Yep, I said it.
Look, there are often many reasons not to accept a counter offer but sometimes it is the right thing to do. It just is. And whilst it is painful as a recruiter, it’s not always the disastrous move some people will make it out to be.
I love seeing recruiters pulling out the classic “80% of people accepting a counter offer leave their position within 6 months”. That little beauty was rolled out over 20 years ago when I started out in recruitment and it’s still doing the rounds today – and yet nobody can name the data source (other than “Dave said it in the breakout area”).
Even if there’s often a lot of truth behind the “stat”, relying on it to save a deal usually means the deal was never really there and you probably didn’t do enough to meet the candidate’s motivations/requirements to move in the first place.
78% of all accepted counter-offers are a result of recruiters not doing their job properly *
*may or may not be true.