re: Accepting a counter offer?

I went through the same thing a few months ago. Asked for a raise about a year ago, and it took them 5 or 6 months to give me what I considered a slap in the face raise under my former boss. We had a very uncomfortable talk about why that raise sucked. So I started looking and found a really appealing offer within a month or so.

I wouldn't have stuck around for a simple match if that was all they were willing to do. The money was only part of why I wasn't happy.

They ended up making a lot more concessions on other things. Our dept was severely short handed to the point I was working well over 60 hours a week, nights, weekends, vacations, sick days, and middle of the night. All of that while being underpaid. I didn't have any real leadership or assistance, and I wanted to work from home. They conceded on every bit of that.

Our CIO was hands on for the week I had submitted my resignation in trying to get me to stay. My gut feeling was that he was genuine in wanting me to stay and I was confident that they can't simply replace me without a lot of headache and problems. I'm replaceable, but not in a simple way at least. And it's a long time to get someone knowledgeable enough with what we do to do what I do as efficiently as I do it.

I read a lot of "do not accept counter offer" spiels online. Most were from recruiting sites who obviously never want a candidate to accept a counter offer because it spoils their commission. So it's bias opinions which are not valuable. My $.02 is gauge your position with the current company. If you feel like they're just trying to keep you around long enough to have redundancy with what you're doing, I'd move on. Otherwise, no harm in accepting a counter offer. You're aware of the risks and rewards of both options.