> you negotiated some terms mutually Most people are not skilled negotiators. That aside, the balance in that negotiation is in favour of the employer at the

> you negotiated some terms mutually Most people are not skilled negotiators. That aside, the balance in that negotiation is in favour of the employer at the start. At that point you are worth nothing to them. They can just go to the next candidate. You on the other had have a mortgage, debts to deal with, bills to pay, family to feed, etc. It takes time before that balance tips towards the employee. That's when the company needs to reassess what they're paying you. > There’s no bluff being called. They know you're worth more but at your yearly performance review they'll do their damnedest to only give you cost of living if even that. Then they put the burden on you to prove you're worth more than that. "What did you accomplish this past year?" They know what you did for them. They're hoping you were too busy to document it yourself. "We can give you more but you have to take on more responsibilities." They were paying you less than you were worth for your current workload before this! This extra work will mean even more unpaid overtime which will nullify the raise and even turn it into an effective pay cut. Even if you do manage to document your past work and/or agree to more work you'll just hit the arbitrary raise cap they put in place. "This is the best that we can do." They are bluffing. They're gambling that you can't find a better offer. Or that it's too much hassle to switch. But once you call their bluff that's when you get to finally see what they really could have been paying you. > act rationally and in their best interests Companies very rarely do this for long term goals. Short term gains is top priority. Saving money on payroll now is better to them than mitigating the big financial loss that loosing a key employee would cause in the future. That is the reason why we see this counter offer behaviour each and every time. You've change the "he's going to quit sometime in the future" to "he's quitting NOW". You've now made it a short term issue and that's what finally got them to react.