Counteroffer! You quit and your old boss wants you to stay. They’ll pay way more than your new job. You’ll get an office instead of a cubicle. The actual President came to ask you to stay. It just makes sense to stay, right?
Don’t do it. Sever a snakes head with one blow and it dies. Slowly cut off the tip of its tail and it will turn and bite you.
This is a “Fear Factor” moment. You’ve been eating cockroach puree for years. Now they want to give you a 20% raise and an office. Will that make the cockroach puree taste better?
In the last month we have seen two people, who stayed because of fabulous counteroffers, soon leave their old company. We are talking amazing counteroffers: raises, promotions, new responsibilities, respect.
They quit again, even for lower pay. The reason is that the old company didn’t really change. The opportunities didn’t really change. Their bosses treated them nicely only under blackmail.
Yes, I just wrote about how to “blackmail” your boss without quitting. What I really wrote was “How to ask for a raise or promotion.” If you are seriously underpaid or under appreciated and they won’t change, don’t go back to them if they promise to do what is right only when someone else wants to hire you away.
90% of people who take a counteroffer are looking for a new job in 6 months. The rate approaches 100% after a year. That’s because counteroffers are forced. Your old boss feels betrayed. He needs you for one more quarter and is looking hard for your replacement. You just gave up a great opportunity and he only wants to replace you without a disruption. Who wins? Not you!
I must admit, I see some counteroffers and say, “How can they refuse to stay?” Inevitably that person is soon gone. Why? Their job was so bad that it took a huge bribe to get them to stay. The size of the bribe indicates the true foulness of the position.
Think about it. If you are offered a huge reward to stay, you were robbed for the previous year. Will they also offer a year’s back pay as an immediate bonus? If they do, how about for the year before that? How guilty is their conscience?
Don’t accept a counteroffer. The chances are less than 1 in 30 that it will work out. No matter how much they pay you, a cockroach milkshake is still a cockroach milkshake.
Something To Do Today
Ask your boss for a raise or promotion if that is what would keep you there. If they don’t give it to you freely, don’t accept it as the fruits of blackmail.
————————–
Next: Quit or be fired?
How to read a book or magazine (you don’t have to finish)