“The counter offer is purely the behaviour you should have received in the first place”
Don’t do it!! I beg you!! NOOOOOOOOOO! Well it’s your choice I suppose. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh I haven’t heard from you in 6 months….what’s that? It didn’t work out? Sorry to hear that. Well you can’t say I didn’t tell you this would happen. Ok I’ll see what I can do.
Yeah…..possibly a slight exaggeration but only very slight. This is mine, and probably many other recruiters’ experience of the dreaded counter offer. In fact I am so sure of it I would bet my fee on it. 9 times out of 10 the counter offer is a desperate attempt to avoid losing a bum from a seat and in my humble opinion has no bearing on how valued you are to an employer.
Now hear me out.
Almost daily I speak to people who are extremely disillusioned and unhappy with their current role – be it because they are doing 3 peoples work, are being paid less than their colleagues, have asked for an location change due to travel or whatever. These people assure me there is no way any of these things can be fixed and are desperate to move. The process then starts and all is tickety boo. We have the conversation about the evil ***hiss*** counter offer and I am told there is more chance of them holidaying on Mars with Megan Fox than anything changing at their current company- suits me.
Now imagine my surprise **Shock horror** when the inevitable counter offer comes in. Suddenly, once the candidate hands in their notice there is a flurry of activity – the budget has amazingly got fatter overnight and the £5000 pay rise I sweat blood and tears to get from the new employer as well as sacrificing my only child for has been matched. The shock. Also the promotion that wasn’t available to you unless 6 people pegged it is now theirs for the taking. Yeah ok I probably just sound like a scorned sales person who has seen their trip to Clacton gone down the pan BUT this isn’t it i swear. Now I am no mystic Meg but this is never going to bode well. If you have to leave before any of your concerns are addressed then how can you ever really know your worth to the employer? Surely if you had been that valued you wouldn’t need to be leaving them in the doo doo before they realised that they couldn’t manage without you?
In the past week I have had THREE people who had taken counter offers over new offers of employment contact me and tell me they had made a mistake. Let’s just say I didn’t fall off my seat from the shock. Now of course starting a new job is stressful and most people avoid the upheaval if at all possible but ask yourself this – if you really are that important then don’t you deserve to be listened to you whilst you are employed and NOT when you are about to hot foot it out the door? A good company will always recognise their staff as the cogs that keep their business turning – there are no two ways about it. Now there will be times when a pay rise may not be possible or perhaps there genuinely isn’t room for progression BUT be aware that when these things become possible ONLY when you want to leave they may not indicate your true worth.
From my experience the counter offer is very rarely a Brad and Angelina affair….more like the Romeo and Juliet ending. You may get your happy ending for a while but ultimately the problems that made you consider leaving will inevitably come back to haunt you.
The post The Counter Offer and why it NEVER works. appeared first on Orchard Recruitment.