Why accepting a counteroffer is bad for your career

Another week, another counteroffer! It’s the frustrating life of any recruiter or hiring manager in the current market, especially within tech!

A candidate who gave a number of strong motivations for wanting to leave;

• They want a new challenge
• They have hit a glass ceiling
• Their company is small and they want to work on more interesting projects

But all of this goes out of the window once their current company offers them more money to stay?

It’s a common thing, and something I’ve experienced time and time again throughout my career.

If you've been offered a counteroffer, you might be tempted to take it. After all, that's more money than you were making before for doing the same job! But there are several reasons why accepting a counteroffer can hurt your career:

You have shown you are no longer loyal to your company.

Being loyal is essential in any relationship and it's especially important in your professional life.

Being loyal means being trustworthy, honest, and dedicated to your employer and it is something your manager will be looking at when considering promotions and future projects.

When you accept a counteroffer, you show that the only thing important about your current employer is its paycheck.

This can change the whole dynamic including your relationship with management and even relationships with your other colleagues. ?

You're probably not better off in the long run.

The truth is that accepting a counteroffer can do more harm than good to your career. By doing so, you're sending the message that you'll stay at the company only if they give you something extra.

It also limits your career options moving forward as your salary becomes over inflated in the market. Accepting a 50% salary increment to stay might sound like a good idea in the short term, but you potentially price yourself out of many exciting opportunities in the future. In addition, you can get easily get a reputation for being unreliable – someone who says something, but then goes back on their word. Recruiters and companies alike will be reluctant to work with you in the future.

The reasons you wanted to leave don’t change.

Sure, you’ve got a bigger salary but it only really papers over the cracks, the reasons you are unhappy will still remain. The same boring technology, the same project, the same manager you don’t really respect and the same inflexible working arrangement that has bought you to the point of wanting to resign in the first place.

Your career growth will be stunted.

When you accept a counteroffer, you're saying that your current role is fine, just give me more money. You're making it clear that you only want to grow in one direction—and that's to stay in your comfort zone.

When people progress through their careers, they don't move up by just doing the same things over and over again. They challenge themselves by taking on new responsibilities and learning from others around them who have different knowledge and experience. This is how people grow into leaders!

New challenges and getting out of your comfort zone are essential for growth.

By accepting a counteroffer, you are stunting your growth as an employee because:

• You won't get promoted as quickly (if ever)
• You won't learn new things from different mentors or colleagues with different skill sets or backgrounds than yours
• Your skillset will remain static

Your future raises and promotions might be limited since your current employer has already granted you more money and advancement.

A counteroffer prevents future growth and compensation.

If you accept a counteroffer, you can expect your employer to perceive you as less loyal in the future. This will make it harder for you to negotiate a raise or promotion because employers want employees who will stick around for the long haul—not folks who are willing to jump ship at any given moment. They’re also less likely to give raises or promotions when they see you as a major flight risk.

Accepting a counteroffer is not in your best interest.

A counteroffer may be tempting, but it's important to remember that your company isn’t loyal to you. They are merely desperately trying to retain employees that are important to their business.

Have no doubts, if there was a downturn in the economy your company would have no hesitation to fire you to save their own bottom line. Especially if you’ve proven to be disloyal and are now on a salary they didn’t want to pay you in the first place.

If they truly valued your skills and capabilities, then why do you need to resign to get a payrise or promotion? The fact that they didn’t before shows how little respect or value they place on you as an employee.

Conclusion.

In summary, accepting a counteroffer is almost always a bad decision.

If you have got to the point where you want to leave a company and have got an offer from another organization that ticks all your boxes, remember your motivations for wanting to leave in the first place and stick with your decision.

I have lost count of how many people have taken counteroffers to then phone me up a few weeks or months later to say they had made a mistake and ask if the opportunity is still available.

Please don't be that person.