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"Poaching" is the term recruiters use for directly recruiting (raiding) the employees of another firm. Poaching is considered unethical by some but any graduate of the "Gordon Gecko" school of business could easily fail to find any ethical issues in poaching employees. Especially, because, with only 4% of the population actively looking for work, the only way to get any volume of talent is to take it directly from other firms.

Arguments against "poaching" employees from other firms

Not in my neighborhood -

Some managers say it's OK to steal employees, just not from our direct competitors or from other firms in our geographic region. Both approaches are foolish. Failing to hire from the competitors from within your industry deprives you of the valuable competitive intelligence that you can gain by interrogating the new hires on their first day.

We get better, they get worse -

Failing to poach means that our new hires will be unfamiliar with our industry and our problems. It also means that it is a zero sum game. When we gain a great hire from a competitor the other firm will simultaneously lose a great employee.

Retaliation -

Still others worry that if they "poach" employees, others will retaliate and do the same thing to them. In reality, in the war for talent everyone is fair game and being "polite" is often only seen as a sign of weakness. And being seen as weak almost assures that others will poach from you. Being a strong poacher might actually discourage others from taking your employees and if they do take them, strong poaching helps to make the win loss ratio closer to neutral.

Partners -

In reality, even strategic business partners poach from each other. I know one high tech firm that hires 15% of its employees from a strategic partner, even though they have a clear "no-hire" agreement. Their retort to this apparent violation is that we "don't actively seek them out" but if they call us... it's a different game! Some strategic partners complain vigorously when their talent is poached. For example the new CEO of a large computer firm called up to CEO of its strategic partner and asked them directly not "to steal" their employees. The CEO of the poaching firm politely agreed but a more accurate answer would have been "treat your employees better and they will stay, no matter what we offer."

Customers -

Poaching employees from wholesale customers and suppliers can be a risky business if you do enough poaching so that they notice. Recruiters and managers need to remain vigilant to ensure that great recruiting doesn't cost us a great customer.

It's hard work -

Poaching, although necessary if you are to remain competitive, requires sophisticated skills and tools. Poaching is analogous to convincing a happily married person to leave their current spouse for another one across tandem. While single people might readily except almost any offer poaching happy employee individual requires a sophisticated approach if you expect them to even listen your offer. And then of course, the offer must be clearly superior to their current situation in order to entice them take a risk and leave their current employment relationship.

Legal arguments -

although poaching is not illegal there are certain cases that can get you in legal jeopardy. For example if you were to attempt to hire an intact team you might face a legal challenge on the premise that you are purposely attempting to harm the other firm by interfering with its employment relations, stealing its trade secrets, or unfairly competing. The second area of concern is when you hire an employee with a high level of technical skills that could be used directly by the competitor to gain an unfair advantage. Although these cases are relatively rare, they are increasing in number. Another issue can arise when you poach an employee that has signed a non-compete agreement. It is always pays to ask new hires if they have recently signed any of these agreements. Although many non-compete agreements are unenforceable it is always wise to be cautious and to check with legal counsel.

Recruiters must realize that (unlike in the past, when the "pool" of unemployed people contained some top performers) the current group of unemployed people is short on top talent. Currently the only remaining viable option is to source, raid, or poach top talent from other firms. Unfortunately most recruiting tools were developed to attract unemployed people that were actively looking for jobs. If you expect to be a successful "poacher," you'll need new tools. The following is a list of some of the poaching tools you might want to try.

General "Poaching" Tools - Identifying who to poach

1. Ask new hires on the first day "who else is looking/ or is good" at their previous firm.
2. Ask interviewees who else is just as good or better than them. Offer to hire them as a team.
3. Hire away the competitor's best recruiter (to lessen their impact and to get their "target lists") and ask them for targets.
4. Use employee referral programs as an effective tool because our employees tend to have extensive networks of friends in similar jobs at other firms.
5. Follow up on your "offer turndowns" from recent years to see if they are still interested.
6. Ask sales people that call on your firm who else is really good at their firm.
7. Identify and track effective service people that fix products used by your firm.
8. Look at rehiring top performers that left your firm (Boomerangs).
9. When benchmarking best practices at other firms identify top talent.
10. Capture the names of people that buy and comment favorably on your products, services, or employees.
11. Hire private detectives to identify who is looking for employment at the and competitor's firms.
12. Capture the names of references given by people that apply for jobs at your firm.

