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LinkedIn: Poaching risk vs. industry reward

LinkedIn has obviously changed the dynamic of the recruiting industry, and with that, employee relations and retention. In fact, a line leader just told me the other day: “We discourage our sales team from being on LinkedIn because they’re more likely to get poached!”

In my opinion, LinkedIn is very valuable. If you’ve built your network to even just 100 to 200 contacts, you can log into your homepage feed and likely gain valuable knowledge about your company’s market, what’s going on at your friends’ and contacts’ companies, and what your competitors are up to. You can learn about critical business updates within your industry, and the content is authentic. I try to log into LinkedIn a couple times per day as one source of getting my industry updates and all sorts of interesting knowledge. For me and millions of others, it’s professional development and education.

So what about the visibility and risk? Here are my thoughts for employers and employees.

EMPLOYERS:

Social media is still thriving, and it ain’t going away anytime soon. If your employees aren’t on LinkedIn, they’re likely on Facebook, Twitter, etc. If they aren’t online, they’re grabbing happy hour with friends, or talking about work with family contacts who know people. Opportunities are everywhere.

Do you send your teams to conferences or expos? Do you have them join professional associations so they can gain the knowledge necessary to keep your company competitive in the market? Well guess who attends those events and associations as well? Recruiters and/or industry professionals who’ve got their recruiter hats on and their company’s referral bonus in mind. (Daddy needs a new pair of shoes, baby).

My main point: Don’t focus on limitation. Empower your employees and focus on retention. Creating that trust, support, and progressive culture is far more effective in retaining your talent than limiting them for fear of being poached.

Take HR, as an example. We all know that IT professionals are in demand and always getting contacted by recruiters. Yet if you weren’t aware, there’s an incredible demand for recruiters right now. I along with many of my recruiter friends get contacted by recruiters (recruiting other recruiters) on a weekly or at least monthly basis. But what HR does so well is retention. (It’s in our KPIs, after all…we sure as heck better be good at it). And what I’m observing is that many recruiters – who spend much of their time on LinkedIn – aren’t moving as much, and are tough to poach. Why? Because their departments excel at producing a retention-focused team environment. HR isn’t the most tech savvy or finance-oriented bunch in the company, but if there’s one thing we do well, it’s keeping an eye on our own talent.

EMPLOYEES:

The more you ‘get out there,’ the more temptations there are. You’re in charge of your career. It’s up to you to make healthy decisions for yourself, your resume and your career. Stay grounded. It’s like life itself. When you’re 18 you can buy cigarettes. When you go off to college, you have more exposure to distractions than you did before. Yet with every situation you encounter and every decision you make, you have a choice, and you weigh the pros and cons.

I’ve seen candidates who get poached off LinkedIn or Twitter frequently for opportunities that seem exciting and appealing, and I’ve seen folks who remain steadfast at their current employer and who are active on social media and who have even created a substantial personal brand for themselves online. It’s all up to you. And it’s nice to be encouraged to develop as a professional through social media and elsewhere, and have your employer tell you: “Listen, get out there and learn, and represent us well. We care about you, and we want you to thrive here. Talk to me if you’re not satisfied your job here, and we’ll make it right.”

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