Congratulations, you’ve just accepted an offer for the job you’ve been chasing for months. It’s the career move you have been looking for! Great career progression, training and development and the list goes on. Your dream job! The right move….
But wait… All of a sudden the months of hating your job, the feeling of being unappreciated and unvalued by 
your current employer drastically disappear when they present you with a counter offer. Strange, all of a sudden you develop a little case of amnesia!
As a recruiter we see this happen more often than not and as good candidates become harder to find counter offers will become more prominent in the market place. The reality I would like to draw to your attention is a shocking 80 plus percent of people who elect to accept a counter offer stay no longer than six months with their employer as quoted by the National Employment Association.
So in six months you have managed to prove to your boss you aren’t loyal, burn your bridge with a potential employer and undo all the hard work of your recruitment consultant.
The common trend that keeps occurring is:
• Salary is hardly ever the prime motivator for resigning – more money doesn’t ultimately change the true state of play. The drivers that caused you to look elsewhere are still hidden in the workplace they are just more tolerable. And for how long may that be…. 6 months on average!
• Things don’t take long to return to the way they were before you resigned so what has really changed? Your bank balance…..
Accepting a counter offer proves you are only motivated by extrinsic values (money, material possessions) and the intrinsic values (job satisfaction, self worth) are not important. I don’t know about you but I would rather be satisfied coming to work every day. After all you spend on average 30 plus years at work! Have you got your priorities straight?
Accepting a counter offer is a short term gain for a long term loss! Counter offers are career suicide. Follow your gut instinct if it leads you to find another job in the first place, in order to seek your new career move then don’t be persuaded by a bribe! Be true to yourself follow your career objective. Seek that new job you have been looking for…..
Chanelle Stewart – Consultant