This happened to me; I was aggressively talked down from an attractive job offer I received, and when I accepted a counter, a succession plan was put in place to improve the the timing of my presumed inevitable resignation.
This isn't folklore. There are roles and companies where counteroffers are pathological; sometimes it's overt and the company is trying to screw you over, and other times it's subtle and emergent and has more to do with the inevitable loss of traction that comes of the company preparing itself more deliberately for your eventual departure.
If I ever end up in this situation again, I'm certainly going to bring this concern up directly and immediately. It's something you can work out if you're negotiating in good faith; it's not the case that there's no such thing as a successful counter.
If your story is any way indicative of SOP, it sounds like a counteroffer should come with an employment contract with time and termination restrictions.
The odds of you ever negotiating something like that from any company with funding and/or house counsel are effectively zero. The closest you'll get is severance, but note that negotiating an effective severance agreement is expensive and can get adversarial. (It's easy to get a severance agreement that does not really protect you).
By this I mean, don't look to contractual provisions to mitigate the risk of a bad-faith (or bad-in-effect) counteroffer. You'll either establish real trust in your employer or you should walk.
Comments
This happened to me; I was aggressively talked down from an attractive job offer I received, and when I accepted a counter, a succession plan was put in place to improve the the timing of my presumed inevitable resignation.
This isn't folklore. There are roles and companies where counteroffers are pathological; sometimes it's overt and the company is trying to screw you over, and other times it's subtle and emergent and has more to do with the inevitable loss of traction that comes of the company preparing itself more deliberately for your eventual departure.
If I ever end up in this situation again, I'm certainly going to bring this concern up directly and immediately. It's something you can work out if you're negotiating in good faith; it's not the case that there's no such thing as a successful counter.
If your story is any way indicative of SOP, it sounds like a counteroffer should come with an employment contract with time and termination restrictions.
The odds of you ever negotiating something like that from any company with funding and/or house counsel are effectively zero. The closest you'll get is severance, but note that negotiating an effective severance agreement is expensive and can get adversarial. (It's easy to get a severance agreement that does not really protect you).
By this I mean, don't look to contractual provisions to mitigate the risk of a bad-faith (or bad-in-effect) counteroffer. You'll either establish real trust in your employer or you should walk.