[robomartin]

There are so many ways to look at this. Here's a dumb and imperfect example: You hire me to help you find a really good CFO. I charge you $40,000 to get that job done. After several weeks and two dozen interviews we find a candidate that is a great fit. You agree to pay her a very competitive salary, one that is certainly within the top level of what CFO's are getting paid in your industry. Everyone is happy. You pay me my $40K and she comes onboard.

Six month later I get pinged by a large corporation looking for a CFO. I remember the candidate I placed with you. She is definitely qualified. I email her directly and get her to jump ship. She didn't get paid any more. I simply convinced her that the large corporation was a better bet than your startup. I, of course, get to collect a fee from the large corp as well.

This is wrong. You hired me to help you build your team and paid me handsomely to do my job. If I then turn around and actually become your enemy, why am I serving? An even such as the one I just described is incredibly disruptive and costly beyond the obvious (I covered some of the costs in my prior post).

That why I will not work with any head-hunter who will not guarantee that they will not approach new hires with new opportunities for a reasonable period of time. As a business you don't derive a financial benefit out of hiring a new employee for months but there's a ton of upfront and ongoing investment.