Is Poaching Employees Ethical?
I’ve lost good people to poaching. I’ve also recruited people away from competitors. So when someone asks me whether employee poaching is ethical, my answer is: it depends on how you do it, and whether you’re honest with yourself about what you’re actually doing.
The sanitized version — “we’re just giving talented people better opportunities” — is rarely the whole truth. And the indignant version — “they stole our people” — is rarely fair either. The reality sits in the uncomfortable middle, and most leaders I know don’t spend enough time there.
When I lost someone I couldn’t afford to lose
A few years ago, a senior engineer on my team — someone who had been instrumental in stabilizing a platform that had been neglected for years — was recruited away by a competitor. The recruiter reached out on LinkedIn, offered a significant bump, and within three weeks she was gone.
I was frustrated. Not at her — she made the rational choice. I was frustrated at the situation. We had underinvested in that role for too long. Her compensation hadn’t kept pace with her impact. I’d flagged it. The business moved slowly. By the time the adjustment was approved, she’d already accepted the other offer.
Here’s what I had to sit with: we didn’t lose her because someone poached her. We lost her because we made it easy for someone to poach her. The recruiter just happened to show up at the right time with the right number. The real failure was ours.
That experience changed how I think about retention. You don’t retain people by making it hard to leave. You retain them by making it hard to want to.
When I recruited someone away
I’ve been on the other side too. When I was building out a leadership team, I recruited a director from a competitor. She was exceptional — exactly the profile I needed, with deep operational experience and a leadership style that matched the culture I was building.
Was it ethical? I think so, but only because of how we handled it. She wasn’t under a non-compete. She initiated the conversation after I posted the role publicly. I didn’t ask her to bring proprietary information or client lists. I didn’t pressure her to move fast. She made a deliberate decision with full information, and her former employer — while unhappy — couldn’t point to anything underhanded.
But I’ve seen it done badly. Recruiters who systematically target an entire team. Leaders who hire someone specifically to extract knowledge about a competitor’s strategy. Companies that use aggressive counter-offers to start bidding wars that destabilize both organizations. That’s not recruiting. That’s raiding, and the distinction matters.
The line most people pretend doesn’t exist
Here’s where I land on it: poaching is ethical when you’re offering a genuine opportunity and the person is free to take it. It becomes unethical when the intent shifts from “I want this person on my team” to “I want to hurt the other company” — or when you’re exploiting information, relationships, or contractual grey areas to get there.
The legal considerations are real. Non-competes — where they’re enforceable — exist for a reason. Tortious interference is a real cause of action. Trade secret concerns are legitimate. I’ve seen companies get burned by hiring someone who brought more baggage from their previous employer than anyone anticipated.
But the ethical line is simpler than the legal one: are you treating everyone involved — the candidate, their current employer, your own organization — with basic respect? Are you being honest about what you’re offering and why? Would you be comfortable if the roles were reversed?
Most people don’t bother asking those questions. They either poach without thinking or complain about poaching without looking at why their people were vulnerable in the first place.
What I tell my team now
I tell my leaders two things about this:
First, assume your best people are being recruited right now. Because they are. If you’re not having regular conversations about their growth, their compensation, and what keeps them engaged, someone else is having that conversation for you. Don’t wait until the resignation lands on your desk to realize you haven’t checked in.
Second, when you’re hiring, compete on the merits. Post the role. Be transparent about what you’re offering. If the best candidate happens to come from a competitor, fine — but make sure you’re hiring them for what they can do, not for what they know about someone else’s business.
The talent market is competitive. People have agency. Pretending otherwise — in either direction — doesn’t help anyone.
The uncomfortable truth
The companies that complain the loudest about poaching are almost always the ones that invest the least in their people. They want loyalty without earning it. They want retention without paying for it. And when someone leaves for a better opportunity, they frame it as theft rather than a market correction.
I’ve been guilty of that instinct myself. The first time I lost a key person, my reaction was anger at the company that hired her. It took me a while to redirect that energy where it belonged: at the system that made her underpaid and undervalued for too long.
Employee poaching isn’t the disease. It’s the symptom. And the organizations that figure that out are the ones that stop losing the people they can’t afford to lose.
— Bruno