Handling counter-offers

The offer is accepted on Friday. Your candidate resigns on Monday. By Tuesday lunchtime their manager has found the money for a pay rise, a new title and a long talk about the future, and your candidate has stopped picking up.

For a small agency, that’s a fee you’d already counted, a client who has lost weeks, and a shortlist that went cold while everyone waited. The client will remember that your placement fell over.

Most counter-offers are settled before resignation day: in whether you understood why the candidate wanted to move, and in how long the process left them waiting. An employer needs two things to win someone back: a reason the candidate will listen to, and time to make the case. You can do something about both.

What recruiters told us

None of these is about the counter-offer itself. They’re about time: the gaps where a candidate is left alone with their doubts. When a candidate does wobble, recruiters told us they handle it person to person. They go back to why the candidate started looking, and adapt to the person in front of them. Some need reassurance, some need the facts laid out, and some need to hear it’s fine to change their mind. No script does that. Knowing the candidate does.

Go back to why they started looking. A counter-offer that doesn’t change that hasn’t changed anything.

Why candidates accept

From the employer’s side, a counter-offer is the cheap option. Replacing someone means a search, a notice period and months of lost work, so a pay rise and a promise look like a bargain. And it arrives when your candidate is least sure of themselves: they’ve just done something uncomfortable, the new job is still a name on a contract, and the people asking them to stay are people they like.

Whether it works depends on what the candidate hears in that room, and what they haven’t heard from you lately. Watch for these four:

Ask why on the first call

The best protection against a counter-offer is a real answer to one question, asked early: why are you looking? Then test it. “If your manager matched the salary tomorrow, would you still want to talk to me?” “Have you raised this with them?” “What would have to change for you to stay?”

If the answer is only money, believe it and expect a counter. You can still place them, but warn the client early. If the reasons are about the work, the manager, the commute or where the company is heading, a pay rise can’t touch them. Write those reasons down in the candidate’s own words. You’ll need them on resignation day, when their own words read back to them will carry more weight than your summary.

This is judgement no tool makes for you. Candidates want a recruiter who knows them, and knowing why someone would really move is what earns you the honest conversation when it counts.

Rehearse the resignation

Once the offer is accepted, and before they hand in their notice, have one calm conversation about what happens next. Ask: “If they offer you more, what will you say?” Then let them answer out loud. It’s far easier to decide on a quiet afternoon with you than in a room with a manager they like.

Read their reasons back and ask if they’re still true. If something has changed, you want to hear it now, not the morning after they resign. Help them keep the resignation short: a letter, a thank you, a notice period and a last day. A list of grievances reads as a to-do list for their manager.

Adapt to the person. A loyal candidate who hates letting a team down needs to hear that leaving well isn’t letting anyone down. One who’s nervous about the new job may need a call with their future manager before they resign. To book the conversation in writing:

Hi [Candidate],

Congratulations again on the offer from [Client]. Before you resign, can we have ten minutes on the phone?

I’d like to go through three things:

1. Why you started looking. Is that still true?
2. What you’ll say if [Current employer] offers you more.
3. Your notice period, and the start date that works for you.

It’s easier to decide this now, calmly, than on the day you resign.

Are you free at [time] on [day]?

[Your name]

Don’t tell a candidate that counter-offers never work. Some are real. Help them decide on their own reasons, and tell the client the same day if they waver.

Keep the gap short

The other half is time. Every quiet day between interview and start date is a day for the current employer to act. Treat speed as part of the placement, not a courtesy to the client.

From the hiring side, a full match gets a quick decision, and a partial match can sit for a few days while the hiring manager weighs it up. The pause is deliberate, but your candidate can’t see that. Tell the client, honestly, what the wait costs: “They’re in final stages elsewhere, so I need an answer by Thursday.” Book the next interview before you put the phone down: the hard part is often the candidate’s diary, not the panel’s. Once there’s a verbal offer, push for the written one and a start date that week.

Then stay close through the notice period. Call every week, and give them something to look forward to: a coffee with the new team, the contract, the kit arriving. Slow replies or vague answers about notice are your cue to call that day.

1. OfferTalk through a counter before they resignIf they offer you more, what will you say?
2. Resignation dayCall that eveningHow did they take it? Did they offer you anything?
3. Notice periodKeep in touch every weekYour new manager asked how you’re getting on.
4. Day oneCall after their first dayHow did it go? Anything you need from me?

If they take the counter anyway

Sometimes you do everything right and they stay. Tell the client the same day, with the reason if you know it. A client forgives a lost candidate far more readily than a late warning. Then ask whether anyone else on the shortlist is worth a second look. The runner-up may still be free, and the client has already met them.

Thank the candidate and keep in touch. Don’t argue, and don’t predict how it will go. If the reasons they wanted to leave come back, they’ll remember which recruiter was decent about it.

Questions