Have you ever gotten a job offer, quit your current job as a result - and then been counter-offered by your current employer? If so:
*What did your current employer offer you that made you stay?
*What did you tell the company that offered you the job?
If you didn’t accept the counter-offer, why not?
I’m considering a couple of offers and I strongly suspect my current employer is going to come back with a counter-offer when/if I give notice. I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that this will happen, but if it does I wanted to be prepared. Naturally it’s a decision only I can make, yadda yadda yadda, but curious about you Dopers who’ve gone down that road and whether or not you ended up with some regrets about your decision.
My current employer offered matching money when I gave notice, so I stayed. The new job was more testing/quality than programming so I was happy to stay. I told the offering company the truth; that my employer had matched their offer - they didn’t seem to mind too much. (Nor did they increase their offer. Not that I wanted to get involved in a bidding war. ) I didn’t regret it. Matter of fact, I left that employer later on for other reasons, and now I’m back with them.
I have had many counter offers. It is my practice to not accept them. If I am worth the money that they countered with, they should have been paying it to me.
Fifteen years ago I changed jobs. The manager asked me if I would seriously listen to a counter offer. It was two hours before I was out for good, and the parties and gifts were done. I sat down with him and was offered an $1 an hour raise to stay since I was so vital to the place. I laughed loadly at the offer and he got pissed, because I said I’d take it seriously. I think you can see why I laughed in his face and declined.
Years ago, I worked at a residential treatment center for adolescents. The place was basically being run for a profit by absentee owners who didn’t give two figs for whether any of the kids ever got any better or not, and we couldn’t keep the professional staff because of the ridiculous salaries.
I worked there until I managed to get an in at an actual mental hospital, an opening for which I was richly qualified, and which paid considerably better.
When I had the job nailed, I went to my boss and gave him two weeks notice. He’d been pretty decent to me, and had been an improvement over the last boss. He offered me a sizeable raise to stay.
So what did I say to him? My first thought was “Thanks, boss, but this place is a fucking death ship, and I really don’t want to be here when the state inspectors show up, or one of the kids manages to actually commit suicide, or the next time one of these idiots you’ve hired and put me in charge of manages to have sex with one of the kids again.”
I told him I’d think about it. The next day, I explained that I wanted to move back to my old town, and the new job was closer. I lied like a bastard.
Two weeks went by, and I started my new job. Three days after that, the state inspectors showed up. Within 24 hours, the owners had shut the place down and fired the entire staff.
I am, honestly, bewildered. How do you know your market value until you test it? If, once you have tested it, your current employer is happy to match it and you are otherwise happy with the job, why not stay?
It is none of my employer’s job description to pay me more than I ask for. When I (implicitly) asked for it, they gave it to me. I have no problem with that.
A couple of years ago I had an offer from a different part of the same organization. Adhering to company policy, I had told my supervisor that the offer may be coming, and when it did, I expressed to her my (genuine) ambivalence. Should I stay or should I go? Anyway, one point in the new job’s favor, I told her, was that it paid better. She said “I’ll see their offer and raise you X.” So I stayed.
If I have a clear idea of my market value, I should have already asked for a raise based on that. If it is only being offered a new job that indicates my market value, surprisingly enough to me, a value that is higher than I thought, why should I expect my employer to have any better knowledge of what my value actually is than I did until I received the new offer? If, now that I have been offered that new job at my current value, my current employer is perfectly happy to say, “Oh, shit, Frank, we had no idea. Of course we’ll pay you that,” why shouldn’t I stay?
It depends why you are leaving whether you will regret staying.
I moved on and accepted a job that had more responsibility and more opportunity. I made it clear that there was no amount of money that could convince me to stay. He simply couldn’t offer what I was looking for.
On the other hand, a buddy just accepted a counter. Not sure how much dough they had to offer to keep him. His boss is horrendous and the department is imploding since he was not the only one trying to leave. At the big sit-down, I know his boss promised to be less nightmarish and staff up to help out the work load. I’ll believe it when I see it. I think he has another year before he starts looking again.
My sister works for the state, at the University of Wisconsin. Her supervisor is not allowed to give her a larger or smaller raise than her peers. But there IS an option to match the salary offered by another employer – this must be documented in a written job offer. It is one of only a few ways a better-than-average state employee can get a “non-standard” raise. The other ways are erformance based, but in practice the differentail between a bad and good emplyess is maybe half a percent, if that.
In fact, fishing for outside offers is a very common technique among her peer computer programmers. But most seem to prefer keeping their state jobs and just use the offers as leverage.
So, Frank, by and large my sister would agree with you. Resentment over not getting a raise earlier is just not an issue, but for a different set of reasons.
I’d been at my job for 2 years and asked for a raise every 6 months during my reviews. Always got more than the standard 4%, but not enough to satisfy me. Between that and a few other problems I had, I started looking for another job and found one that paid me what I felt I deserved.
I went into my current job to put my notice in. My boss told me to wait a day or 2 while they prepared their counter-offer.
I think the secret was that my counter-offer was prepared by my boss’ boss. I went into her office and they offered me significantly more money than the new place, and went through my complaints about the company 1 by 1 and tried their best to fix them, and also made me a supervisor of the department I work in. I stayed.
I think it was a great decision, personally. I’m happy at my job, getting paid more than I thought I was worth, and given a little more flexibility in my job. I also have a new sense of how much they appreciate me, which I never felt before the process.
Not that I wanted to get involved in a bidding war. ) I didn’t regret it. Matter of fact, I left that employer later on for other reasons, and now I’m back with them.