A friend who works in academia has been told through his departmental grapevine that he should secure an offer of employment from another university, and then use that as leverage to secure a promotion from his current employer/university. He has mixed feelings about this: it basically means pursuing an offer of employment while knowing that that other university will get left in the dust if/when they make an offer, but OTOH he has personally seen two colleagues in his same department advance via this exact strategy, and all the other things he’s doing to get promoted don’t seem to be enough.
It seems to me a shitty way to run an office - I mean can’t the administration make up their own minds about whether their employees are worth promoting? - but then again I’m not in academia. Is this sort of thing pretty ordinary? Is it restricted to academia, or is it also common in the private sector?
This is extremely common in the private sector - I have used it myself. The trick is to be willing to go take the other offer. Also, it depends a lot on how you market the request: “Promote me or I’m out bitches!” is very different from “I have this other offer, and while I would like to stay here, I need to think about my career. Of course I would rather stay if you can make something work”.
The logic is “why should we give you more money if you’ll stay for the same amount? Oh wait, you won’t”.
Academia can never make up their damn minds about anything. Hiring and promotion are typically handled committees of academics where most people really don’t want to do the job. But they do know how to waffle, complain, and throw out endless requests for More Everything. They won’t make fast decisions unless pressed, and another job offer seems like a pretty good way to press.
Pretty common across business in general I would have thought. This sort of brinksmanship not to be entered into lightly for serious jobs - your friend will need to hit the bricks if his institution feels like they can do without his services.
Depends a lot on the university for how much leverage one can generate - it’s a total non-starter at Oxbridge here in the UK, for example, not a discussion that can be had. Americans are more pragmantic, but I’d assume a similar policy held sway at the top end - one doesn’t threaten to leave Harvard. The majority of places, though, you’ll be able to have a sensible conversation.
The German system has a curious feature of actually stating offers you’ve declined on your resume, I’ve seen some cv’s from German professors with stuff like University of Mainz, W2 professorship, declined
I don’t quite understand the process that would lead to formal acknowledgement in this way.
Not at all. Tenured professors seek other positions all the time. You’d never go from a tenured position to an untenured one, however.
ETA: Securing another offer in order to get a raise at one’s current university is quite common. It’s basically a way to establish the going market rate. And yes, it’s extremely annoying to make an offer and have it used that way, but we’ve usually got other people on our short list.
My father and sister are academics and this is normal. It is also acceptable to get tenure first and then look for other employment. In fact you WANT to get tenure at any cost first, because A. It shows you succeeded and B. You will get tenured offers from other universities.
My father and sister aren’t at Harvard, but people do leave Harvard and I assume there is the same process of leverage. It all depends on where you’re going. “Stanford’s going to give me a raise and funding for 5 lab assistants” is probably a lot more compelling for both professor and university than “Provo Teacher’s College is going to give me a raise and funding for 10 lab assistants.” Some celebrity professors like Henry Louis Gates and Cornel West are sort of notorious for moving from one elite university to another every couple of years.
In business world, a person gets an offer and turns it down to stay for a better deal at their current place. However what happens a lot of the time is that the person will leave anyway in a year or so. One thought is that the person is unhappy so even their better deal is not enough to make them stay long term.
It’s also a game of chicken: you have to be willing to leave if your current institution doesn’t counter the offer from the new place. If they don’t counter, and you stay anyway, it will still not work the next time.
Then again, if they don’t counteroffer, you know how they regard you.
I’ve heard that it’s a bad policy to ask for a matching offer from your current employer. I don’t know why, it does make a lot of logical sense. If you are happy with your current employer, what you’re saying is “I’m now worth more money, and I have this external offer to validate my worth. Please pay me closer to this or find someone else - you obviously won’t be able to find someone worth what I am worth without paying about what I’m asking, plus recruiting fees.”
Don’t look at it (or use it) simply as a leverage tool. If you think you’re underpaid, find a better position. If you like where you are, feel free to give them the opportunity to convince you to stay.
Bluff at your peril. If they don’t ante up and you stay anyway, don’t be surprised if you get let go at the first opportunity.
