No, that's not accurate. "Poaching" is a strategy used by employers in which specific companies are targeted from which to acquire employees. By your definition of "poaching", virtually all hiring of software engineers would be "poaching", because most software engineers are already employed.

Company X hiring an inbound lead that happens to be from company Y: not poaching.

Company X hiring a recruiter-based lead that happens to be from company Y: not poaching.

Company X instructing recruiters to draw up a list of employees of company Y and target them individually by persuading them to leave their jobs: poaching.

This is a good clarification. I should have been clearer. In partciular, I should have specified (in my articularion) anyone employed under contract (not at-will).+

The #3 case here is probably the best reference here for a definition of contemporary usage.

The frission around the ~negative connotation may be hard to understand without the context of entymology. Poaching indeed has a long history in the English language and its "literal" meaning involves the taking of "other's property" by way of hunting. The nexus of "others property" here is important. Originally this was birthrights to game and chattle rights to spouse and since this was before the industrial revolution, employment would be similarly duty bound.

So, to poach is to hunt, or to head-hunt, against other's formal (eg contractual) rights. It has been along time since then and the term is now idiomatic. So, if you want to understand the "subtlety" or the "frission", it probably helps to understand the entymology.

But, as noted above, this doesn't help you to understand contemporary usage as much as somthing more detailed on that subject. So, defer to the above comment.

This is a good example of HN comments getting all the points out on the table from different views.

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+ Years ago, when head-hunting was "executive recruiting", most of these folks would have been under contract, for example. Or be partners in a law firm or bank. Again, the world has moved on and recruiting now is not limited to high-level execs, or people in company careers that might otherwise be 30 years long or whatevs.

I would think the allusion is rooted in hunting, where poaching is taking something you don't have a right to take.

That usage + slang is the source of the concept what i'm referring to...

Some of this stuff is archaic.

Hunting/Fishing laws in europe were restricted to the nobility for hundreds of years.

And at the same time: "Most European noblewomen were party to chattel marriages" {etc}

Anyways, that's all different than poaching in Africa today, for example (personal vs state "property"), but it's likely the source of the term... so i agree.

I disagree with you both because as the GGP said, companies don't own employees. In the business world I see poaching as hiring a person who you learned about solely through their employment at the company in question.

I tend to think of poaching as a bit broader than that, but not just cold calling someone because you know they work at X.

For example, if someone leaves the company, and then there is a concerted effort to recruit other members of that team or based on their recommendation that is poaching. If you've signed an agreement that forbids this, and you actively take part in it, I think it is wrong; otherwise it is fine.

Alternatively, if you've engaged a companies services and then try and hire away the people doing the work to disintermediate the service providing compnay, that would probably count as poaching in my book too.

I consider both scenarios you described to fall squarely under my definition. Think about it, in both cases you learned about the prospects through their employment at said company.

My reply was to phrasing in the GP comment that has since changed (It talked about poaching being a literary allusion to dating or marriage).

I definitely think some business use of the word poaching is intended to stir up the idea that some sort of trespass has occurred, but language also tends to like such cute usages (regardless of the presence of an underlying agenda).