Handle counteroffers and raises
Respond to a retention offer and negotiate raises in your current role.
- Evaluate a counteroffer from your current employer.
- Prepare a case for a raise or promotion.
- Apply negotiation skills inside your current company.
When you resign, your current employer may make a counteroffer to keep you. And negotiation does not end when you are hired: raises and promotions are negotiated too. The same principles apply - data, alternatives, and a clear, respectful ask.
Counteroffers and internal negotiation
- Evaluate why you started looking. If the reasons were growth, team, or the work itself, more money rarely fixes them.
- Consider trust. Once you have resigned, some managers see you as a flight risk. Think about how the relationship would change.
- Don’t use a new offer only as leverage unless you are genuinely prepared to leave.
- For raises and promotions: document your impact with numbers, learn the expectations for the next level, bring market data, and ask your manager what it would take - well before review season.
Promotions are usually decided on sustained performance at the next level, not a single conversation. Ask your manager to spell out the gap, agree on evidence to collect, and check in regularly. Then the review is a confirmation rather than a surprise.
Key takeaways
Revisit why you started looking before considering a counteroffer.
Build raise and promotion cases on impact and market data.
Start promotion conversations early and track progress.
Lesson quiz
5 questions · pass with 4 correct · up to 50 XP
Passing this quiz completes the lesson and keeps your streak going. Questions you miss come back in review sessions later.
Questions about this lesson
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