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Recruitment: The counter offer

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Amanda Burke is head of marketing and communications recruitment, Talent2 Sydney. She can be contacted on 02 9087 6230.

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Amanda Burke looks at how to handle two companies competing for your love.

The lure of the counter offer… These are indeed challenging times for employers and recruiters alike in the war for talent. With job vacancies at an all-time high and the tremendous jobs growth we have experienced over the past 18 months, it is tricky enough finding the right person for a role, let alone ensuring the new recruit comes through the counter offer unscathed.

Research that Talent2 has undertaken indicates that 54 percent of people will have a discussion with their boss advising that they are thinking about leaving their job. Therefore when these people subsequently accept a job offer and resign, their boss has already considered whether they will counter offer the individual or let them move on. Forewarned is forearmed.

As an employer recruiting a new person, it is important from the outset to anticipate that a counter offer is likely and you need to prepare your new recruit for its occurrence so that they are not surprised or thrown into indecision. Research also indicates that about 14 percent of people will definitely accept a counter offer and a further 16 to 20 percent will seriously consider the offer. So, in a worst case scenario, there is potentially a one in three chance of losing a person if the company puts pressure on them and provides them with additional enticements.

In this active job market, companies do not want to lose their employees, as they are fully aware of the impact on time and cost to the business by having to replace someone. In a tight job market, the good worker is valuable and very difficult to replace.

Interestingly, the research shows that when people make a career move it is generally not about the money. Over 60 percent say it is more about new challenges and a change. As a recruiter, the reasons that are regularly given by people considering a move are that there is no opportunity for advancement, that the culture of the organisation in which they work is not a ‘fit’ for them, that there is no one to learn from (no mentor), or that there is conflict or disharmony with their manager.

These reasons need to be uncovered and discussed at the interview stage by a new employer, before an offer is made, because when the counter offer strikes, rest assured, these factors will almost always continue to exist and a counter offer will only make conditions a little more tolerable in the short-term.

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