You have made the decision to leave. You have resigned. And then your employer makes you an offer you weren't expecting.
A significant salary increase. A promotion. A better title. Perhaps even a promise that the issues that caused you to consider leaving will finally be addressed.
It is tempting.
Very tempting.
After all, who wouldn't be flattered to discover that their employer suddenly considers them worth considerably more than they were paying them yesterday?
But before accepting a counter-offer, candidates should stop and ask themselves one simple question:
“Why did I decide to leave in the first place?”
At VG Charles, we have spent decades advising senior professionals through career moves, and one of the most consistent lessons we have learned is this:
A counter-offer often solves the resignation, not the reason for the resignation.
Why does the counter-offer suddenly appear?
It is worth understanding what is happening from the employer's perspective.
When a valued employee resigns, the immediate reaction is often one of shock.
There is a problem to solve. The business has potentially lost an important person, a client relationship may be at risk, work needs to be redistributed and, most importantly, replacing a good employee is expensive and time-consuming.
The easiest solution is often to make the departing employee an offer to stay.
Sometimes that offer is entirely justified. Sometimes an employer genuinely recognises that it has undervalued someone and wants to put matters right.
But often the counter-offer is primarily about retention.
The employer isn't necessarily saying:
“We have finally understood what you need from your career.”
It may simply be saying:
“We don't want to lose you.”
Those are very different propositions.
The 12-month question
There is another reason to think very carefully before accepting.
Recruitment professionals have long observed that a significant proportion of people who accept counter-offers ultimately leave their employer within the following year. The exact percentage varies between studies and sources, but the underlying pattern is familiar: the counter-offer can postpone a decision rather than resolve the reasons that prompted it.
And that makes intuitive sense.
If you started looking because you were frustrated with the culture, management, lack of progression, quality of work or direction of the business, a salary increase does not necessarily change any of those things.
The initial excitement of the pay rise can wear off.
The original frustrations can return.
And you can find yourself having the same conversation with yourself six or twelve months later, only now you may have turned down an opportunity that was already on the table.
That is why the question isn't simply:
“Is this counter-offer attractive?”
It is:
“Has anything fundamental actually changed?”
Money rarely fixes a career decision
Salary is important. Nobody should pretend otherwise.
But people rarely embark upon a serious job search simply because they want another few thousand pounds a year.
More often, there is a combination of factors:
Lack of progression
Frustration with management
Limited responsibility
Poor culture
Lack of recognition
Inadequate work-life balance
Uncertainty about the future
Lack of interesting work
A feeling that their career has stalled
Or simply the sense that it is time for something different.
If the underlying problem was not money, a pay rise may provide a short-term psychological boost, but it doesn't necessarily change anything else.
Six months later, the same frustrations can still be there.
And there is another uncomfortable question to consider:
If it took a resignation to persuade your employer to pay you what you are now being offered, why weren't they paying it before?
The relationship can change after you resign
There is another factor that candidates sometimes overlook.
Once you have told your employer that you intend to leave, the relationship can change.
Even if they persuade you to stay, they now know that you were prepared to walk away.
They may wonder whether you are genuinely committed.
They may question how long you will stay.
And, when the next promotion, pay review or leadership opportunity arises, your previous resignation may inevitably form part of the employer's thinking.
None of this necessarily happens, but it can.
And that is why accepting a counter-offer is not simply a decision about money. It is a decision about the relationship you have with your employer and how you see your own career.
The most important question to ask yourself
When faced with a counter-offer, go back to the beginning.
Before you started interviewing, what made you unhappy enough to consider leaving?
Write those reasons down.
Then look at the counter-offer and ask:
“Which of these problems has actually been solved?”
If the answer is “none, other than my salary”, you probably have your answer.
If, however, your employer has addressed the genuine reasons for your dissatisfaction and has made a credible, specific commitment to your future, then the situation is different.
A counter-offer should not automatically be rejected. It should, however, be tested.
Don't let flattery make the decision for you
There is also a psychological element to counter-offers that should not be underestimated.
Being told:
“We really don't want to lose you.”
feels good.
Being offered £20,000 more feels good.
Being told that you are going to be made a partner, promoted or given greater responsibility feels good.
After all, it confirms that you are valued.
But remember: you were valuable before you resigned.
The question isn't whether your employer values you.
The question is whether your current employer can give you the career you want.
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
Consider what you are walking away from and what you are walking towards
One of the mistakes candidates make is comparing a counter-offer with their current position.
The better comparison is the counter-offer versus the new opportunity.
What will the new role give you?
What will you learn?
Who will you work with?
What is the quality of the platform?
What is the firm's strategy?
What are the prospects for progression?
What is the culture?
What will your CV look like in three years?
What will you wish you had done if you turn the opportunity down?
These are much more important questions than simply asking which employer is offering the highest salary today.
The resignation test
There is a simple test we often recommend.
Imagine that your employer had made the counter-offer three months ago, before you had decided to leave.
Would you have been satisfied?
If the answer is no, ask yourself why accepting it now should suddenly make you satisfied.
Your reasons for leaving did not disappear simply because your employer has offered you more money.
Our advice to candidates
At VG Charles, we don't believe every counter-offer is bad.
There are circumstances where staying is absolutely the right decision.
But we do believe candidates should approach counter-offers with a healthy degree of scepticism.
Don't accept a counter-offer simply because you feel flattered.
Don't accept it because you feel guilty about leaving.
Don't accept it because the extra money makes the decision temporarily easier.
And don't allow the discomfort of change to make you forget why you started looking in the first place.
Instead, go back to your original motivations, compare the two opportunities objectively and consider where each path is likely to take you.
Because ultimately, a career decision should be about where you are going, not simply about how much your current employer is prepared to pay to stop you leaving.
And one final thought…
If you have resigned and your employer suddenly tells you how indispensable you are, congratulations.
It means you have made your point.
But before you change your mind, ask yourself:
“If I hadn't resigned, would they have offered me this?”
And, perhaps more importantly:
“If I hadn't received this counter-offer, would I still want to leave?”
The answer to the second question is often the one that matters most.
At VG Charles, our role is not simply to help candidates change jobs. It is to help them make the right career decisions.
Sometimes that means taking the new opportunity.
And occasionally, it means staying where they are.
But it should always be a decision made for the right reasons, not simply because someone made a counter-offer.