs; they quit bosses—uninteresting work, change in direction, or some other environmental factor. If you're going to make someone a counter-offer you should also be sure to address the real issue that caused them to want to leave in the first place, or they're just going to leave after a short time anyway.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#25

Post by alephnil » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

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…

Some people even apply for that other job just to get a counter offer. You have a better negotiation position for salary and benefits if you actually have a job offer somewhere else. While you should think that valuable employees should be in a good negotiation position in the first place, employers often don't see the value before they realize that they may lose the employee.

This tactic is of cause risky if you actually like your current job, since the counter offer may not come after all.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#26

Post by Clubber » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:48 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 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.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#27

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:48 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…

[deleted]

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#28

Post by shaneos » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

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 months he delayed, said he was looking in to it etc, but in the end said there was nothing he could do, he had no flexibility.

I found a different company that I liked, accepted their offer at about 60% higher salary and told my manager I was leaving in two weeks. Within 24 hours they had matched the other salary, and thrown in some stock too.

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.

Of course I left. If you are worth the money, you should be paid the money, and not have to beg for it. 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.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#29

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #17

We had a couple people accept our counter offer then use it as leverage to get a better third opportunity a couple months down the road.

Which is ok. Every paycheck is a renewed offer to stay. Every employee should periodically reevaluate their employment deal, and survey whether a better deal is available.

Folks like to throw in 'loyalty' and 'responsibility' here. But I've never seen a company mention those things at layoff time. It has to be a two-way street.

And even if a company does try to be 'loyal' to employees by renegotiating terms during economic hard times (job-sharing, reducing hours etc) the cynic in me says "they're trying to reduce costs so they don't have to retrain later".

You've got to look out for #1 first. Nobody else is looking out for you after all.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#30

Post by pkaye » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #10

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…

I've heard it's about a year in Silicon Valley.

In my own experience, I see an average of 3 years. Then there are those who do short stints and more on while others will stick around as long as things are interesting. Also the length of projects vary from industry to industry. When I was doing hardware/firmware, an average project was 2-3 years long so people would atleast stick through that.