Counter offers - never accept one

As tempting and flattering as it might be, accepting a counter offer is always a bad idea.

Usually a counter offer means more money and never the solution for the problems that make some quit. People decide to leave their companies for many reasons. No opportunity for development, poor management, no opportunity to promote, no one to learn from are just some of the reasons for which people decide to leave their jobs.

When we decide to quit and go to another company we are looking for all arguments that support our decision. Simultaneously we will try and find all the advantages offered by the future work place and there is for sure more to that than money. After all this process that basically makes us see ourselves  already in the new position it comes the counter offer that offers us more money in order to stay in the current role. This is the moment when doubt might appear especially if we have been in the company for a long period of time.

Doubting is dangerous. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to take the time, think it through and when we make a decision stick with it. That is the best decision we can possibly make. We should speak with whom we have to speak, read what we need to read, ask what we don't know, never assume things and when we are ready, decide on what to do. We don't need to be worried that we have made the wrong decision.

If we took your time to think it over than that is the right decision for us. No matter what happens next we will be ready to face it because we know that we have chosen that way. There is no way to foresee the future or to go back in the past. Therefore there is no point in thinking what it would have happened if we would have made a different decision.

I strongly believe that we should only use the past in order to learn. Once we have learned our lessons we should leave the past behind and focus on what we are living right now. Decisiveness is a characteristic appreciated by everyone because it’s easy to work with people who do what they say they will. These are the persons one can trust.

If we say we quit and then we change our mind, regardless the reason, we will become an employee that can't be trusted. What is even worse is that after a few months we will realize that money couldn't solve our problems that we’ve had in the company. Inevitably the search will start again.

On the other hand we should think why do managers make counter offers?  Because they have no one in this moment to replace us with. They are just buying some time until they will find the right person to replace us with. If we accept we will be the person that wanted to leave and that they can't trust anymore. We can say goodbye to promotion possibilities or assignments of interesting projects. All studies on this subject show that 80-90% of the people who accept a counter offer leave the company in the next year.

Hesitation is dangerous in any situation and especially when it comes to changing jobs. The best thing one can do is to take the necessary time to make what the right decision appears to be and to stick with it. That will be for sure the best decision that can be made.

Let’s talk about money

Asking for a raise is never easy and every one of us hopes that this will happen without us asking specifically for it. In reality, there are many situations in which we have to go and ask for the raise that we want.

The most difficult part for most of us is to express our arguments in a coherent way that will convince our manager. However, bringing the right arguments at the wrong moment will definitely not get us more money at the end of every month. 

Timing – the right moment

To know when it's the right moment we should always consider the internal rules. Is the company giving raises once a year, or after performance appraisals, or after a certain experience accumulated in the company? Knowing what the practices in our company are, we will also know how to choose your moment. If the company is offering raises only once a year, in January, it wouldn't make too much sense to go to your manager with this issue in May, for example. The best time to speak about this is 3-4 months before the moment when the increases are made or before the evaluation period so that the manager will have time to take some actions.

Besides the time of the year, it is also important to choose the right day and moment of the day. It would not be too wise to bring up this subject in an extremely busy day or when you know that our boss has many things on his mind. We need to set a meeting with our boss especially for this purpose. The last thing we want is to discuss with him spontaneously or in a meeting that is completely about something else.

Reasons – arguments reinforced with results

When it comes to arguments, we should take our time and do some homework. Arguments like, I know my colleague is earning more, my expenses have increased or it's been a year since the last increase won't be of much success. Objective arguments are the ones who will give you what you want. More responsibilities, revenue brought to the company, more knowledge for the company, improvement of some systems in the company, extraordinary performance that impacted the results if the company, successful projects are just some examples of arguments that will be taken into consideration by the management.

Plan – always have one

Knowing what we want and what we will do in case of a negative answer is also part of the preparation of our case.  Therefore, we should not go into the discussion without having in mind a reasonable amount of money we want as an increase. Obtaining information on what the market pays will help a lot. In case that we have a negative response, it might be a good idea to ask the manager what do we need to do in order get that raise and when would that be possible. This way we will know how to set our expectations.