'Poaching' can be pricey, but benefits may outweigh costs

DIRECT RECRUITING from competitors, customers and vendors can produce a high-performance workforce. It can also break the bank. In recent discussions, however, a series of questions about the ethics of "poaching"-the misnomer often used in the recruiting industry-have overshadowed the more fundamental issues of costs and benefits.

The ethics questions can be disposed of in the same terms that apply to most business practices, according to Charlie Jones, vice president of process and operations at Yoh, a technical and professional staffing firm that recruits heavily from competitors and companies in related industries. "If recruiting involves misrepresentation or deceit, it's unethical," he says. "It's just that simple."

Yoh constantly recruits to maintain its own internal staff of 350 employees plus 5,500 contract employees on assignments with clients. The interesting fact about Yoh is not that it engages in direct recruiting without ruse phone calls or covert practices, but that it recruits passive mid-career candidates from competitor firms without moving beyond market wages.