Cue the traditional scenario: it’s Friday afternoon, and your best employee walks into your office before the weekend:
EMPLOYEE: I’m here to resign from my position
EMPLOYER: This is troubling and terrible timing. Is there anything I can do to change your mind? How much have they offered you? I’ll match it right now!
I’ve kept it brief for the sake of LinkedIn…
Accepting a counteroffer might seem attractive in the moment, especially if your reasons for leaving in the first place were not iron-clad. I’d like to caution anyone who is on the verge of handing in their resignation to remain firm on their stance. Don’t allow promises or more money to derail all of the work it took to get to that point…
Accepting a counter offer can have an adverse effect on your career. Here’s why:
The most obvious impact is that you’re now marked by your employer as that disloyal employee who tried to leave once. Don’t expect a red carpet to your next raise or promotion within the company.
Hidden however, and more important is your ability to navigate the outside marketplace. By accepting a counteroffer that is $10,000 or 20,000 more than what you were prepared to accept from the other company, you’ve now misaligned yourself in your marketplace. If the median salary for a Project Manager in the Biomedical industry is $130,000, your offer from the other company was $145,000, and your current company has countered at $155,000, then you’re now $25,000 over the market value for your position. If you decide to leave or are laid off, it will be difficult to negotiate your way to the salary you left behind and what you’ve become accustomed to making. No one ever wants to accept a lower salary, even in a desperate market.
We end up creating an artificial bubble in the marketplace that no longer relies on market data & research but is now predicated entirely on our feelings about what we think we’re worth. This is usually skewed based on scenarios like what I described above.
THE SOLUTION FOR LEADERS: treat people well enough in the first place so another company won’t have a runway to steal them away from you THE SOLUTION FOR EMPLOYEES: stick to your original decision to leave as a way of protecting your career trajectory and its integrity