
Startup Uses Eggs to Poach Employees from Facebook, Google - kumarrahul
http://www.freshtechapps.com/bigcommerce-an-e-commerce-site-is-literally-poaching-google-and-facebook-employess-waiting-for-their-company-buses-in-san-francisco/
======
sergiotapia
This is fantastic! Don't be fooled a company has _zero_ allegiance towards
you, sure they pay you but when things go south they will drop you lickity-
split. I've seen it done and I've had it done to me once.

Employees out there: don't feel guilty about leaving a company, always find
what's best for you - not the company.

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bayesianhorse
The article uses an interesting phrase "[BC] has been accused of poaching
[employees]".

As if competition on the buyer-side of the labor market was morally suspect...
Steve Jobs would have approved of the sentiment!

~~~
kalleboo
The mugs of coffee they're handing out say #poached on them along with their
URL. They're serving poached egg sandwiches. [http://www.freshtechapps.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/04/Eggs...](http://www.freshtechapps.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/04/Eggs-to-Poach-Employee.jpg)

It's not the article, it's the company themselves.

~~~
bayesianhorse
My point was about "accussation" rather than about "poaching".

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lost_my_pwd
I have no issues with companies courting employees from other companies; it
shifts the power balance a bit back towards the individual for a change.

I am, however, a little put off by the term "poached", which BigCommerce is
actively using in their campaign. It implies the sentiment that these people
are simply a quarry being hunted as a prize rather people, of their own free
will, deciding that the grass is greener elsewhere. Language matters.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Is using the word "poached" just a joke since they are handing out poached egg
sandwiches?

~~~
samatman
Nope! The poached egg sandwiches are a joke, since they're "poaching".

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jobseekr
I don't think they're poaching anybody. I'm looking for a new job and this
company has been posting the most ridiculous, desperate ads on Craigslist.

[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eng/](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eng/)

Y work for 1 startup, work for 50K - Software Eng (PHP, Ruby) Product

Are you down with OLTP?- Database Engineer (MySql, Innodb)

Are you SaaS-y enough? - System Engineer (Linux, Perl, PHP, Ruby)

Are you ob-cess!d?- Front End Engineer (HTML, CSS, Javascript)

Engineers: Last day to RSVP here for Happy Hour at our new SoMa digs!

Engineers: RSVP here for our Happy Hour at our new SoMa digs!

[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/web/index100.html](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/web/index100.html)

Rich and Sexy- Front End Engineer (HTML, CSS, Javascript)

The headlines are horrible.

The postings are horrible...

    
    
      We are SoMa's hottest new startup and we are building a team of badass engineers to help us take the world's fastest growing e-commerce solution to the next level.
    

The image (which doesn't show anyone working) is horrible...

[http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a605/Bigcommerce/CL-
Ad2_...](http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a605/Bigcommerce/CL-
Ad2_zpsc15233da.jpg)

The recruiting video (with swearing!) is horrible...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uibkWc26MgQ&hd=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uibkWc26MgQ&hd=1)

These guys have been posting this crap nonstop on Craigslist for a while so
I'm not surprised at all to see them trolling bus stops.

------
ghfdaghkj
If someone harassed me while I was waiting for the subway and tried to get me
to quit my job, I definitely wouldn't want to work for them. I'd probably go
out of my way to never use their product, actually. I don't see how this is
any better than the "do you have a minute for ____" clipboard people that prey
on tourists for donations/signatures on the sidewalk.

------
Steko
Similar gag from this cartoon on recode yesterday:

[http://recode.net/2014/04/02/tim-cook-turns-up-the-heat-
comi...](http://recode.net/2014/04/02/tim-cook-turns-up-the-heat-comic/)

------
danbarker
The writing on this site seems pretty terrible:
[http://www.freshtechapps.com/7-reddit-amas-that-went-
horribl...](http://www.freshtechapps.com/7-reddit-amas-that-went-horribly-
wrong/)

~~~
rachelbythebay
Well sure, start with this: [http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bigcommerce-
tries-poachin...](http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bigcommerce-tries-
poaching-tech-workers-at-S-F-5378102.php) ... then rewrite it until it doesn't
look like it was straight-up ripped off.

Edit: this, too, complete with the same photos:
[http://mashable.com/2014/04/04/startup-eggs-
recruiting/](http://mashable.com/2014/04/04/startup-eggs-recruiting/)

Blogspam.

