When offered more money after you ve declared your intention to quit a job, ask yourself what kind of company you work for anyway. If you have to threaten to quit to get a raise, it s tempting to use the tactic to get raises in the future. If you don t really want to quit, be careful about threatening to leave. Some day the boss who s given you raise after raise is going to accept your resignation. All companies have wage and salary guidelines that are strictly followed, and the larger the company, the more stringent its policies are.
Some companies stretch out raises.
If policy calls for an employee of your rank to get a raise every six months, but your raise comes as a counter offer that you accept, your next raise could come in 12 months or even longer. It s perfectly reasonable from the employer s standpoint. What happens really is that your salary lags further behind. If you ever get a counter offer, make sure you ask if this increase will affect your next raise. Once you go to an employer and admit that you ve been job hunting you ve told him that you were unhappy.