Which firms to target?

13. Hang out with a banner and recruit in the parking lot/ across the street from a firm after bad news about the company is announced.
14. Identify firms that have announced recent layoffs, mergers, plant closings and product failures.
15. Target teams that recently completed major projects.

Get friends/mentors to help identify which workers to target.

16. Court / hire their mentors, professional friends, and team members and woo them to follow.
17. Reward managers that successfully poach workers.
18. Ask internal managers who they informally mentor outside the firm and target the best.
19. Develop a mentor program for those outside the firm and use it to woo them to your firm.
20. Get ex-employees to act as a key referral source (friends of XYZ company).
21. Offer referral bonuses to "non-employees."
22. Offer prizes and rewards to people that are willing to submit an application or come by and participate in an informal interview.

Event / place related tools for poaching

23. Target "user" groups of your products (IT associations).
24. Offer public technical seminars and invite key talent to attend/speak.
25. Use trade shows to learn who are the best in the industry and to find out about competitors.
26. Buy mailing lists of conference attendees and contact them by calling, mail, or e-mail.
27. Speak at events and identify those with great question.
28. Give your employees who attend conferences "take a new friend to lunch" coupons for use at conferences.
29. Encourage employees to gather names at airport lounges, rental car busses, shared transportation, and on airplanes.
30. Go to the restaurant across the street from your targeted firm "the XXX hangout" and offer the manager a deal where you will pay for a free dinner for two "if you put your card in the bowl" give away promotion if he/she will let you have the business cards from the target firm after it's over.
31. Hold an on-site professional seminar at your firm and assess the attendees.
32. Visit their cafeteria and "across the street" lunch places to get "known" and to identify the company employees that eat there.
33. Reward employees for attending conferences and capturing the names of impressive people they meet.

Media related tools

34. Scan company press releases and newspaper articles for the names of key contributors including those recently promoted.
35. Purchase a "who's who" industry book to help identify "suspects."
36. Scan the best journals for authors and periodically comment on what they write. Track the names of prominent people mentioned in professional articles.
37. Place billboards on the commute route by your site that demonstrate what a great place it is to work and that "they would be at work now" if they worked here.
38. Purchase mailing lists that fit our jobs demographics and send non-job information to build our image.
39. Target the spouse with at home direct mail to get them to encourage their spouses to look at our firm.

Web tools for poaching

40. Chat Rooms - Post a question on a listserv and in chat rooms and target those that give great answers.
41. Internet directories and search engines that help identify "white page web sites" to find addressees of the names you have identified.
42. Portal banner ads for your firm's product and learning sites.
43. Use web "cookies" to identify visitors from targeted firms to your web site (general and jobs site).
44. Use resume robots/spiders to look for names and personal web sites. Assess and comment on their personal web pages.
45. Search company web pages for officer names, contact names or organizational carts.
46. Develop or sponsor a web site that gets passives to answer the "I've always wanted to" question in order to capture names and aspirations.
47. Identify and target people that use Usenet groups.
48. Post technical articles and accomplishments on the web (your web page) to show the quality of your talent and capture the names of people that comment.
49. Utilize name finder web sites. Capture the names of employees that have developed patents and technology advances.
50. Identify "old" (1 yr. old or more) resumes on the net (now employed people who may be ready to look again). Note: I do not recommend the use of illegally obtained telephone directories and organizational charts. Cold calling, although not illegal, is an admission that you are not an advanced poacher!

next week part 3

© January, 2000

by Dr. John Sullivan

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