Talent Acquisition: Talent Upgrading As Fortune 1000 Cuts the Meat

As the Fortune 1000 scrambles to prop up share prices for this quarter, they have already cut the fat out of their organizations and are now "cutting into the meat", as Topgrading author, Brad Smart PhD, would say.

Fortune 1000 executives are trying to protect their A Players, but it isn't always perceived as being in the best interests of everyone.  Many times a top performer is being offered a lateral move as lesser pay with the verbal offer that this is a temporary assignment until the economy improves.  Many top performers are not buying into this ploy to prop up the company on The Street by sacrificing their career integrity with a side step career move.

This presents a great opportunity for small to mid sized companies who have longed for the opportunity to land top talent through their corporate recruiting strategy and talent acquisition strategy but not had the ability to land these A Players.

So large public companies are cutting A Players and the smaller companies are becoming the beneficiaries by adding this top talent to their talent selection processes.

This week, the Sorin Group hired a new Senior Vice Present of Cardiac Rhythm Management who had been part of the senior leadership team at Guidant CRM / Boston Scientific.

Eli Lilly, here in Indianapolis, is offering Director level executives lateral moves to streamline the number of reports to the CEO.  At least one Director that we've met will be leaving Lilly and becoming a superstar for some smaller player in the industry.

Emerson Electric is eliminating ex-patriot positions to save costs.  One A Player with Emerson in the Middle East is wrestling with this decision by his superiors.  After spending a year building a team, he's being asked to walk away and relocate to another part of the globe.

All this creates a great opportunity for custom recruiting strategies to source and deliver top talent from the Fortune 1000 to the small cap companies.