I’m working in a big company and over the years I’ve been approached multiple times in linkedin by competitors. Since I have low interest in just changing masters mostly I ignored them but I did entertain 1 or 2 out of curiousity.
The theme is quite similar: they expect me to bring ‘book of clients’, basically ‘stealing’ client database from my current company and bring it to them. The term is ‘bring in business’. Nothing about my years of experiences in the industry or how I can help growing the company based on those. All they want is ‘business’ AKA instant client.
When this expectation pop up I instantly reject them, the reason are simple:
- I don’t want my worth decided simply by data I ‘stole’ from my old company. It seems like a very shaky ground. You’re not appreciated as a skilled professional, just as some kind of a corporate spy
- If they expect the data would bring them instant clients, they’re in for a big disappointment. There’s a reason why my current company is big and if they won’t improve themselves, nothing in those data will help
- I can see easily that the reason they expect me to ‘bring business’ instead of asking for my feedback about growing business is because they don’t want to change a thing. They want to stay the same but expect client base to grow, and I’m for sure don’t want to be at the end of that expectation.