by: Michelle Fish | CEO
Recently I was asked by a client if they should consider hiring employees away from the competition as they were concerned about the negative impact this may have on their company. This type of concern is usually based on the perception that hiring an employee away from a competitor is an unethical business practice. The reality is savvy business professionals expect just as much competition for clients as they do for top performing employees.
Recruiting great talent is always a constant effort and some even feel it’s a war! Well-trained and talented individuals are already working for someone else and are doing a great job for their employers. Excluding these individuals from your candidate pool leaves you recruiting from the bottom 10-20%.
Almost all large firms target employees of smaller firms by luring them with the potential of a bigger future. Large firms did not get large by limiting their recruiting efforts by sourcing from the bottom of the candidate pool. By targeting the top 10-20% of the talent pool, the risk of a miss-hire drops dramatically. Each additional hour spent sourcing top candidates always translates into massive time and money savings on the back-end.
Don’t assume you don’t have the ability to recruit directly from the competition. Leveraging industry relationships and employee referrals can get you many warm leads to great candidates. This is essentially how staffing and recruiting firms work. They call employed individuals, develop a relationship and make the connection to a new employer when the time is right.
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