withdrawing acceptance
I got a job offer from another company. I went to work and put in my notice that I would be accepting the new job. That night I sent the letter to the other company accepting the offer. The next day at work, they offered a considerable wage increase to stay and I decided to take their offer. What would be the most professional way to withdraw my acceptance from the other company?
Think twice before you do this. Go to the Salary & Negotiation board and search for "counter-offer". You'll see a ton of threads advising against accepting. The upshot of the reasons not to accept a counter offer are: 1. If they thought you were worth more money, why didn't they offer that BEFORE you told them you were leaving? 2. Now that they know you're "disloyal", chances are high they're looking for your new replacement and will be pushing you out on their own time line. They can easily offer you more money because they don't really have any intentions of paying you that 6 months from now. If you do decide you want to stay and take the counter, just call the other company, tell them you're very sorry to renege on your word (keeping in mind you're burning a bridge with them forever as part of this deal), but your current boss made you an offer you just can't pass up. Apologize for the inconvenience, yada, yada, done.
Tess You need to weigh your options before you rush into something that will impact your working career for a loooooooooong time. And maybe even for longer than that. Why did you want to search for new employment in the first place? Will a better paycheck replace your concerns about travel, your boss, your co-workers, the amount of work, or any of the other concerns you had in the first place. Is this the type of company that employs people who will hold it against you that you once decided to look for greener pastures? Will they think that you only claimed to have an offer for another position to get more money out of them? When word gets out that you were offered more money to stay, will the powers that be "can your hide" after everybody else in the company goes screaming at them that they want more money, too? If you withdraw your acceptance of the new company's offer, you will not be able to go to them again. And, being as it is a somewhat small world, there may be a conversation at a dinner party somewhere that your name gets tossed out there as a candidate for a job and the company who you just turned around on will tell them, "no way, he only wants to use you as a way to get a raise." I agree. Accepting a counter offer is almost always a mistake. Quite often, this is just a ploy on the part of the employer to buy themselves time to find your replacement. And even if it's not, it does not resolve your underlying reasons for wanting to leave. A couple of years back, I handed in my resignation at my then employer and received a counter offer. The department manager was also a personal friend. When making the counter offer, she actually said that, while she was compelled by her boss to make the offer, she wanted to let me know (off the record) that she did not recommend accepting. I didn't. About a year later, after she had also left the company, she told me that when her boss at the old company had told her to make me a counter offer, he actually added "...and start looking for a replacement." Hey, business is never personal, at least not good business. You should always look at counter offers with suspicion. There is little reason for a company to pay more money to someone who they already know is ready to leave for greener pastures at any moment, when they can hire someone new who wants to be there and will be excited to get the opportunity, and pay them significanly less. Unless you are considered top talent in a very specialized field, it just doesn't make a lot of sense for them to do that, since everyone is replaceable. Wow...I've never been in this position, but I never thought about it like that... People have berated me on occasion because I fail to put the "squeeze" on someone financially when I had the chance. I just don't think that way. It seems silly to me---why make a counter-offer to keep someone you're just going to dump as soon as possible? In the long run you still lose the talent. You still lose the talent but you do it on your own time table. You don't have a gap today, but you start looking for the perfect replacement today. You can take your time, hold to a high standard and not have to rush and just grab a body to fill the spot. You can have the new person all lined up and then drop the axe.
Tess | |
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Career Tips
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