You’re feeling stagnant in your career, so you apply for an interesting new job. Several screening calls and interviews later, you have an offer letter in your hand. You hand in your resignation letter, and your manager asks to see you. Rather than conduct an exit interview, they come back with a counteroffer with terms that are much better than those offered by your new job.
You’re not sure what to do. It seems like every HR consultant and career coach advises against accepting a counteroffer. According to research by job-search firm LiveCareer, 57% of employees who accept a counteroffer end up leaving within 24 months. You’re wary of burning bridges with the new company, but you also really like the terms that your manager is proposing.
Should you accept the counteroffer, or should you tell your manager thanks, but no thanks? According to Linda Lautenberg and Judy Schoenberg—cofounders of EvolveMe, a career-coaching business for women in midlife or mid-career—you should consider the following factors before making a decision:
1. Understand where your company is coming from
There are a number of reasons why a company provides a counteroffer. “If somebody they really values notifies them and they were kind of blindsided by it, it might just be a genuine attempt to retain people and improve the situation,” says Lautenberg. Alternatively, she adds, if they’re seeing a rival company poach several of their employees, “they might be trying to stave that off.”
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