Head hunter poaching 3

[MotorCity]

From time to time, I receive unsolicited inquiries from head hunters who try to get me to jump ship. These are people I don't know and have never contacted, yet they seem to have no problem contacting me (and others I am sure) out of the blue about a position they are trying to fill. The issue I have is that to me, it seems unethical for them to be contacting a company's employees behind their back and try to pry them away from a position they are probably pretty comfortable with. It seems deceitful (and unethical) to contact the employees without first gaining permission from the employer (which I'd be willing to bet they would never get or even try to get). I realized a long time ago that this is just how they operate and it seems to be acceptable as the norm. I understand that if they waited for people to come to them in search of a position, they would probably be looking for a position themselves. I don't deny that head hunters can offer a valuable service, but only to those who are interested. Otherwise, they resemble the nuisance of telemarketers. Of course, there are bigger ethical dilemmas and I am not even sure if they are governed by a code of ethics. Thoughts?

 

[Compositepro]

Why would you think that your employer should have to give their permission for someone to talk to you about any subject? This activity is called recruitment and is key to developing any above average organization. If your employer is aware of your "morals" they will have less incentive to give you a raise.

 

[drawoh]

Way back thirty to forty years ago when I was working on contracts through agencies, I regularly received phone calls like that. Typically, I had never met these people or heard of the agencies. My general impression was that people at agencies spent their last working day in front of the photocopier, before going off to start their own businesses. I agree that this does not sound ethical. In the absence of a professional association, there is no formal code of ethics.

After thirty five years of full time employment, I have been laid off. I am currently on a contract through an agency that cold called me. They found me on LinkedIn.com or Indeed.com. You have no obligation to respond to them!

--
JHG

 

[JAE]

An employer has no legal authority to deny that sort of contact between their employee and a head-hunter.

But it would be unethical, sort of, for the employee to spend time during working hours visiting with the head-hunter while they are supposed to be working.
If a head-hunter called me to visit about a prospective job, and I spent many minutes talking it over with them, doing phone interviews, coordinating meet-ups with the new employer, then that would be cheating your company by not working yet being paid to be there.



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[IRstuff]

I don't see any ethical issue; it's not fundamentally different that anyone else calling you to sell you things.

As for actively looking, sometimes, you don't know that you should be looking until someone presents the opportunity.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[1gibson]

Are you sure it's unsolicited? Quick way to make a naughty/nice list is for employer to give a head hunter the phone list, tell them to act like it's a cold call, and ask for feedback on the responses. Win/win for employer and headhunter. Probably not so much for the employee.

 

[SnTMan]

Well, I always thought headhunters were kind of evil, but not that evil. Employers, not so much

Really, the way headhunters operate is kind of aligned with the incentives. Like the rest of us.

Regards,

Mike


The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[TheTick]

Headhunters help keep employers honest.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I don't mind getting cold calls from most headhunters.
Most of the ones I get are not actually cold, because some form of my resume is available online from several places, including my 'profile' on LinkedIn, and some places keep copies, which as noted above, get re-copied as people move around.
.
Since they already have my email, if I'm interested a little, I ask them to email me the particulars, and if I'm not interested or not qualified, I say so. I keep the conversation very short.

I do mind getting calls from one particular outfit that clearly hires people with no experience in placement, and has them work from a script where they promise to work with you closely, and they call every month, with basically nothing specific to offer, and chat about your goals and aspirations and experience. This goes on for six months or so, then you get a cold call from a new personal contact, reading from the same script. I ask every one of them to remove me from their list, but in ten years that hasn't happened.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[casseopeia]

I LOVE the recruiter that found me the job I have now. I'll take her calls all day long. She occasionally sends me an email about an opening, not necessarily in my field, but related. If I know someone, I'll give her the contact information.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

 

[berkshire]

A rather nasty thing that used to happen some years ago, was that if you had a person in your department you did not like, their name and resume were fed to a headhunter.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[Tunalover]

I've been out of work since August and get three to five cold calls from recruiters every day for both direct and "contract" jobs. I get calls from people who can't even figure out your engineering discipline (e.g. mechanical or electrical) before picking up the phone to call and waste your time; they get a hit on a keyword or two and off they go dialing you up! Many know only how to rattle off a script when you answer the phone and, when you try to interrupt them to tell them you're not qualified, they keep talking until they finish their script. And there are too many that are "bottom fishing" which is basically looking for people who have been out of work for "too long" and offering them wages 25% below what they last earned. Now I'm not racist by any means but it seems that the recruiters with the least skills are Indian, some with accents so thick you just can't understand them (several I've told I would communicate by email only).

