GET THE MONEY DOLLA DOLLA BILLS YA’LL… At least that’s what Method Man taught me back in 5 th grade… Thanks for the life lesson Meth!
So you still care what I have to say? I don’t even listen to myself most of the time – well… It’s your fault not mine… I guess you’re back though because you threw out a dynamite resume and got yourself an interview or two, maybe a third? You didn’t show up with your best friend wearing matching tuxedos and by some miraculous fortune held that ketchup fart until you were in your car… Too bad you didn’t roll the windows down fast enough. The music is interrupted by a phone call – you know this number. The hiring manager you just met with has had someone (if not himself) reach out to let you know he is interested in offering you the position and wants to go over the particulars of the deal and invites you back in…
If you have gone solo on this – SirTradesAlot wrote a (DYNAMITE article the other day that is way better than anything I could advise to a solo candidate. Most of which will apply when working with a recruiter with the exception of having a negotiating buffer between you and the hiring manager. What we are gonna talk about is the “Oh s#!t” moment that sets in when you realize that you are going to have to go in a breakup with your MD and let him know you have found another ( ... And as everyone knows, sometimes the break up isn’t clean and they want you back – so here’s how to deal with getting the counter offer.
Career changes are tough enough and the anxiety of leaving your comfort zone for something you are only so sure of.... Employers know this and counteroffers have practically become the norm in today’s environment.
When this happens remain focused on your primary objectives. Think about why you were looking for another job to begin with? If someone is completely happy with their current situation they are usually not out there "looking" and might just be open to a better opportunity but now that you are at the offer stage it must mean that there is something that peaked your interest to get you so far down the line. So many times, a counteroffer that promises more money never really remedies the TRUE reasons for wanting to move on in the first place. Apart from a temporary solution to the initial problem, nothing will change the situation and when the dust settles, you can easily find yourself back in the same old rut.
Counteroffers make you feel important and wanted and you then question your logic when you thought about considering something else. Unfortunately, often times these are just stall tactics used by senior management to slow the high turnover not to mention that senior management might think that your immediate boss may not be the super manager that he/she thinks they are which makes that person panic as is, he is also panicking about the chaos that a departing individual can cause when leaving a department and what it could put into the minds of the remaining staff in the department.
They are going to do everything they can to stall and wait to find someone who can come in and try to make you feel loved AKA “King for a Day,” someone will come down, the team will go out for lunch or something that pulls at the personal and emotional side of you, it will feel like your first day all over again with everyone making you feel so wanted. Until the next day, week, month, when you are sitting there realizing nothing has changed and you end up like the kid from Dumb and Dumber with the parakeet… You got took and you didn’t know it until it was too late and now you’re stuck.
Below are 10 things you should be thinking about when you go in for the breakup so you can arm yourself with some confidence and make sure you don’t flinch when it comes time to SHUT DOWN THE COUNTEROFFER!
1. What type of company do you want to work for if you have to threaten to resign before they give you what you are worth?
2. Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? Are they offering your next raise or promotion early? All corporations have strict wage and salary guidelines which must be followed. Are future opportunities limited now? Will you have to threaten to leave again for another raise or promotion?
3. Your employer will immediately start looking for your replacement. Well managed companies rarely make counteroffers since they view their employment policies as fair and equitable.
4. You have demonstrated your unhappiness to your employer. You will now be viewed as having committed blackmail in order to get a raise. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
5. When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who was loyal and who was not.
6. When times get tough, your employer will begin cutbacks with you.
7. The same circumstances that now are causing you to consider a change will repeat in the future. If you accept a counteroffer, the underlying reasons for a career change will still be evident and will resurface.
8. Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probabilities of voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go within one year are extremely high.
9. Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride knowing that you were bought.
10. Once the "word" gets out, the relationship you now enjoy with your colleagues will never be the same. You will lose the confidentially and trust of your peer group. If you do consider staying put, obtain the details of the offer in writing, as well as a one year "No Cut" contract from your employer. If they refuse - as two thirds of employers who offer counteroffers do - your decision to leave should BE MORE CLEAR THAN EVER. If you have waivered and need some time to think things over, I always suggest for people to reach out to someone who is either a former employer that you left on good terms with (like before you left to go to B-School) or an MBA professor you still have a relationship with... No family, wives/girlfriends, other peers…
Find someone who truly couldn’t give two s#!ts what you do and has no vested interest in the result. You want this person to give you complete clarity when evaluating your choices. One thing I feel strongly about is that it’s much better to leave and then come back if you really want to be "bought back" the right way. If you leave it will look like ‘they couldn’t keep you’ and if they try to bring you back the nature of the relationship will be much different than if you take a counter-offer looking for more money, a promotion or whatever it could be and wind up being the one they are always uncertain about… You can still get what you want in time with patience and sound decision making.
Get to it people! Don’t get captured!
Can you quote the statistics from #8?
let me do some digging - however my 'statistic' is really based on experience of hearing people's stories and watching the candidates who took a counter offer come back to me looking to make a move again, usually worse than before.
just ask around... you wont find too many people who take a counter at the associate level who stick around long enough to get above VP - especially because if you are going to take a counter offer that has a promotion in it there is a good chance you will still be open to taking the next ripe VP opening that comes across your plate.
