- Raises, titles, and promises are short-term fixes. If you’re leaving due to limited growth, cultural issues, management uncertainty, or sponsor misalignment, a counteroffer won’t resolve those issues.
- Accepting a counteroffer almost always damages your credibility. It can create distrust with sponsors and superiors, cause current employers to see you as a costlier, less secure resource, and make it harder to find and land new opportunities later on.
- Counteroffers prioritize your employer’s needs, not your growth. They’re designed to preserve short-term stability rather than to accelerate your career trajectory.
- Equity is the true driver of wealth in PE. Counteroffers mainly focus on salary bumps. They rarely improve your equity position and cannot improve the likelihood of a liquidity event.
- Direct reports to CEOs assume even greater risk when accepting a counteroffer. If your concerns are strong enough to make you consider other opportunities, your CEO likely shares those worries. Accepting a counteroffer only for your CEO to depart before exit puts you at greater risk of a new CEO replacing you for a less expensive alternative.
Job searches are fraught with competing priorities and emotions, especially in the final stages when deciding whether to accept an offer. When your current employer counters with a raise or new promise, it’s tempting to stay in familiar territory. Yet counteroffers rarely fix the underlying reasons for departure — the typical culprits being job dissatisfaction and lack of growth potential.
Discover what really motivates counteroffers and why accepting one can be so detrimental to your PE-backed career trajectory.
Why Employers Make Counteroffers
When your employer makes a strong offer for you to stay, it’s flattering. But their priorities are rarely aligned with your long-term career goals.
The primary motivation for any employer to extend a counteroffer is to avoid the disruption and costs associated with replacing a key leader. These are reactive moves designed to maintain continuity, not strategic commitments to your advancement. An employer who truly valued you would have ensured you were properly compensated at market levels and addressed your concerns before your departure was imminent.
What Counteroffers Typically Include
Counteroffers can include one or more of the following components:
Base salary increases and benefits changes. Raises and additional perks are common counteroffer tactics. But while you might see an immediate increase, these adjustments are typically one-time fixes rather than part of a sustained pattern of higher pay. Staying put can actually limit your chances of earning future raises. Additionally, an inflated salary can price you out of future opportuni...