Although many job categories experienced an increase in demand for labor at the end of the last recession, nowhere was the battle for talent more intense than in the technology industry. The fast growth of opportunities in social media, mobile cell applications, and e-commerce has created a huge need for people with skills in the area of hardware and software development. Jobs posting data for technical workers indicates that while the number of new listings in this category dropped 50% from January of 2008 to May of 2009, between May of 2009 and October of 2010, the number of openings increased by 90%. This in turn has ignited a bidding war that illustrates the lengths that companies will go to compete when recruiting new employees. In some cases, the battle reflects a "Clash of Titans," and takes place between large and wellknown players such as Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Facebook, who often raid each other in an effort to poach the best workers. From a competitive standpoint, poaching is a powerful weapon because one increases one's own advantage while at the same time, weakening one's competitors. For example, Juniper Networks snatched m ultiple executives from Cisco systems in 2011, drastically changing the balance of power in that sector of the industry. Twitter started courting Google's product development vice-president, Sundar Pichae, but was turned away when a $5 million counter-offer was placed on the table. As search firm executive Jeff Sanders notes, "Employers are really taking a look at the top 10% of performers and asking, 'Are we locked in?"' In other cases, the fight takes on a more "David versus Goliath" theme as small startups with big ideas but small budgets struggle to lure highly skilled workers from more well established firms with strong social reputations. For example, Casual Collective, a small 14-person gaming company, raided Adobe Systems and stole engineering product manager Danielle Deibler who took a cut in salary to make the move from large to small. This was more than offset, however, by the larger role that she would play with her new employer. "In a large company it's hard to have a lot of impact on the direction of a product or the strategy," Diebler noted, and the stock options she received would make her a millionaire if the small startup ever was successful enough to go public. In still other cases, the struggle is one of "Apples and Oranges," in the sense that employers who are not themselves in the tech industry, still require that type of talent and thus have to compete against tech-based rivals that are a more obvious fit for people who are being recruited. For example, the growth of high frequency trading firms in the financial industry has created an unprecedented demand for hardware and software specialists, however, the people with the right kind of skills have never even considered working on Wall Street as a potential career. Financial firms have to pay a great deal more to lure the best talent, and even then it is sometimes an uphill struggle. Especially in the wake of the recent financial crisis, many applicants are leery of working in the finance industry. "I've had people at interviews ask me pointblank, what the social value is that we're adding" states a recruiter for Knight Capital Group's electronic-trading firm. "It's very hard to compete with the well-known startups here."
1. Assume for a moment that you were a small new company seeking talent that is in high demand. Based on the materials, how might you go about competing larger and more estabished firms in terms of how, where, when, and whom you would use to recruit the best employees?
2. Assume for a moment that you were a large and well-established company, but learned recently that many of the people you were recruiting were choosing to go to smaller and less well-known upstarts. How might you go about competing against these smaller companies in terms of how, where, when, and whom you would use to recruit the best employees?
3. Assume you were a large and well-established company that was now facing a labor surplus in some job category. Why might it be best to use some method other than layoffs to reduce surplus, and in what sense are your options here as to how well you did in terms of forecasting labor demand and supply?
4. What biblical principles apply here?