------
smoyer
This may be a catchy way to make your company known, but I imagine you're only
getting those who were thinking of leaving anyway.

~~~
dasil003
Well yes, by definition, you can only poach employees from a company who at
some point think of leaving the original company.

Seriously though, to your point, why do you say "but"? Are the ones who think
of leaving somehow less valuable than the ones don't think of leaving? In my
mind, those who never think of leaving probably tend to be the weaker talent.
That could just be my unsubstantiated bias, but either way, I think the point
is that they all got hired by Facebook/Google at some point which is a pretty
good signal as far as tech signals go.

~~~
smoyer
It wasn't supposed to imply you were getting lower quality applicants _BUT_
rather that you were getting some fraction of a bigger pool.

It's entirely possible I use the word "but" too much or that I don't need a
conjunction there at all - would two shorter sentences be better?

Or maybe I'm just a butt?

~~~
dasil003
Okay, that reasoning makes sense. I would never read it that way though,
because when you're hiring you're _always_ getting some fraction of a bigger
pool.

~~~
smoyer
I usually associate the idea of "poaching" employees with convincing those
that weren't thinking of leaving that they should join you (I'm not saying my
impression is correct). Think about Jobs "poaching" Sculley from PepsiCo. Jobs
didn't even give him an egg sandwich (just the famous line: "Do you want to
sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me
and change the world?").

~~~
dasil003
I see, so you were originally saying that you don't think the campaign would
cause anyone to consider leaving Facebook or Google that wasn't already
thinking about it?

I think it's really hard to pinpoint the moment in my own head when an idea
like leaving my job first crosses my mind, probably even harder for an
abstract class of people such as Google or Facebook employees. To me, poaching
is more concrete, it means going after someone you know works at a specific
place.

~~~
smoyer
Two good points ... it's also interesting that the word "poaching" has
negative connotations [1] but if you read those definitions the impression is
that poaching employees is somehow wrong rather than being a facet of a
competition-based economy. How can an at-will employee be considered
"another's property, rights, ideas, or the like".

[1]
[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poaching](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poaching)

~~~
001sky
Poaching is going after anyone employed currenty, IMHO.

Taking applicants from un-employed job seekers was traditional "hiring". World
has moved on, presumably tho. Switching contexts, ou would be "poaching"
someones significant other (~negative connotation). vs Just "picking up" a
single person you met at a bar (~fair game connotation).

TLDR english is a loaded language

~~~
maxerickson
I would think the allusion is rooted in hunting, where poaching is taking
something you don't have a right to take.

~~~
dasil003
I disagree with you both because as the GGP said, companies don't own
employees. In the business world I see poaching as hiring a person who you
learned about solely through their employment at the company in question.

~~~
cpwright
I tend to think of poaching as a bit broader than that, but not just cold
calling someone because you know they work at X.

For example, if someone leaves the company, and then there is a concerted
effort to recruit other members of that team or based on their recommendation
that is poaching. If you've signed an agreement that forbids this, and you
actively take part in it, I think it is wrong; otherwise it is fine.

Alternatively, if you've engaged a companies services and then try and hire
away the people doing the work to disintermediate the service providing
compnay, that would probably count as poaching in my book too.

~~~
dasil003
I consider both scenarios you described to fall squarely under my definition.
Think about it, in both cases you learned about the prospects through their
employment at said company.

------
raldi
More like, startup uses eggs to get free media coverage. The eggs do nothing
to help recruiting.

------
MicroBerto
Those are not good enemies to make... seeing as though they probably drive
well over half of your network's traffic.

~~~
bayesianhorse
On the other hand Facebook and Google might be encouraged to buy out the
company to get their employees back.

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usujason
Like the 'poached' campaign, dislike the misspelling of 'employess' in the
article's headline.

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ma2rten
_The recruiter of Bigcommerce, Steve Donnelly, will ask the guys waiting for
the Facebook bus whether they were interested in changing the world of
e-commerce. But to his disappointment, many of them replied no._

Obviously, they are going to reply that in a situation where they are together
with their co-workers.

~~~
codeonfire
Are you saying there are people out there that want to change the world of
e-commerce? Maybe someone who owns a large share of an e-commerce firm will
feel this way. Some guy waiting for the bus to go to work to pay the bills
definitely does not give a shit about changing e-commerce. A more apropos
question is to ask if the person wants to become financially secure quickly
and not have to take the bus to work every morning. Alas, there's no company
that makes that as a goal for its employees.

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rpwilcox
Hmm. Seems like a technique with a very low success rate: out of 1,000
applicants they hired 2? So what's that, a .2% success rate?

Seems like there has to be techniques with better success rate than that...

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jchrisa
Now that's what I call a hack. Bravo!

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kevrone
Nothing wrong with this at all.

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stuaxo
Egg sandwiches ... yuck !

~~~
antonioevans
You don't like Egg Sandwiches? They're excellent.

~~~
LukeB_UK
I believe you mean eggcellent...

