Counteroffers. The Road to Ruin?

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

In this video, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter encourages a cautious approach to counteroffers.

Hi! I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m referred to as The Big Game Hunter because I’ve been hunting down leaders and staff for organizations for more more than 40 years and helping businesses grow throughout that time. I want to talk with you today about counter offers and I’ll just simply say when a recruiter like me . . . I’m not talking about myself . . . third-party recruiters, not corporate recruiters . . . normally deal with someone who’s gotten a counter offer.

They’re watching their feed disappear. Hysteria starts to come in. Thousands of dollars are going to evaporate and thus, they’re going to start yelling and screaming.

I don’t do this. I just want to be clear about that but I’ve witnessed any number of people do this and they start doing things like, but why? You can’t do this and it all comes out of an article that was written years ago that recruiters so often take as like the bible called counter offers the road to ruin and it talks about a couple of scenarios number one is all that you’ve done by accepting a counter offer is brand yourself as disloyal so that number one if in the future there’s a an opportunity for a promotion and there’s a choice between you and the loyal person who do you think they’re going to give the the promotion to the loyal one secondly that all you’ve gotten was the raise that they were talking with planning for you in advance a little bit early or less they could have been talking about more but you’ll never know it because all they’re going to do is match the money and there’s a third scenario that may come to me by the end of the video I want to be a little bit more practical with you and say that usually the circumstances that prompt your departure are not purely money they could be the nature of the work it could be a relationship with your manager and kind of like an abused spouse who promises to do much better in the future invariably the old behaviors return and you’re left being in a situation where you’ve accepted a counter offer to work for this problem person or problem situation who returns with a vengeance and I don’t mean by that that they’re going to hurt you or harm you but it always feels that much more extreme when you’ve capitulated to the . . . it’s almost like a hostage situation you know you’re holding them hostage they wind up making promises and now it feels worse so I just want to say to you with regard to accepting a counter offer be very very careful I can’t say unilaterally never to accept the counter offer that would be foolish there could be extenuating circumstances certainly the person you’d be working for they let you know is being transferred tomorrow you’re going to be getting their job you know examples like that abound of situations where it might make sense and I want you to hear that phrase might make sense to accept the counter offer but don’t do it for the money don’t do it for promises that might happen in the future after all the manager who makes that promise to you might be gone in two months time and the new manager who comes on board is never aware of the promise made so be careful be cautious be smart about these things statistically I would say it’s much wiser not to accept the counter offer than to accept one but there are the exceptions and thus you have to weigh them very carefully

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