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Comment by throwaway4job | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint, I accepted a counter offer two years ago. Since then, I have been promoted twice. I am now one of the highest-paid, and highest ranked individuals in my organization.

Additionally, I have been given many opportunities specifically designed to help me grow my career in the direction that I preferred. This has included everything from project assignment, to introductions to board members and VCs, to educational opportunities.

One must always be careful when considering a counter offer, however any blanket advice stating to never accept is going to be wrong, and harmful.

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Counter counterpoint: I accepted a counter offer. Turns out my boss was literally lying about the counter offer. Raise never showed up in my paycheck despite my repeated bringing up the issue, and the repeated assurance it was just a payroll issue. The original job offer was no longer good, they'd hired someone else, so I spent another few months looking for a job. When I quit the second time around (boss had been fired for this, by the way) the company owner had the nerve the offer me the backpay I was owed if only I'd just reconsider quitting.

The lawsuit is still ongoing. :)

Was the counteroffer on paper?

Honestly, it shouldn't matter. If the boss is making an offer like that, then it should be good as gold. If it's not, then that is not a place one would want to be working.

No. Always get it in writing.

Some people even apply for that other job just to get a counter offer. You have a better negotiation position for salary and benefits if you actually have a job offer somewhere else. While you should think that valuable employees should be in a good negotiation position in the first place, employers often don't see the value before they realize that they may lose the employee.

This tactic is of cause risky if you actually like your current job, since the counter offer may not come after all.

Where I work, the only way you can get a raise is to bring in an offer that is at or better than what you want. Does not make sense, but that is how management and HR work.

  There are always exceptions, even more, there are cases when accepting a counter-offer is a right decision

The author admits as much and is not actually giving out blanket advice.

The author titles his post "Never accept a counter-offer", and says: "By saying you have to be prepared for it, I meant that you should never accept a counter offer."

Just because he later contradicts himself, doesn't make it good writing. You can't have it both ways.

The way I see it with the author stating "(your cat dies and you need bunch of money to save her)." is that only the person that is in the situation can assess the situation. The article talks broadly, but one should still take that particular situation (edge case) into consideration. Tough, it's rarely possible to judge an outcome correctly.

counter counterpoint (or just point?) I accepted a counteroffer and my boss really just said empty words to keep me around. I left 8 months later and should have just left the first time I resigned.

You got really lucky. Normally when a company extends a counter offer what they're doing is buying time to ease you out on their terms.

I always hear this, but where do you people work that this is the case? As some who has been on the other side of the table this was never how it worked. Losing a team member sucks. A counter offer is an attempt to avoid that. The idea that your boss would secretly interview your replacement before firing you just seems silly to me. At the most practical level doing something so cold hearted would send every other member of my team searching for a job.

That depends on the management culture. Some companies will not consider a raise unless you have another offer, some will refuse a raise no matter what you can get elsewhere, some will lie straight to your face to keep you some more and may even backstab you later.

I've seen most of the options in action. The workplace can be an evil place.

> Losing a team member sucks.

But being paid below market rate also sucks. By making a counter-offer and having it accepted, you're now setting a precedent. All of that person's peers will now see that the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave. Is that the environment you're trying to foster?

There is a solution: Pay your employees the true market rate and they won't be leaving for more money. Oh, but you say you want to keep paying everyone [who doesn't call you out by getting outside offers] below market? Too bad.

I think the disconnect is that most people imagine their boss is allied with their company against them. In reality they are a mediator between the two (or maybe I'm in the minority with that line of thinking, but it is the best way I can both do the job and sleep at night). I want everyone on my team to be paid fair market value. I fight for it come budget time. If someone who I think is underpaid comes to me with an offer, I will go to my boss for more money. If someone who I think is fairly paid comes to me with an offer, I might simply shake their hand and wish them luck. A counter offer is not guaranteed. It is only offered to employees that we want to keep long term at whatever their new rate would be.

Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.

> Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.

I think you meant to say "without another offer". When you indeed have an offer, it's not a bluff. Whether you get a counter or not, the outcome for you is you win. Now, if you DON'T have another offer, but try to get a raise by claiming to have another offer--well, that's an advanced tactic and very risky.

I meant it as I wrote it because it was in response to your original comment below:

>the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave

If your goal is to get a raise and keep your job, coming in with another offer is a bluff. The way to get a raise at my company isn't to constantly be interviewing because we won't counter offer everyone and we generally won't offer repeated counters.

> But being paid below market rate also sucks.

Where is this mythical "market rate" that I as an employee or employer can constantly get access to?

Every employee has their own market rate and that rate is determined by BATNA negotiations. If I'm hiring someone, I don't have market rate for them in mind which I try to pay under.

As a manager at a small company, you barely have more info on market rates than employees do. Sometimes savvy employees even have more info than I do (they can go out an interview to assess the market, while I can't interview people just to see what offer they'd accept).

Of course, there are also cases of flagrant underpayment (ex. paying <$100k for an engineer in SV) which should drive you away automatically.

83k fml

There may be some disparity in the way this happens due to the size of the company. Most of my jobs have been with very large corporations, and the way it usually works is they don't put you on new high visibility projects. When the next round of layoffs come you're the most expendable.

Giving the counteroffer anyway will get every other member of your team searching for a job. There's this company I stayed at for a whole 6 months. I came in after negotiation a sensible salary: Nothing spectacular, but still pretty good. Early inquiries at the job made me realize I was paid 25K more than any of my teammates! While I was the most senior, I wasn't quite that far ahead: They were getting underpaid. Realizing this too, one of them quit, and got a counteroffer to be paid just like I was. News spread like wildfire, and entire teams were interviewing out there. Some people stayed with the counteroffers, but many were lost.

When you are not paying people what you are really willing to pay them, eventually they'll learn about this, and hell will break loose. You either have to change the way you pay, or be OK with losing people. Counteroffers get you the worst of both worlds, and on top of that, they are wonderful sources of lawsuits in the long run, as the people that won't complain are typically women and minorities.

The one counteroffer that make sense is to go and say 'look, now we realized that we are underpaying, but we want to keep you all, so we are doing an immediate salary review'. You still look like someone that isn't on the ball, but at least you show you are trying to have equitable pay.

This is the "razorblade inside a candybar on Halloween" of employment advice. I've been warned about it a million times, never even heard of someone who has heard of someone to whom it happened.

Nope. Seen it personally at least twice.

> Normally when a company extends a counter offer what they're doing is buying time to ease you out on their terms.

Even if that is true, how would you ever know that? How would anyone in the world have access to those facts?

If you spend even a little time in Silicon Valley you would know how rare qualified people are and giving them a raise is such an insignificant proportion of the value lost if they quit. I'm not even talking about the money and time spent in bringing their replacement up to speed.

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