While beagles on drug patrol sniff luggage at the airport, Kathi Jones scans business cards in luggage tags, sniffing out company logos and job titles.
If she approaches you with a job offer, take it seriously. It could be your future. Jones, a high-tech company recruiter, packs lucrative employment packages and is eager to hire.
Companies today are in hot competition to find and recruit top talent, using unusual and aggressive tactics to nab the next hire. It’s called employee poaching, a term often used when a company lures one or more employees from a direct competitor or from another firm in the industry.
“The low unemployment rate, the booming economy and the explosion of technology companies have created such a demand for good people that it’s forcing companies to go after their competitors’ employees,” says William Anderson, partner at Brobek, Phleger and Harrison LLP, a labor and employment law firm in Palo Alto, Calif., representing more than 150 technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Cisco Systems.
“Companies are looking for top talent,” adds Scott Heroldt, vice president of American Services Group International, an Oak Brook-based staffing and search firm. “Their first choice is to go to a competitor, which allows them to gain access to an employee who can hit the ground running.”
Poaching occurs across all job titles and industries, from sales to finance to advertising. But with the accelerated pace of the information age, the prime targets today are skilled technology workers, including engineers, developers and senior-level management.
For Jones, human resources and recruiting director of Aventail Corp., a Seattle-based developer of extranet solutions, scouting airports is a carefully planned tactic. Key airports to find her ideal recruits are San Jose Airport in California, Dulles outside of Washington, D.C., and occasionally John F. Kennedy in New York. Jones times her stints when techies are passing through for industry conferences. Jones’ other tactics include approaching people sporting T-shirts that advertise specific company logos or software brands, and monitoring company press releases for management changeover–knowing there are soon-to-be- (or already- ) booted executives ripe for the picking.
Experts say poaching employees isn’t intended to cripple a competitor; rather, the goal is to gain the best talent to win the e-commerce race.
In the Chicago area, which is fast-becoming a rival for Silicon Valley and other centers of technology, companies compete for skilled workers and know that their employees are prime targets.
“The reality is we have to grow together to make Chicago the center of IT excellence. We won’t point at other known independent, privately held companies in the Internet space and, hopefully, they won’t point at us, although some do,” says Bob Hoyler, president and chief operating officer of MyPoint.com, a direct-marketing solutions Internet company in Schaumburg. “It would be debilitating to take too much talent from one small company. We’d point more toward the big guys with a large pool of talent, such as the Ameritechs and the Motorolas of this world.”
However, there are examples of the dog-eat-dog world. “About four and a half years ago, a company founder left and helped others leave by distributing their resumes to headhunters,” recalls Stewart Booden, president of Aspen Consulting Inc., a Rolling Meadows-based information-technology consulting company. “It was mean, but there was really nothing you could do about it.”
For recruiters, the pursuit includes Internet searches–using software tools and techniques to find ideal candidates through key words found on resumes or via biographies found on company Web sites. Also, companies hire executive recruiters, handing them lists of names to recruit.
Companies are more often than not targeting people who are content in their current jobs and not particularly looking for a new one. How, then, can recruiters lure them away?
“The enticement isn’t always money,” Heroldt says. “It’s many things, including a better work environment and culture, better opportunity, job growth or a management-level position.” The trump card, experts add, is stock options.
Companies that are scrambling to win good talent know that the same tactics are being used on them. They agree there isn’t a full-proof way to protect themselves; the best preventive tool, they say, is investing in employee retention.
“Our biggest focus is retention,” says Jones, who has recruited people from big-name Seattle-area companies, including Microsoft and Boeing. “If you can’t keep them engaged, excited and challenged, they’ll start looking.”
But according to executive search firm Christian & Timbers, there are ways companies can at least limit their employees’ exposure to recruiters. The strategies can be as simple as limiting employees’ exposure on the company Web site or training receptionists on how to refer phone calls that may be from recruiters.
Booden and Hoyler say their employees constantly receive phone calls at work from recruiters, but agree that their companies’ low turnover rate is due to staying atop of their workers’ needs and providing attractive benefits. “We don’t have voice mail, but that’s not really going to help much in keeping recruiters away,” Booden says. “We offer perks to keep our employees happy, including incentive programs, continuing education and training and a family-friendly atmosphere.”
“We have been extremely successful in protecting our valued employees by making sure we’re always plugged into each person’s individual issues,” Hoyler says.
Is it ethical for an employee to interview with another company’s recruiter for a better job opportunity, then take it? Absolutely, experts say.
“People have the right to move around,” Anderson says. “For the last 10 to 15 years, employers have gone to great lengths to use employment-at-will. Now, the tables have turned. It’s an employee’s market. Employment-at-will, which companies once thought benefited them, doesn’t look quite so good anymore. If an employee sees a better opportunity, he or she can take it and leave anytime.” Employment-at-will allows employers in every state except Montana to fire an employee for whatever reason.
Experts say today’s recruiting tactics aren’t unethical, just the facts of life in today’s hot job market. Knowing that employees could leave at any time, many companies attempt to protect their technology and secrets by asking employees to sign employment agreements. The most common contract for mid- to lower-level employees is the confidentiality agreement, where an employee agrees not to disclose during or after employment the on-the-job information they’ve learned. Senior-level executives typically are required to sign non-compete agreements, which usually restricts them from working for a direct competitor in a geographic region for a certain time frame.
Experts agree that contracts aren’t always enforceable and can’t always legally stop people from switching to a competitor. “Companies, like Cisco, that don’t have non-compete agreements, focus more on providing a strong work environment, stock options and other incentives to stay, says Anderson. “From a company standpoint, not having a non-compete agreement might seem a dangerous situation, but that’s just a small part. The bigger picture is that kind of open environment is incredibly productive.”
In some cases, companies may retaliate against an employee who joined the competition. To protect yourself, Anderson advises leaving with your hands clean. “If you’re an employee thinking about going to a company’s competitor or starting your own company, it’s critical you do the right thing when you leave,” Anderson says.
“Taking papers and the Rolodex and forwarding e-mail to your new company is wrong.” Don’t behave improperly when you leave, he advises, and the company can’t harm you. Also, experts say if you’ve signed a fixed employment contract or noncompete agreement, seek counsel to see whether it’s really enforceable.
