Cecilia Kang, writing in the Washington Post this past Wednesday, June 3, announced a Federal Antitrust Probe that is targeting Google, Apple, Yahoo, Genentech and more. Much more.

It might by you.

Remember how proud you were when you snagged that top performer from your company's biggest competitor? (And this was the third top pro your team won over from them this year.) They obviously were having retention problems as their new product pipeline emptied out.

Remember how worried your boss was? She kept asking if you were sure there were no legal non-compete contracts signed by the candidate (or other problems that the company's lawyers were going to have to deal with despite your assurances to the contrary). You knew you did your due diligence.

It wasn't long after that when word filtered down that we were going to "stop considering" candidates from three of our fiercest competitors...including the company you recently did all that sourcing work..."just for now", she said. There was no notice in writing. Word was quietly shared with the team. No mention was made about where the "decision" came from either but, it sure couldn't have been at your pay grade because...we were in a war for talent...right?

Did someone declare a truce?

Remember how ticked you and your team were, especially since you had been loading the CRM with prospects from all three firms. Several of them were ready to come over after nearly a year of building relationships via events, conferences and the like.

No you don't. You remember nooothiiiing! This scenario must have been a figment of your addled brain.

The concern expressed by the Justice Department is that the "practice" is industry wide. According to the article, "By agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly."

I don't think that is it at all. I think that as unemployment tops 10%, the public perception about firms that purposely hold their recruiters back from considering qualified candidates is going to play very well...and someone is going to go to jail.

I also don't think we are talking about "Industry Wide" here as code for IT  Industry. This probe might rapidly escalate to the entire "Staffing Industry". And you can bet that if they really get serious and bring some heat to bear on the conversations that take place with third party firms, it will get ugly.

Not for anything but next you are told not to consider qualified folks from a firm where you have a "Nice" relationship, tell them to #%!@ off...in a "nice" way.

In business [in the US anyway] you cannot negotiate a truce with your competitors for talent any more than you can negotiate your product pricing.