We got an email from one of our hiring authorities, “Hey, what are you doing? We’re hiring you to help us find people, not to take people out of here! We don’t appreciate it when you recruit our employees!”
So, we call the hiring manager and ask him what he’s talking about. He proceeds to explain to us that one of his newly-promoted employees told him that he had gotten a call from one of our recruiters and that he didn’t appreciate us trying to recruit his employees especially since he was using us to find some. Thankfully, before we said anything we told him that we needed to research the situation to try to get an understanding of what he was speaking about. We added that we don’t recruit from clients that do business with us.
Three or four hours of research revealed that one of the subordinates to the hiring authority had contacted us last September about leaving the company. He sent us a resume and made an application with us. He is a really good candidate and we got him a couple of interviews over a two or three week period of time, but, after that, he told us that he was going to stay where he was. So we let it go.
Well, it turns out that this (not very bright) employee/candidate told our hiring authority in the past week or two that we had “contacted him.” He never bothered to explain to his boss that he contacted us last fall about leaving the company because he was unhappy with his job. He managed to get a small promotion, so he decided to stay where he was. Fair enough!
We called our client and explained to him that his employee called us back in September because he was looking for a new job and, since the candidate approached us, we got him some interviews. We explained to the hiring authority that the candidate decided to stay where he was. We made it clear to the hiring authority that the candidate contacted us; we did not contact him.
The hiring authority wasn’t real happy, but because he needed someone asked us not to speak to “his people” and to continue the search. We told him we would do our best.
Late in the afternoon, after the normal hours of business, we called the (ex) candidate and asked him why he even discussed our speaking with him or his looking for a job with his boss. He told us that when his boss said he needed a new employee, he told his boss, “Call the people at Babich They can help you; they’ve been talking to me!”
“Why in the hell would you tell your boss that you had been speaking to us? First of all it was way last fall and, secondly, you called us looking to leave. Why would you even dream of sharing that with your boss?” “Well,” he replied, “I didn’t think it would hurt anything and besides I got a promotion. I wanted to let them know that if he didn’t keep promoting me I knew who to talk to about finding a better job. But….we’re cool!”
The candidate proceeded to explain that he had spoken to his boss about either getting a promotion or needing to leave and that bringing our name was simply an indication that he was dealing with a very reputable recruiting firm that could probably find him a job. Unfortunately, it didn’t even dawn on him that telling his boss that he was either now or at any time looking for a job could very easily get him fired. He kept saying,..”…We’re cool…My boss and I, we’re cool.”
Well, he may think “they’re cool,” but I wouldn’t believe it for one minute.
Lesson: don’t tell anyone in your company you’re looking for a job or were looking for a job…especially your boss. If you do, you should expect to get fired. Shut up! If you’re gonna leave… leave! If you’re going to stay…stay! When you let people know you are looking for a job, they do not trust you.
