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What is a counter-offer? Employers provide counter-offers to employees who want to leave for another job at another company. However, dealing with counter-offers isn’t as easy as it sounds. The offer could be better than the other job you’re leaving for, but is it what you really want or need? To help you figure out what to do after you receive a counter-offer, here are some helpful suggestions to put you on the right path.

 

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Be Respectful

Throughout the whole process of dealing with a counter-offer, be respectful to everyone involved. This helps to make sure you don’t have any problems moving forward. Even if you aren’t on good terms with the company you’re leaving, nothing good comes from being disrespectful.

 

Take Some Time to Think About It

In order to come to a logical decision, you should take some time to think about the situation. You need to give yourself time to get into the proper headspace in order to make a right decision. When you receive a counter-offer, your first instinct may be to immediately accept or reject it. However, this instinct might not be in your best interest. It may come from a place of anger, fear, or excitement. These are emotions that can have an influence your decision-making ability.

 

How Does It Benefit You?

Take everything into consideration. How does this counter-offer benefit you? If it is an improvement over your previous compensation and benefits, and you like the company, it may be worth accepting it. If your reason for leaving involved the company itself, you might want to reject the offer. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this, since everyone’s situation is different. Just make sure you think about whether or not accepting the counter-offer makes the most sense to you.

 

Give a Decisive Answer

After you’ve thought about it, give a decisive answer as soon as possible. Don’t attempt to make conditional decisions about your counter offer, i.e. “if they do/don’t do this I’ll accept/reject.” It also isn’t a good idea to try going back and forth between the old and new company, and having them one-up the other offer. It might seem like a smart idea to leverage the counter-offer into getting a new offer at the new company. However, the new company could just as easily pick another person and leave you hanging.

The best course of action is to make your decision based on the offers you currently have and stick to it.

 

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