The Truth About Tech Poaching

Ever since Microsoft made a big for its struggling rival Yahoo, recruiters have been circling Yahoo employees at a level considered aggressive even by Silicon Valley standards.

A central meeting ground of tech talent and hotbed of innovation, Silicon Valley has long been a place where poaching--the practice of recruiting people from other companies by offering inducements--has long run rampant, due to a large number of tech employers fishing for talent in a relatively small pool.

Beyond geographical restrictions, this pool is further depleted by a dearth of computer science and engineering graduates and the residual effects of the dot-com bust. The sought-after group--tech pros with the right mix of skills and experience--are part of an over-fished pond, leaving a lot of the big employers passing employees back and forth.

A new article on ERE, a recruiting Web site, outlines several truths about poaching, three of which are particularly applicable to tech:

It Is Not Exactly Immoral: Most employers have an intensely negative reaction to poaching, unless of course they are the ones pursuing another company's star coder. But most employment experts will tell you that poaching is neither immoral, illegal, unfair or unethical--employees are free agents, after all, not their employer's chattel.

Most Top Talent Is Hired This Way: In fact, most experienced professionals end up changing jobs because they were contacted by a recruiter with an offer they couldn't resist, and one firm's gain is another's loss.

It Can Be Good for Competition: Finally, poaching is most frequent in areas where the talent market is the tightest--in tech, for example, that's Silicon Valley. It's more than likely that recruiters have been after Yahoo talent for years, the company's current struggles have made making inroads easier.

Better yet, it's great for workers who, no doubt, wish to be rewarded for their work with more opportunities.