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Comment by therockspush | Hacker News Reader

This has been the case with any counter offer situation I've been in.

I didn't realize this wasn't being done everywhere.

I've never even considered a counter-offer - when I put in my notice, I'm already committed to the new role.

Counter offers just say 'yeah we thought we could get away with paying you that all this time, but here's what we could have been paying you'

My last gig gave me a 2% raise then rubbed salt in the wound by saying that I should feel privileged because only a few people got a raise.

When I left a few weeks later, they attempted to provide a counter and the promotion to a level that was still below where I probably should have been hired into.

Exactly, I cannot fathom why someone would accept a counter-offer, it just puts a huge target on your back. You get branded as not loyal or as a "money grubber". Every company I've left, I left for a reason that was always more than just money. Money might have played into it but in those cases it was "I don't want to work for a company that refuses to reward my effort even when pressed". When I choose to leave a job it's often because of cultural or fundamental ways a company operates that doesn't work for me, no counter offer is going to change that.

So not loyal money grabbers get to label you as a not loyal money grabber. Not a big loss. The higher somebody is in the management chain, the less loyal and the more money grabby they are.

I don't disagree with you but doing so can really hurt any chances you might have for advancement at the company. So, in my opinion, you are shooting yourself in the foot to accept the counter offer. Yes, in the short term it might work well but except to have all routes to advancement (or even new/cool/interesting/etc projects) closed to you and eventually you'll have to get a new job to continue to grow/move up. Better to take the new job you have now and roll the dice on how well the new company will reward your hard work. At worst you are in the same situation in a few years but with new experiences.

Your advancement depends on your personal relationships with the right people. They all are not loyal money grabbers and they are gonna jump the ship one day. Your goal is to find a common ground with them and call them when you also need to jump ship.

As an employer, I think it would also better to let the person go on their merry way. I feel this is like taking back an ex. Once they go, be gone; don't come back. One can't help but have a suspicion they'll be looking again.

As an employee I don't think I would agree to a counter offer either. Once you make a deal (agree with the other company's offer) that's what you "shook" on. Obviously people have a diff pov on this and that's okay.

I agree with your second paragraph completely but I don't draw any parallels between a relationship and working for a company in the same way "we are a family" is immediately translated to "we expect you to put in more effort than we are paying you for and we will drop you at the first sign of trouble" (a LOT of people learned this the hard way throughout the pandemic). In a relationship I wouldn't be ok if my partner was always "window shopping" for "someone better" or, probably the better analogy, still on Tinder/Bumble/whatever-they-are-using-these-days while we were dating. When it comes to work I try to treat it purely as business. If a company could get the same output from someone else for less money than they pay me they would take that option in a heartbeat, they can't get mad if I do the reverse of that.

I agree. If you don’t like something are you currently coming speak to them before even going on interviews. Accepting the counter offer is the worst thing that one can do.

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