Responding to the Counter-Offer – A Success Story

Over the past 2 decades, DyNexus Recruiting has recruited, placed and hired hundreds of ERP and CRM (IT) consultants for VARs, ISVs and ERP & CRM end-user companies.  In an earlier blog I wrote about the counter-offer, and how it should be dealt with when it is encountered in the hiring process.  The previous blog started off by offering the general rule that “counter-offers are a bad idea” for everyone: the candidate, the old company, and the new company.  Today I want to expand on that with a specific example that we just experienced.

Let us call the candidate Lonnie (false name).  Lonnie has a BS and an MS, and has 7 years of relevant professional experience.  She has a strong ERP background (Sage) and is a Lean Six Sigma black belt.  Equally important, she has a great employment record, and a professional and engaging manner.  She’s a great employee.

She started exploring “other opportunities” a few months ago.  Her reason was because she felt that she was “under-valued” by her employer, and didn’t see a good path for her continued career path.  These are the most important factors to the best candidates when they are determining their future employment, and she was totally correct in seeing it this way.

Early in our engagement with Lonnie, we spoke with several of our clients, and all of them expressed interest. We presented her to the one we felt was the best opportunity for her.  She went through the interview process, and was made a good offer, including a solid (and deserved) salary increase from her current base of $85K to $105K, but more importantly, a clear path to career advancement.

Upon receiving this offer, she went to her current employer to give notice, and they came back with a staggering counter-offer, raising her base salary from $85K to $130K (plus bonus on billable hours).  When she informed us, we thought the game was over, because it’s rare for candidates to accept a position that is $25K less than she could earn with another employer.  We felt, in the long run, this was a mistake, but money talks!

Lonnie surprised us.  After only brief reflection, she decided to decline the counter-offer, and accept the new position.  Actually, this shouldn’t have surprised us.  We had known Lonnie for some time, and knew her to be a very deliberative and careful thinker.  As an ERP consultant she had cultivated this mentality, and unsurprisingly, this carried across to her personal life.

When I asked her why she made this decision, she stated the following:

1. Making the right decision as it reflected her career advancement was much more important than immediate monetary advantages.
2. Her current employer increased her salary only because “they had to” not because they valued her and wanted to do what was right for her.
3. Her new employer offered a much clearer path for the kind of career advancement she was excited about, (the money would catch up.)
4. She trusted that her new employer was genuinely valuing her as a long-term employee.

Lonnie made the right decision, albeit one that most people might not be able to make.  I look forward to writing a follow up blog in a year, which I’m convinced will chronicle how her career has advanced in the way she wanted it to all along.  It’s hard for candidates to make this kind of decision, but then again . . .

IF IT WAS EASY, CHILDREN WOULD BE DOING IT.

PS~ If you’re curious to see what the market is bearing for Mid-Market ERP or CRM consultants in Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Acumatica, NetSuite or Salesforce, check out our Mid Market ERP & CRM Consulting Salary Survey. It’s awesome, and more accurate than the others, that I can assure you!