Why you should never take a Counter Offer
By Alison Green
March 26, 2012
Alison Green
Thinking about using a potential employer's job offer to get your current company to counter and pay you more money?
Stop right there.
Using another job offer as a bargaining chip may be tempting, but too often, it ends badly. If you want a raise, then negotiate it on your own merits—or prepare to move on.
Here's why:
1. Employers often make counteroffers in a moment of panic. ("We can't have Joe leave right now! We have that big conference next month.") But after the initial relief passes, you may find your relationship with your employer—and your standing with the company—has fundamentally changed. You're now the one who was looking to leave. You're no longer part of the inner circle, and you might be at the top of the list if your company needs to make cutbacks in the future.
2. Even worse, your company might just want time to search for a replacement, figuring that it's only a matter of time until you start looking around again. You might turn down your other offer and accept your employer's counteroffer only to find yourself pushed out soon afterward. In fact, the rule of thumb among recruiters is that 70 to 80 percent of people who accept counteroffers either leave or are let go within a year.
3. There's a reason you started job-searching in the first place. While more money is always a motivator, more often, there are also other factors that drove you to look: personality fit, dislike of your boss, boredom with the work, lack of recognition, insane deadlines—whatever it might have been. Those factors aren't going change, and will likely start bothering you again as soon as the glow from your raise wears off.
4. Even if you get more money out of your company now, think about what it took to get it. You needed to have one foot out the door to get paid the wage you wanted, and there's no reason to think that future salary increases will be any easier. The next time you want a raise, you might even be refused altogether on the grounds that "we just gave you that big increase when you were thinking about leaving."
5. You may be told to take the other offer, even if you don't really want it—and then you'll have to follow through. Using another offer as a bluff is a really dangerous game.
6. Good luck getting that new employer to ever consider you again. If you go all the way through their hiring process only to accept a counteroffer from your current employer, then the former is going to be wary of considering you in the future. If it's a company you'd like to work with, you might be shutting a door you'd rather keep open.
Now, are there times where accepting a counteroffer makes sense and works out? Sure, there are always exceptions. But it's a bad idea frequently enough that you should be very, very cautious before doing so.
Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. She's also the author of Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Leader's Guide to Getting Results and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.
Here are some other great articles by Alison Green:
The Five Qualities of Remarkable Bosses
Consistently do these five things and the results you want from your employees–and your business–will follow.
Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions. Results are everything—but not the results you might think. Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. You and your business benefit greatly.
More importantly, so do your employees.
1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.
Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.
It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.
So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome. Plus it’s a lot more fun.
2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments… all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.
And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.
Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.
3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.
While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move. But it’s not too heavy for you.
Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.
Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.
If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.
Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward. And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life. Can’t beat that.
4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice… but that's it.
Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.
If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.
When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.
You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should. When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.
5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”
Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.
That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you. When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off… or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.
In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.
Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.
Taken from OWNERS' MANUAL | by Jeff Haden
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-5-qualities-of-remarkable-bosses.html
U.S. Energy Executives Bullish on Their Outlook For 2012
U.S. Energy Executives Bullish on Their Outlook For 2012
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Executives at U.S. middle market energy companies are bullish on their outlook for 2012. This optimism among executives is fueling growth, as 85% expect to seek financing this year, according to Mike Lorusso, Group Head of CIT Energy (cit.com/energy). These are some of the findings detailed in CIT's latest research study, "2012 U.S. Energy Sector Outlook" (cit.com/energyoutlook).
With many companies looking to expand or refinance in 2012, the outlook for new job growth in the energy sector is positive, says Lorusso. "Such spending should create significantly more jobs in 2012 throughout the U.S., especially in the Northeast and Great Plains regions, which are seeing high levels of industry investment."
The recent boom in domestic natural gas resources in the U.S. has eliminated the need to import natural gas, according to Lorusso. "Such new discoveries, along with existing oil deposits, have executives heartened about the industry. More than half of respondents characterize these discoveries as a ‘crucial addition' to the U.S. energy mix, and 46 percent cite natural gas as the most crucial fuel for expanding the nation's electric generation capacity in the next decade."
The first in a two-part series, this video interview complements CIT's ongoing research and thought leadership programs and is part of the latest installment of CIT's Executive Insights Series (cit.com/executiveinsights) featuring senior CIT executive commentary on current market conditions and industry trends. The second video will discuss how 70% of energy executives believe that the United States can achieve energy independence within 15 years, as well as the expansion of drilling, fracking and how energy executives view the current regulatory environment.
For more information on this article and how to receive the videos mentioned on the article please go here:
OMG a New IT Staffing Company LOL
I had to smile as I wrote the the title of this very first blog. Having ran several large local staffing firms and serving in a senior leadership role for second largest staffing company in the world, I use to groan every time I heard that there was new competition. Now it is my turn to make “those guys” groan.
My goals for DP IT Staffing are simple, I don’t want to be the largest or the most widely known. I simply want the people I work with, the candidates, companies, recruiting partners and vendors, to be satisfied. Does that mean we fill every job and place every candidate that we work with? Of course not!
What it does mean, that as a conduit for all of these working parts I will honestly represent every opportunity, every candidate and my role to every individual in the process. I won’t try to push candidates into taking jobs that are not right for them and I won’t place candidates into companies where they will fail. As I learned a long time ago, sometimes you just have to say, “this isn’t a good fit”.
In that regard, I am like many others in this business. The percentage of good honest people in staffing far outweighs the bad apples. What I feel makes DP IT Staffing Services approach unique, is the number of years of experience, the wide range of clients needs served and the “partner” approach we are taking.
So whether you are of the OMG or the LOL opinion about what we have begun. I invite you to watch our progress and give us the chance to prove that we can make IT staffing enjoyable for everyone involved.