YEah -
I would echo this,
As a boss, if one of my employees comes to me and says they have a better offer - I will shake their hands and wish them well
In private industry, management expects you to want and ask for more. That’s what management is, and that’s how they got there. Wanting more is a sign of intelligence and right thinking.
But they don’t want people who are looking for a different job. If you are going somewhere else, why waste politics and influence on getting you a raise?
Which is nonsensical. I’ve read in numerous places that this is the only practical way to raise your income substantially. As you accumulate experience, you have to keep interviewing and find employers wanting to steal you away from their competitors for large sums of money. Somewhat similar to how once you are married to an attractive woman, suddenly the ladies that wouldn’t give you the time of day before are showing serious interest.
The reason it’s bad is that some employers will think “hmm, if I let Steve here walk, then I don’t have coverage for whatever Steve does, it might be a couple of months before I can hire his replacement, and we lose the institutional knowledge Steve is carrying around in his head. Maybe I give him a counteroffer to get him to stay, then hire his replacement, get Steve to train his replacement up, and then fire the ungrateful son of a bitch as soon as I can get rid of him.”
Obviously not all employers think this, but it’s a lot cheaper to give someone a 20% raise for 2 months and have them train their replacement than to be without the knowledge for 3-6 while a new guy is recruited, hired, and brought up to speed.
A promotion to a tenure-track position is probably a transition from a term line to an assistant professorship. “Promotion” generally means promotion from assistant to associate (commonly bundled with the award of tenure) or promotion from associate to full. At least at public universities, there is a very clearly defined, and somewhat tedious, process for promotion.
An outside offer can be used, and often is used, as leverage for salary increases, teaching load adjustments, or other things a chair/dean has direct control over. Promotion and tenure involve committees, external review, and a formal process and are generally outside the direct control of the chair or dean.
I don’t see how it’s particularly shitty. It’s all about how it’s done. If someone is interviewing you, especially if they know you already have a job, they know they have to provide you with a job offer that’s enough to entice you to leave. And, unless they’re naive, they can reasonably expect that most people would generally rather minimize changes, so if they can get a reasonable counter-offer, they’ll take it.
IMO, it’s a shitty thing to do if you’re just looking for an offer to try to gain leverage and not to try to find yourself the best opportunity. But it’s equally shitty for you if you do that, because if you try to use leverage and they can’t or won’t make you a counter-offer because they can’t afford to or they’re calling your bluff, either you look impotent now and potentially hurt your chances for advancement even more, you’re stuck taking that offer you don’t like, or even worse, I’ve seen people use that leverage and end up losing their current job AND the offer.
But if you’re seriously trying to further your career, there’s absolutely nothing unethical about looking for better options. I would never consider using another offer as leverage unless, assuming no counter offer from my current employer, I’d ultimately be happier with that job than my current situation. If I’d be happier with that new offer than my current situation, and then I get a counter-offer, it might be difficult to choose between the two, but it’s a good problem to have, to choose between two different options both of which are better than my current situation.
The only time I have ethical reservations about looking for a better option, personally speaking, is shortly after getting a new job. Some people don’t really care, but I know that the new company has made an investment in me and there will be costs associated with replacing me, so I’m not willing to voluntarily leave until I feel like I’ve been a net benefit to both of us, but even still, depending on the type of job, that’s generally not longer than say six months. Besides, it looks bad to be job hopping too much anyway. That said, if a good offer falls in my lap, I wouldn’t turn it down in that time.
Now, obviously, academics are different, particularly as it relates to tenure, but if you’re not tenure track right now, I don’t really see how there’s much difference. Even if you are tenure track, all it really does is adjust the calculus of the situation, in that being on tenure track at your current job will now just add more weight to a potential counter offer you’d get. But, then again, if the other offer is still enough more money, at a more prestigious university, better research/funding opportunities, etc. then it might be worth it anyway. Only you can make that call.
For me, this honestly depends on the employee: there are people who I would try to convince my administration to counteroffer for. Ultimately, though, it’s up to my dean - I’m just the department head and while my recommendation may carry weight, it could still go either direction.