Guerilla Recruiting Strategies and Methodologies

I belong to several social networks and also run a couple. More and more I notice membership increasing with more and more members from around the world. This morning I came across one such "new" member here on RBC offering a link to his blog. The information sounded interesting, so off I went. And here's some of his advice that I found:
"Guerilla recruiting is not for the faint of heart or those not adept at dealing with corporate politics. Guerilla recruiting is about hiring to hurt, about knowingly and purposely inflecting harm on a competitor's ability to do business. Therefore, the primary action that must be taken when building a guerilla recruiting force is to recognize the political nature of the activity and make sure that everyone involved can stomach the gore that will ensue until victory is reached." ~Balaji Govindarajan, India
To read Balaji's entire post on guerilla tactics in recruiting go here.

That aside, what do you think about this? Do you think America can continue to compete in a flattened world with tactics like these? Do you think the word "competition" in America is vilified and, as a result, gone “soft”?

“Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.” ~ Henry Ford.

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on April 13, 2009 at 6:49am

Some interesting answers coming in on LinkedIn on this subject, here. Don't miss Bill James' answer!

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on April 17, 2009 at 8:51am

There have been some fascinating answers to this topic over on LinkedIn. Mark Turner, IT Risk/Operational Risk & Control Consultant at Resources Global Professionals, answered the call-to-arms with the following:

Ever since the dawn of business, there has been competition in some form or another. Competitive pressures, ideally, are good for the consumer when they drive down market prices for a specific product or service, or impel businesses to refine their product or service quality, features, etc. to meet market demands. Unless you are running a state-subsidized business entity or have an outright monopoly on a product or service, you are going to have to adapt to evolving competitve market forces. Now, different companies, industries and individuals respond differently to these forces. Less scrupulous ones will resort to industrial espionage, sabotage, maligning reputations, and techniques such as guerilla recruiting. As with any competitive situation, you seek to gain the upper hand not only by your own superior performance, product or service offerings, but also by understanding your adversaries -- how they think and behave -- and seeking ways to neutralize their influence. American business as a whole has been clever enough over the years to dominate the world in many aspects -- but some sectors which woefully lacked forward vision and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions (i.e., competitive pressures - especially those associated with globalization) suffered severely for it -- the American steel industry, the auto industry, textile industry -- just to name a few. If guerilla recruiting is a growing threat to American business, then American business (and its individual players) needs to make a concerted effort to neutralize its effects, or learn how to harness it for its own ends.

The business world is often a brutally Darwinian place where only the strongest players survive. American business has been a dominant player in so many areas, but has collapsed in others. Guerilla recruiting is just another tactic in the overall game of business survival -- often employed by the weak, but dangerously effective

What do you think? You can read all the LinkedIn answers here.