People come to me with an offer in hand and the question "should I take it or not". The right conversation starts half a step earlier: with what is happening where you are now and which scenario you are actually considering.
Three scenarios and one table
You need to model all three options on the same set of measures, otherwise the comparison turns into an argument between emotions.
Stay. Income over a three-year horizon, based on realistic growth rather than promised growth. The scope of your authority. What you gain professionally. The risk: what happens if the owner sells the company or changes the team.
Move. Income with its structure taken into account: base salary, bonus, the terms on which the bonus is paid. What you lose by leaving — an unpaid bonus, options, length of service counting towards a benefit. The bedding-in period: the first six months are almost always bonus-free. The risk: the probation period and a change of priorities at the new employer.
Leave employment. Income for the first year, honestly — usually lower than what you earn now. Your cushion: how many months you can live without receipts. What travels with you: expertise, clients, reputation. The risk: you become the salesperson, the deliverer and the accounts department all at once.
The numbers in that table are never equal. But it is precisely the table that shows what you are paying for when you choose one path over another.
What people usually underestimate
How fast you go out of date. An executive who has spent ten years with one company is worth more inside it and less outside it. The same applies to those leaving employment: expertise cut off from the market goes stale in two years.
The non-monetary cost of moving. Relocation, a new circle of contacts, the loss of informal standing built up over years.
How much of your own business is actually selling. Sales take up more than half your time, and this is the single most common reason people go back into employment.
Obligations to your current employer. A non-compete clause has limited effect under Russian law, but a confidentiality agreement and a duty not to poach employees are perfectly real things, and breaching them ends in a dispute.
Signs the decision has already been made
An observation from practice: by the time someone comes to run the numbers, the decision has usually ripened, and they are running the numbers to confirm it.
You can hear it in the wording: "it is all clear here, there will be no growth", "I want to try it on my own while I still have the energy." There is no point arguing with that, and I do not. The task is then a different one — not to choose, but to exit properly: without losing money, reputation or relationships.
The opposite sign: the person lists the advantages of the new job but keeps coming back to "I would hate to leave the team." That means he does not want to leave at all, he wants things to change where he is, and the conversation belongs in negotiations with his current employer instead.
How to exit properly
First, work out what you lose by resigning now and what you get by staying to the bonus payment date. The difference often comes to several months of income.
Then put the arrangements in writing: the termination date, the payments, the reference, how you hand over your work. Verbal promises made on the way out are the ones kept least well.
Handing over your work is not a formality but a reputational asset. An executive who leaves with the paperwork in order comes back into the industry with a good story behind him.
And separately: do not take with you what is not yours. The client database, the company's developments, its documents — that is where a career ends, and sometimes where a criminal case begins.
What to do if the choice is not urgent
That is the best position to be in, and it is worth using. Six months is long enough to test the "leave employment" scenario without risk: take one project on the side, if that does not breach your employment contract, work out the real cost of your own time, talk to three potential clients.
As a rule, after a test like that the decision makes itself — and without any rush.
I set out how pricing works in my first reply, before any work begins.
I provide legal services through Kovalev & Partners LLC — kovalev.moscow.
