Congrats on your sweet offer letter!  If you need more money, negotiate for it.  DO NOT pursue a counter-offer with your current employer. Here’s just a few reasons why:

1. You are essentially holding your employer hostage.  Do you really want to work for someone who remembers that you held them hostage?
2. Your current employer will remember that they already gave you a raise when raise time comes around.  Whoops.  You fast-forwarded your raise, but didn’t actually get a bump from what you might have otherwise gotten.
3. Do you really want to continue to work for someone who is lazy or otherwise insufficient in compensating you at the rate you deserve?
4. If your potential new employer finds out, they’ll remember that you held a previous employer hostage to a counter-offer.  Wrong precedent to set, and a BIG.  RED.  FLAG.
5. If your potential new employer finds out, you have essentially told them that you’re not actually all that passionate about their business, since you’d be quite happy to stay where you are.
6. If your current employer does not subsequently give you a counter-offer, you have created a situation where you MUST leave.  Otherwise you have essentially issued an empty threat, and your current employer no longer needs to worry about paying you adequately since clearly you will stay regardless, even with a better offer in-hand.

If you do not ask for a counter-offer, but your employer offers you one, it is unlikely that you should accept it.  They have failed to recognize or compensate your accomplishments until you said you would leave, which implies they will continue to be lazy about compensating you adequately in the future.

Overall, counter-offers from a current employer are super-dangerous territory.

#TreadCarefully