Get Poached!

Do you know what that means? No? Well you should because it’s happening to people every day. In fact I am getting more and more of my resume clients report to me that they are being poached.

You can’t be poached if you are not accessible. To those of you who know someone who does not “do” social media let them know that they are costing themselves money and opportunities.

If you are online but have not been poached or even approached yet there could be a couple of reasons for that or it could just be a matter of time.

So what is it? In this context we are talking about the word poach as a verb and the meaning “to steal from another”.  Companies are poaching talent more and more these days.

There are some realities in the job search/job market game. First, companies discriminate against people all the time. They discriminate based on age, sex, race, sexual orientation, religion and physical appearance. Second, companies also prefer to hire individuals who are already working. Yes, they want to take top talent from the competition. Third, companies spend a lot of money on hiring decisions so they try to mitigate the risk of a bad hire by using all sorts of recruiting tactics – poaching is just one.

Here’s why poaching works.

Over 65% of current employees are looking for jobs everyday – on their smart phones, at the office, at home, everyone is looking for better opportunities all the time.

Companies are suspicious of candidates with employment gaps on their resume. A recent survey showed that the number one thing recruiters look for on a resume is gaps in employment. Companies want employees who are already working – which only perpetuates poaching.

From and employers standpoint, poaching is a little bit sneaky – or clever depending on how you perceive it, but it shows a certain aggressiveness. From an employee’s standpoint, to be poached says a lot about you – it says you are bad-ass and everyone wants to be in business with you.

So if you’ve been poached, go ahead puff out your chest and pat yourself on the back but don’t hurt yourself.

If you’ve not been poached yet, here are some possible reasons why; first are you even on LinkedIn? Do you keep your profile updated? Is your summary area attractive? Do you have a picture up? And in the title area do you have the name of your current employer? For instance “Chris Fields, HR Consultant at MPHS Tech” you see that?  The “at MPHS Tech” part could be sending a message that you are working at MPHS Tech and you are not looking to move on. Drop the company name from your heading; this may help you get poached!

-You or someone you know need help, contact me ‘[email protected]’ to join the ResumeCrusade -