While there are good, skilled, ethical recruiters out there, the longer you're out of work the worse they become.

In general, I believe the qualifications to be a recruiter are that you need to know how to sit in a chair, use a phone and convert air, food and water into CO[sub]2[/sub], urine and fecal matter.

H. Bruce Jackson
ElectroMechanical Product Development
UMD 1984
UCF 1993

 

[IRstuff]

South Asians are the cannon fodder for cold calls, because they're cheap and the return on investment is low to start with. When something finally breaks free, they bring in a real recruiter.

Earthlink used to do the same thing with their tech support. South Asians would start with asking you to reboot, etc.; after about the 4th call, the finally transferred you to the real technician in Atlanta, who then resolved the problem in a couple of minutes.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[casseopeia]

My recruiter found me on LinkedIn. She specializes in finding engineers in building design and forensics.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

 

[CWB1]

I don’t see how a headhunter contacting me is unethical in the least. Within the limits of my employment agreement (usually non-compete and notification of side jobs) and the law, what I do on my own time is my own business.

 

[JStephen]

I don't see an ethical issue at all.
What I resent is that they are never looking for someone with my qualifications, specifically.
And, to be honest, the inquiry is usually along the lines of "We're looking for someone with <qualification>, do you know of anyone you can recommend?", not "Would you like to work for us?"

 

[berkshire]

I got one of these by letter last week ,( Bear in mind now that I am 75 years old.), an offer to be head of an FAA licensed repair station , offering fleet maintenance for a flying school with 23 aircraft of various types and sizes.
I wrote them back a letter that said " What part of being retired , don't you understand ? "
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[MrHershey]

I find the recruiters more annoying than unethical. I work at-will, as does everyone else for this company. They certainly don't need the company's permission to contact me any more than I would need the company's permission to go out and seek a job myself.

My problem with recruiters is that most of the opportunities they contact me for are outside my realm of expertise. They typically get my contact info through LinkedIn, yet usually have not bothered to even take the briefest of looks at the profile to tell that what they're approaching me with doesn't fit my experience at all. There was a time maybe a year ago where I was frequently getting contacted about bridge engineer jobs by multiple recruiters who would say I'd be a great candidate because of my extensive bridge expertise and experience working with the state DOT. I specialize in buildings (never designed a bridge) and at the time had just moved to the state. Both pieces of information easily discoverable from the three sentence summary at the top of my profile.

On a side note, the fees for the head hunters are really high, in my opinion. They'll contact me on the hiring side occasionally and I'll hear them out. Typical fee seems to be about 20% of the person's first year salary, though I had one agency say they do 30%. So for your average entry-level, non-licensed, structural engineer/designer in the US I'd be paying $12K-$18K per hire. And it goes up from there with experience. Just seems absurd to me, especially when they contact me as a prospective employee and haven't bothered to even verify I work in the correct field.

 

[GregLocock]

So, if they get 4 hits a year they make a decent wage from their zero overhead business. No wonder they are both careless and persistent!

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[MacGyverS2000]

My LinkedIn resume clearly states (in capital letters): 1) I do not wish to be called at work (these guys will hunt you down through the phone tree if they have to), and 2) I will not add recruiters to my contact list. I still get calls at work (rare, but it happens), and I definitely continue to get friend requests from recruiters. Those who can't bother to read the first 3 lines of my resume are not worth my time and go on a perma-ban list. Why should I work with someone who stands to make $40-50k off of me yet can't take (literally) 30 seconds to learn about what I want?

BTW, my current job, as well as other sin the past, were due to cold-calling recruiters. I have no issue with it, nor so I see any ethical problems.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com