The recruitment of key personnel such as recruitment specialists, sales managers, and scientists is now well under control and almost complete. Your company needs 3 more scientists. An executive recruiter offers you the opportunity, within budget, to provide you with the means of acquiring these necessary personnel. The dilemma is that the executive recruiter will headhunt or steal these 3 scientists from your competitors. He will also use false pretenses to gain entry to these organizations over the phone. You do not know if his methods are ethical or even legal, but you are fairly certain that he will be successful in his quest for making his sale of scientists to your organization.

You plan to discuss this with your coworkers and the CEO.

- Explain the ethical considerations that will factor into your discussion with coworkers and the CEO of whether to utilize the executive recruiter's services.

- Describe the ethical guidelines you will provide to the executive recruiter if your organization utilizes his services.

- What will you do to further ensure that your organization will be in legal compliance while using the executive recruiter's services?

- Determine whether you agree or disagree with at least 2 others in the discussion on their suggestions for handling the situation. Explain your rationale.

Scenario:

You are a project manager for Advancement Corporation, which specializes in providing quality pharmaceuticals to doctors throughout the United States. The company is based in Atlanta, Georgia and has over 20,000 employees. As such, Advancement Corporation must have a large, mobile sales force to market the pharmaceuticals to doctors' offices and hospitals. In addition, it is critical that skilled scientists and technicians be hired to ensure the proper development of pharmaceuticals through clinical trials. In summary, it is absolutely essential for Advancement Corporation to continuously recruit, select, and train qualified personnel.

A crisis now suddenly confronts Advancement Corporation. A predatory executive search firm has convinced the following staff members to hand in their resignations after accepting employment with Advancement Corporation's main competitor:

- All of the recruitment and selection specialists with Advancement Corporation's human resources department (20)

- Many of the leading scientists of the corporation (25)

- The top 10 sales managers of Advancement Corporation

As the project manager chosen by the CEO to address and rectify this crisis, you are granted the following authority:

- You have the ability to act as the CEO's deputy. This fact is known throughout the company based on a top management meeting with the CEO.

- The knowledge throughout the company is that it will be the full-time position of the project manager to develop and implement this and similar projects for the corporation.