While this may seem somewhat contradictory to my previous post in my mind it is not.

What is all this sanctimonious crap out there recently about corporate staffing practitioners not feeling comfortable recruiting people out of their direct competition?

Whether you are specifically targeting certain individuals actively or passively receiving their resumes from various postings of positions on job boards or via networking etc...makes no difference at all.

If you´re actively being malicious and trying to steal the best talent from your competition with the purpose of crippling the competition well then whatever ill fate comes to you is what you deserve.  But if during the course of an aggressive and legal campaign you happen upon certain candidates that fit the bill and they happen to be from the competition...well that´s just effective targeting at work.

The line between the two is constantly blurred when they are mentioned as part of the commentary on the industry as a whole and it´s just a lot of nonsense. If you work for a bank and you´re looking for talent with experience you may in fact find people in an insurance company or credit union or some other financial institution. But more than likely you´ll be looking for and hiring people from a (competitor) bank. That´s just a fact of life.

You´d think that hiring someone from the competition is illegal based on some of the comments out there. It´s not and anyone who says so it foolhardy and delusional.