I recently read a post by Greg Brockman about cold recruiting, or initiating an interview for possible employment. Brockman describes the difficulties in the start-up world inherent in cold recruiting:

Cold outreach is inherently hard because the people you most want to reach will already receive many of these sollicitations, and you correspondingly need to differentiate.

What that does not identify is the delicateness of what we in the Education world refer to as “poaching.”¹ Most schools struggle to acquire, develop, and hold onto high-quality instructors. Out of a sense of self-preservation, there is an unwritten rule amongst schools that they won’t poach, or cold recruit, from other schools — all out of fear that they’ll lose teachers to the same.

Personally, I think this is a terrible norm. I think it’s bad for the employee and it’s bad for both schools involved.

It’s bad for the employee because it limits them from new and better employment opportunities. Being offered is always nice, and a teacher or staff member who is being recruited by another school can always decline the invitation to apply. Years ago, I was invited to apply for an Assistant Principal of Academics position at a Bay Area Catholic high school, which was jarring because it flew in the face of the norm. I was glad to get the invitation because it told me the work I was doing was being recognized, and that I had the qualities that a school was looking for. I declined the invitation because I knew that I didn’t want to commute across the Bay.² No harm was done to me, to the school which invited my application, nor to my current employer. There was only the possibility for me to better my position.

What’s important is that the teacher or staff member being recruited gets to decide if the invitation is worth their time or not. I knew that crossing a bridge to get to work was a non-starter, and so even though a promotion was involved, I didn’t consider it a “better position.”

Second, the two schools are benefitted by cold recruiting. First, the recruiting school gets to target people they think would be a good fit for their culture and programmatic needs. Schools are no longer relegated to just accepting applications from anybody and everybody — they get to identify great teachers and staff, and pursue them. This part of the process requires little analysis; being able to recruit people a school wants is obviously a good thing.

Having teachers or staff recruited away from a school is also a good thing, I contend — and this is less obvious. The cynical will simply say “Good riddance” to a high-quality teacher or staff member being recruited away; this is just a defense mechanism, covering up hurt feelings. Feeling hurt in this situation is natural; a good employee just indicated that working at another school is better than working at your school. Instead of feeling hurt, do you know what you should do? Make your school better. That’s why cold recruiting is good even for schools that lose high-quality teachers and staff: it’s motivation for improvement.

The norm in education of not cold recruiting – or “poaching” – serves only to benefit lesser schools. It holds down wages or other compensatory benefits, hurting workers; and it prevents schools from actively seeking out those employees that could further advance their programs.