*Latest Recruiting Target: Disgruntled "Dot-Commers"
One Internet company's trouble worthless stock options could be another competitor's recruiting opportunity.
At least, that's some of the thinking behind a recruiting campaign that the folks at Siegelgale, the brand and business strategy consulting firm, recently launched on the streets of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Aimed at some Web shops whose staff are holding stock options that are now under water - now trading below the strike price at which the equity was originally offered - the campaign is handing out postcards at coffee shops frequented by or near to well-known Web agencies.
One of the postcards features a picture from the former Soviet Union days, as a phalanx of Kremlin leaders lined up wave to the crowds in Red Square. "Too Many Layers of Management at Your Place?" reads the caption on the card. On the other side brings the pitch about joining a place that's "short on hierarchy and full of entrepreneurial spirit."
Andrew Zolli, the director of marketing at Seigelgale, stressed that the campaign is not about stealing employees - though he conceded the job market for Web skills is as tight as ever. The idea is to capitalize on people that "may be burned out, or killing themselves" with long days and nights glued to a computer terminal. "What we really want to say to the industry at large is there are alternatives to working to death," said Zolli.
The firm is handing about a half million of the postcards, which come in a variety of pitches, some tailored to creative types whose options are worthless, others who would like to stretch their creative "legs" and others who work in environments with layers of corporate hierarchies.
The company is looking to net about 20 new employees with the approach - and save a few bucks on headhunting fees in the process.