Notice Periods and No Poach - HR and their practises

Do the HR understand the meaning of the terms "Notice Period" and "No Poach" and its significance?

Case of the Notice Period:

A recruiter who is working in an agency receives an offer from a corporate company. The recruiter is very happy to have got an opportunity to work in a corporate company. The role offered is of a post man... sorry a recruiter. Now comes the best part - the HR of the corporate company, releases the offer letter with a clause saying that the recruiter needs to join their company within 2 days. The recruiter is excited and visibly flying in the air.

He is a top performer in this recruitment agency and would be a definite loss to the agency. He puts in his resignation letter and requests to be relieved the next day!!!! The agency manager clearly refuses to relieve the recruiter and asks him to serve the notice period and be with the organization until a replacement is found and the knowledge transfer happens satisfactorily. A lot of discussions and negotiations later, the recruiter calls the HR of the new company to extend his Date of Joining, as he is not getting relieved. Now the climax, the HR says, his offer would be valid only if he joins them in the next 2 days and would be withdrawn if he doesn't. The poor recruiter is clueless and in a state of shock, as the offer and the new company is great, but the HR is not ready to oblige.

My questions:

1. How come the HR, who are supposed to be experienced, matured and understand the company policies, ask a candidate to join them in 2 days, forgetting that they need to serve the notice period at their current employer?

2. Are the corporates so big and do not care about HR ethics, that they treat agencies like dirt and do not give a damn to their business and pain they go thru?

3. Is this kind of ethics being taught to the HR team from their seniors, who are so called big wigs in the industry and give crap and BS in all the forums and HR discussions?

4. If their employees want to be relieved in 2 days time, would they agree? Don't they understand this common sense that a notice period of an employee is to be served is important to all organizations.

5. If the recruiter absconds from his current employer and joins the new company, without a formal relieving process, does it not mean that the candidate is on dual employment and is not lawful. Does the new company take responsibility for enticing the candidate to take this extreme step?

6. Is this pressure tactics justified on a candidate and the direct impact of this kind of a tactic on the agency?

Case of No poach:

An agency has signed a formal agreement with a company and allocates a good recruiter to service its requirements. The recruiter works very hard and closes on most of the requirements which are shared with the agency and builds a good rapport with the company. Now the big question gets asked from the recruitment manager - "you know our requirements very well and have done a good job of closing most of them. Will you join us?".

My questions:

1. A "No Poach" clause in the agreement is applicable only to the company and not to the agency?

2. A penalty / legal suite is mentioned in the agreement, if an agency poaches an employee of the company during the tenure of the agreement and 1 / 2 years post the expiry of the agreement. Can we impose the same from an agency perspective?


These HR policies are only crap and is one sided to benefit the company and not the agencies. Any views and thoughts???