Date Published: March 2026
Although this has been addressed in previous blogs, I’ve had two deals go South in the past month due to counter offers so it seems like a good time to bring this issue front and center again.
Every Recruiter has probably experienced this at least once. You find the perfect candidate for your client; they express dissatisfaction in their current role, which can include everything from a lack of progression in their career, compensation, culture, concerns about the financial viability of the company, etc. The candidate undergoes the battery of interviews with executives and ultimately gets the offer from the new company. It’s exactly what the candidate wanted, everyone is happy.
The Next Step
Now comes the stressful part of the process – the resignation. Most times, all goes well and the candidate embarks on their new career journey. However, sometimes that isn’t the case, especially with highly visible executives. The company doesn’t want to lose the employee and immediately begins trying to address the pain points. Herein lies the first problem with counter offers. If this is a truly valued employee, why didn’t leadership already know the pain points and put a plan in motion to address them?
Next comes the promises. Increased comp, a promotion, a plan to change this or that. In one of the placements I mentioned that fell through, the company even promised to completely uproot their current structure to eliminate the candidate having to report to someone they didn’t like. Now, I must admit, that was a new one for me.
Through all the promises of change, more money, a greater role or whatever it is that caused you to decide to start interviewing, if you have rightfully earned a greater comp package or the promotion (or whatever the issue is) why do you have to resign in order to get what you deserved all along? Think about it…why has that comp been available, but withheld, for your position? If you are qualified for the greater role, why hadn’t it already been offered to you?
The Trust is Damaged
If research pointed to counter offers actually being a healthy way to re-engage with your company and led to happiness on both sides, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now because I wouldn’t have written it. The truth is, they don’t work. I don’t have enough fingers to count the times on one hand candidates have called me less than a year after accepting a counter offer, telling me the same problems were still there. Only now, it was worse because the relationship had changed.
This is the biggest issue with counters. The relationship absolutely does change. The trust is gone. A threat of departure breaks trust on both sides, and it’s not easy to recover from that. According to a recent Harvard Business Review survey, 80 percent of executives say that trust is diminished when an employee accepts a counteroffer.
This break of trust lingers long after the employee accepts. Sure, the employee is still there, but only after secretly interviewing for and nearly accepting another job. This leaves leadership with lingering doubts about that person’s loyalty and longevity. Similarly, the employee knows the company was only willing to step up when they had one foot out the door, and that doesn’t feel good either.
Counteroffers Often Delay the Inevitable
Here’s another great example. I was working with a high level national Sales leader recently, employed by a well-known lender. There were many issues that he had discussed with the CEO on multiple occasions, but nothing changed. In frustration, he decided to start looking for another job and quickly got a great offer. When he went to resign, the CEO immediately addressed all his pain points, gave him a promotion and more money. Further, they appealed to his emotional ties to the company, discussing how much he was “needed” and how much they relied on him, etc. So – they covered the big 2 – money and the emotional ties to the company. The candidate was thrilled and withdrew his acceptance of the offer with the other company.
Fast forward 10 months later. The candidate called me and said nothing had changed. None of the promises made had been kept, except the new Title, which was fairly meaningless because the original problems that were in place kept him from being truly productive – in any role. He also had not seen the promised change in his compensation. There were multiple excuses given as to why this hadn’t happened yet, mostly due to “market conditions” (a common one) and margin compression. Even more concerning, the candidate had noticed a distinct “shift” in the relationship. He was excluded from many executive meetings that he should have been included in with his new role.
Bottom line…Counter Offers look great on paper – they’re supposed to. Unfortunately, the long term odds of it being a solution or a win-win for everyone are extremely thin.
By Tami Coffey