I was wondering because my experience has been different.
I think a lot of people have a skewed perception of the work place until they've been both an employee and a manager. As a manager, you realize that most of your work force breaks down into groups of 20 / 60 / 20 -- the lower 20% is worthless or even a liability, the middle 60% is passable, and the top 20% is where the money's made. In a human capital business like finance, the top 20% is hard to replace, and hence it is kind of silly for the employer to counter and then cut. I have never seen that happen. Keep in mind, that if the counter is reasonable, the employer is skipping the extensive opportunity cost of hiring someone else, which is difficult and expensive. And there's no guarantee the new hire will work out (the firm I work for has an 80% failure rate in the analyst role in the first 6-12 months, for example).
The loss of a really skilled analyst might be incalculable to the fund due to the inherent intellectual leverage in this business (not to mention that they now go to a competitor). I don't think anyone's so naive that they expect really skilled people to be working for below market rates or anything like that.
The idea of team dynamics also sounds like a big corporate environment, but may not be applicable to buy side funds. Smaller / smallish funds ($1-2B AUM or less) run very lean and no one is begrudging anyone else for getting what they're worth.
I don't really disagree with your post overall -- counters are tricky -- but I don't agree with generalizations since I think it really depends on the people and type of firm involved. I think most of what you said is probably more applicable to Fortune 500 type of situations.
If you do have stats, please post, I'm sure they would be interesting.
Great post.
Robert "f__king" Shaw....thanks for the shout out. Unexpected and appreciated.
Anytime brother!
Not that I disagree with the overall theme of this post, but you aren't exactly an unbiased party here. OF COURSE a recruiter doesn't want people to take counter offers - you lose your fee when that happens.
Nothing against Robert or recruiters in general, but many recruiters claim to know what's best for people and it always just happens to be what makes them $.
Haha absolutely a fair point - however you need to see beyond that one deal... If the candidate is that good, i know he will receive other offers and when i get to that point with my guys i never try to push too hard bc obv i have a horse in the race but the one thing people forget is that i cant afford to have a pissed off candidate in a job they hate, they will never recommend me to others and never work with me again. furthermore, if they leave before my guarantee period expires then i am DOUBLE screwed because i am not making money, have a candidate who hates me and either have to do the whole job over again from 0 or even worse i could lose a client... so your comment is totally fair but shortsighted and i dont make my money when they turn down that counter offer i make my money when the guarantee expires...
what makes us money is relationships and reputation... a great candidate that is treated right will "make me money" one way or another in time - whether its a great referral, another offer they get OR when they themselves get to the level when they are hiring and recall Rob Shaw as the guy who wasnt the asshole tryign to talk him into something that didnt work and given that he works like that he'd do the same when im hiring people through him.
to give you an idea - i just had a BB candidate who accepted an offer in lieu of taking advantage of an offer to attend the Winter Olympics in 2014. We thoroughly went through the options and after I did my job helping him get all the cards on the table. i suggested that he go to a trusted former boss/mba professor who would be emotionally detached from the situation and give him very clear advice as to what would be best for him in the immediate, mid, and distant future.
i totally understand how you can infer what you do from your vantage point, hope this helped
On a serious note. A question for you Rocky Mountain and to those who have had successful placements by Recruiters (HH): First to Rocky, what is the process like when working with HR over how much the placed candidate is going to be offered salary wise? Do you communicate to HR what the candidate makes at his current position?
the way i operate is very transparent. I always ask my candidates what their current compensation is and keep it for my own records regarless of if my clients want to knwo that up front or not. Some do some dont. It's a matter of their concern of having some 11th our demand being thrown on the table that will just not be met i.e. the 125k guy interviewing for a 100k job and then getting an offer and saying he needs 125k to make it happen.
I always know a salary range for the comp right out of the gate for a role but as you get a bit higher up in ranking the negotiating process does change once you get into guarantees and everything. We don't negotiate with HR at all costs. We prefer to be working directly with a hirign authority who is on the floor and understands the value of the candidate and will not get wrapped up in the corporate red tape nor have the pull to make something happen to get a deal done.
Agree - if you intend to leave, leave. You'll get shagged next bonus round.
That said I saw a guy who was properly fuc.ked by my old company. He got another offer, and used that as leverage. He told them exactly why he was leaving: no promotions for 3 years, making money for the bank etc... Management understood, and made everything right for him.
The bank matched all his requests; and everybody understood exactly why he did what he did. However, we all were pissed off at him as he had a "guarantee", but it's the same type of frustration you have against new hires who are on guarantee.
So in exceptional circumstances a counter offer makes sense...
Yeah it can work in some circumstances - nothing is ever that cut and dry and sometimes it does make sense. I had a candidate who simply reached out to me one time for a role, i told him i was interested in pursuing him and he turned around and used it as leverage to get a nice little bump for himself. While i was a bit irritated i just had to give him the ol' golf clap - plus i felt somewhat satisfied that i did provide some value to him...
Anyone thinking of making a habit of this can kick rocks though lol
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