Updates to this story
There is nothing wrong with poaching employees. This is a statement issued by global business & IT consulting company, Sapient in its recent recruitment campaign aptly named ‘STOLEN’.
This recruitment campaign seems to be mainly targeted at Indian professionals as the campaign has used smiling Indian faces. The campaign will see the light of day in the Indian IT cities of NOIDA, Gurgaon and Ole Bengaluru. Considering the high attrition rate in India in the IT sector, Sapient is the first company to take such an aggressive and straight faced confession on poaching. The justification for stealing is: “It’s not a crime to want something better.”
The global consulting firm launched India operations back in 2000 and now it has three divisions - SapientNitro, Sapient Global Markets and Sapient Government Services - which primarily play around the digital world.
The recruitment campaign is looking for professionals for a couple of its divisions - SapientNitro and Sapient Global Markets.
Sapient is cut-throat in accepting the reality that the concept of stealing is the game everybody must play. The word ‘STOLEN’ here has been given a connotation of embracing the reality rather than hiding from it.
The job market in India is undoubtedly challenging where organisations often make vociferous attempts to poach employees from competitors. Companies mostly stay silent but Sapient went loud this time around. According to the company, it is merely appealing to the individuals' desire to be poached, because a person cannot be poached unless he or she has the desire to look for a job change.
The campaign has been designed in-house by US-based creative directors, Allison Bistrong and Matt Ziselman.
Neha Pathak, India PR lead, Sapient says, "Considering our target group, who are more online, we wanted to go digital. Also, with the high mobile penetration in the country, we are present in the mobile space through banners and SMS ads on smart phones. Print, in the past, has not generated enough leads."
The underlined message is clear now. "Stolen! You could be next!”
But what at last, got kicked off. The mass layoff on 12th feb is still a horrible nightmare for me.
2005-06 was the year of mass recruitment. HR proudly said we are hiring very aggressively... I still remember the words AGGRESSIVELY!!!!
2008-09 was the year of mass layoff. On first layoff they said we are laying off (~300) only Associate L1 (junior staff). Then next year again, the toll was ~750 (including all levels).
One should learn from past experiences & mistakes, eat only that much you can digest.
Anyways, nice idea of Marketing, improving reputation and getting people on board.
One think I would like to point out is companies keep saying "take ownership" but do they actually mean that? I want to take ownership of a company and get 50 % stake in it. All make-up words, zero value.
They also have a very faulty utilisation and prediction model. When the mass layoff's took place even the senior people who were talking to employees in the town hall were not clear on the numbers they were talking about. There is definately a big risk in joining such a company. The best bet is just use it as a stepping stone, before you get used by it.