The Counter-Offer Evaluator: Deciding Whether a Raise Actually Fixes Why You Were Leaving
Why this prompt matters
Research from Robert Half found that employees who accept a counter-offer typically leave their company again within less than two years, because a raise rarely fixes problems that were never really about money — a bad manager, a stalled career track, or a policy change that made the job unsustainable in the first place.
What we use it for
You've been interviewing externally, received a solid outside offer, and your current employer just came back with a counter-offer — a raise, maybe a vague promotion promise — and you have 48 hours to decide whether to stay or go.
Prompt
Act as an experienced career strategist and compensation analyst who has coached professionals through counter-offer decisions and has seen how often a raise alone fails to fix the real reason someone started looking for a new job. CONTEXT: - Current role: [YOUR CURRENT TITLE] at [CURRENT COMPANY], [YEARS AT COMPANY] there - Outside offer: [OUTSIDE COMPANY], [NEW TITLE], [TOTAL COMP: base + bonus + equity], decision needed by [DEADLINE] - Counter-offer received: [WHAT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER OFFERED — raise amount, title change, promises, timeline] - Original reasons you started looking (list 2-4, be specific): [REASON 1], [REASON 2], [REASON 3] - Anything your manager or company said when presenting the counter-offer: [QUOTE OR SUMMARY OF WHAT WAS SAID] TASK: Analyze whether this counter-offer actually resolves the reasons you started looking, not just the pay gap, and give me a clear recommendation. CONSTRAINTS: - Do not just compare the two salary numbers. Map each of my original reasons for leaving against whether the counter-offer specifically resolves it, partially resolves it, or ignores it entirely. - Treat "the counter-offer only raises pay while leaving every non-monetary reason unresolved" as the single most important failure mode to flag — this is the most common way counter-offers fail. - Explicitly account for the relationship change: once I've signaled I was ready to leave, flag any ways that might affect how I'm treated, promoted, or trusted going forward, even if I stay. - Give a specific, confidence-weighted recommendation (stay / negotiate further / take the outside offer) — do not hedge with "it depends on what you value." - Include a short, professional script for declining whichever offer I don't take. OUTPUT FORMAT: 1. Reason-by-reason resolution table: original reason → resolved / partially resolved / not resolved → one-line justification 2. Total compensation comparison: base, bonus, equity, benefits, and realistic time-to-next-raise for both options — not just the headline number 3. Relationship-risk assessment: how staying is likely to change how you're perceived or treated over the next 12 months 4. Recommendation with a confidence level (e.g. "70% confidence: take the outside offer") and the single biggest reason behind it 5. A short decline script for the offer you're not taking
Result
*1. Reason-by-Reason Resolution Table*
| Original reason for leaving | Resolved by counter-offer? | Why | |---|---|---| | No promotion path after 3 years | Partially | Counter-offer promises "promotion consideration next cycle" — no title change, no written timeline, no new scope of responsibility today. This is a verbal intention, not a structural fix. | | Manager takes credit for your work in exec reviews | Not resolved | The counter-offer conversation didn't mention management or reporting structure at all. The person doing the crediting-taking is the same person who will decide your "next cycle" promotion. | | Remote policy rescinded (now 4 days/week in office) | Not resolved | No change offered. This was never on the table in the counter-offer discussion. | | Compensation below market for your level | Resolved | The 12% raise brings base salary to within 3% of the outside offer's base — close enough that pay alone is no longer the deciding factor. |
*2. Total Compensation Comparison*
- Current + counter-offer: $142,000 base (up from $127,000), no bonus structure change, no new equity grant, next formal comp review in 11 months. - Outside offer: $148,000 base, 10% target bonus (~$14,800), a new-hire equity grant, title of Director (one level above your current Senior Manager title), standard comp review at 12 months. - Adjusted for bonus and equity, the outside offer is worth roughly $25,000-$30,000 more in year one, plus a title that is marketable externally going forward. The gap narrowed by the raise, but didn't close.
*3. Relationship-Risk Assessment*
Your manager now knows you were actively interviewing and had an offer in hand. Even with the best intentions, this typically changes three things: (1) you'll likely be seen as a retention risk for the next performance cycle, which can cut both ways — sometimes it accelerates promotion to prevent a repeat, but more often it makes managers cautious about investing further development time in someone they now see as a flight risk; (2) the "promotion next cycle" promise has no enforcement mechanism — if your manager is the same person who's been slow-walking it for three years, a verbal promise made under pressure during a counter-offer conversation has a weak track record of materializing; (3) you've already identified a credit-taking problem with this manager, and that specific behavior is extremely unlikely to change as a side effect of a raise.
*4. Recommendation: 75% confidence — take the outside offer.*
The single biggest reason: two of your three original reasons for leaving (the credit-taking manager, the in-office mandate) were not addressed at all, and the third (promotion path) was addressed with a verbal promise rather than a structural change. The counter-offer closed the pay gap but didn't touch the actual reasons you started looking. Research on counter-offer outcomes (Robert Half) found that employees who accept a counter-offer typically still leave their company within less than two years — raises alone rarely fix problems that were never about money in the first place.
*5. Decline Script (for your current employer)*
"I've thought about this seriously, and I appreciate the offer — it tells me you value the work I've done here. But the raise doesn't change the two things that mattered most to me: how my contributions get recognized in review cycles, and the flexibility that made this role sustainable for me. I've decided to accept the other offer. I want to make this transition as smooth as possible — I'm happy to discuss a reasonable handoff timeline."
Most counter-offer advice reduces the decision to a single number: does the new salary beat the outside offer's salary? That framing is exactly how counter-offers succeed at retaining people who end up leaving anyway within a year or two. The prompt above is built around a different question: does the counter-offer actually resolve the reasons you started looking, or does it just close the pay gap while leaving everything else untouched?
The reason-by-reason resolution table is the core of the design. Most people who start a job search have 2-4 concrete reasons, and a raise typically addresses at most one of them — compensation. By forcing the model to map each original reason against whether the counter-offer resolves it, partially resolves it, or ignores it, the prompt surfaces the gap that a simple salary comparison hides. A counter-offer that raises pay 12% while leaving a credit-taking manager and a rescinded remote policy untouched looks generous on paper and solves almost nothing in practice.
The relationship-risk section exists because accepting a counter-offer isn't a neutral reset. Once an employer knows you were ready to leave, that knowledge doesn't disappear — it can cut either way, sometimes accelerating development investment and sometimes making a manager cautious about investing further in someone now flagged as a flight risk. Ignoring that dynamic produces a decision that looks sound on a spreadsheet and plays out badly in practice.
The constraint requiring a confidence-weighted recommendation rather than a hedge exists because "it depends on what you value" is true of every decision and therefore useless as output. Forcing a specific percentage and a stated primary reason makes the model's reasoning auditable — you can disagree with a 75% confidence call for a clearly stated reason far more easily than you can push back on vague ambivalence.
Finally, the prompt asks for a decline script because the analysis is incomplete until you've also planned how to communicate the decision professionally — whichever way it goes. A good decision poorly communicated can still damage a reference or a bridge you didn't need to burn.