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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

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1

GLOSSARY

to hire away – to give a job to someone who was working for another company,
so that he or she has to leave that other company
* The company grew by hiring away all of the best employees at its main
competitors.

headhunter – a person whose job is to find qualified people for challenging,
high-level jobs, primarily by contacting people who are working in similar jobs at
other companies
* Dana was surprised and flattered to receive a call from a headhunter about an
executive position with an international company.

rising star – someone who is doing very well and advancing in a particular field
or industry, gaining valuable experience and respect
* Melesa is a rising star in local theatrical productions and she’s thinking about
moving to Hollywood.

tough loss – something that is difficult to say goodbye to or difficult to realize
and accept that one no longer has; something that one has lost, but wishes one
still had
* When the hurricane destroyed the orange trees, it was a tough loss for local
farmers.

unique – unlike anything else; one of a kind; distinct
* This artwork is so unique! I’ve never seen anything like it.

to duplicate – to copy; to do something exactly the same, or to create an exact
copy
* Bryan spends hours at the golf course, trying to duplicate what he did the day
he hit a hole in one.

replacement – something new that is used instead of something else, especially
when the thing that was used previously is old, undesirable, or broken; a person
who is hired for a job when the person who previously worked in that job leaves it
* Nancy’s camera broke, so now she has to shop for a replacement.

classic case – a perfect example of something
* The way Derek lied to his sister is a classic case of dishonesty.

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

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2

brain drain – the phenomenon where the most intelligent, hardest working, and
best educated people leave a country to accept better, higher-paying jobs in
another country
* The government is trying to create programs that will stop and reverse the brain
drain by encouraging the country’s best students to work for local companies.

lucrative – profitable; making a lot of money
* This deal could be really lucrative for our company.

to match – to do something to the same level or extent as someone or
something else; to do something comparable
* He gave Wendy a car for her birthday, but there’s no way she can match that
for his next birthday.

startup – a new company that was established or founded very recently and still
needs to prove that it can be successful
* Yukihiro refuses to invest in startup companies, preferring larger, more
established companies.

an offer (one) can’t refuse – a proposal, suggestion or offer that is so attractive
and desirable that it is difficult or impossible to say ‘no’
* The power company wants to buy the land for its new transmission lines, so its
making an offer the property owners can’t refuse.

to catch on – to begin to understand, especially something that other people
already understand or are already doing
* It took Ro a few weeks to catch on to how things were done in the new office.

to put out feelers – to subtly or quietly look for information, especially about job
openings, but without asking directly or in a way that attracts a lot of attention
* Even if you love your job, it’s a good idea to put out feelers and know what
other job opportunities are available in your field.

to talk (someone) into – to convince or persuade someone to do something
* We tried, but we couldn’t talk Quincy into selling us her car.

If you can’t beat them, join them – a phrase used to mean that if one’s
enemies or the people one does not agree with have a stronger position, it’s best
to stop fighting against them and instead do what they are doing
* A: I thought you said you’d never have a TV in your home.
B: Well, everyone else does and the kids were begging for a TV. If you can’t
beat them, join them.

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

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3

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1. Where is Melinda going to work?
a) At one of the company’s biggest competitors.
b) At a company that creates ignition switches.
c) At a new company.

2. What will Natalie do if she puts out feelers?
a) She’ll quit her job and start applying for jobs at other companies.
b) She’ll try to learn what other job opportunities are available.
c) She’ll ask her boss for a raise and a promotion.

______________


WHAT ELSE DOES IT MEAN?

match
The verb “to match,” in this podcast, means to do something to the same level or
extent as someone or something else, or to do something comparable: “Ayla is a
very fast worker and nobody can match her productivity.” The verb “to match”
can also mean for two things to look nice together, especially if they have the
same color or pattern: “Does this scarf match my dress?” Sometimes the verb “to
match” means to make pairs, or to put two similar things together: “The hardest
part of doing laundry is matching the socks to put them away!” Finally, the phrase
“to match (someone) up with (someone)” means to arrange for two people to
meet each other because one thinks they will develop a romantic relationship:
“Thank you so much for matching me up with Susanna. She’s wonderful!”

to talk (someone) into
In this podcast, the phrase “to talk (someone) into” means to persuade or
convince someone to do or believe something: “How did they talk you into
investing thousands of dollars in such a risky project?” The phrase “to talk
(someone) out of” has the opposite meaning: “He wanted to buy a motorcycle,
but his girlfriend talked him out of it.” The phrase “to talk (someone’s) ear off”
means to talk too much, without giving the other person an opportunity to speak:
“Ingrid is nice, but she’ll talk your ear off and you won’t be able to end the
conversation.” Finally, the phrase “to talk some sense into (someone)” means to
persuade someone to be more logical and do what is rational: “Thank goodness
you were able to talk some sense into Peter so he won’t drop out of school!”

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

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4

CULTURE NOTE

Executive Search Companies

Companies spend a lot of time and money “recruiting” (searching for a new
employee) and “hiring” (giving a job to) employees, particularly “executives” (the
top leaders and managers in a company). Many companies “turn to” (decide to
get help from) “executive search companies” for the recruitment of their most
important “positions” (jobs).

Many executive search companies specialize in a particular “industry” or “field.”
For example, they might be expert headhunters for positions in “IT” (information
technology) or the energy “sector” (field). Executive search firms have a lot of
local, regional, and international “connections” (business relationships) and can
“reach out to” (contact) individuals with the “requisite” (required; needed;
necessary) skills and experience.

One of the “main” (primary; most important) advantages of working with an
executive search firm instead of recruiting “candidates” (people who are being
considered for a job) itself is that the executive search firm usually has more
contacts within the industry, so it can find qualified candidates more quickly than
the company could working alone. An executive search firm can also reach out to
“prospective” (potential; possible) candidates without “disclosing” (revealing;
showing) which company is hiring. This lets companies recruit individuals
working for their competitors without attracting a lot of unwanted attention.

Most executive search companies are paid in one of two ways. They might be
paid “on contingency,” meaning that they receive a fee only if their candidate is
hired. The fee might be a percentage of the candidate’s salary in the first year.
Other executive search companies work “on retainer,” meaning that they receive
a certain amount of money for their recruitment efforts, regardless of whether a
candidate is hired.

______________

Comprehension Questions Correct Answers: 1 – c; 2 – b

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2012). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

5

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 812: Losing
Employees to Other Companies.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 812. I’m your host, Dr.
Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in
beautiful Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

Our website is eslpod.com. You know that, of course. You also know that if you
become a member of ESL Podcast, you can download a Learning Guide. That
Learning Guide is your key to better English. It's the way of improving your
English faster than anything else.

Our dialogue is about when someone who works for a company gets hired by
another company and leaves. This happens all the time especially to good
employees. Let's get started.

[start of dialogue]

Diego: That’s three in six months!

Natalie: What’s three in six months?

Diego: That’s three of this company’s employees who have been hired away by
other companies. First, there was Lamar. I wasn’t surprised that headhunters
were interested in Lamar, since he was clearly a rising star.

Natalie: Yeah, Lamar was a tough loss. His unique set of skills is hard to
duplicate.

Diego: You’re telling me! We haven’t been able to find a replacement. After
Lamar, there was Sariah. Sariah is a classic case of brain drain. There are great
jobs in McQuillanland, with lucrative pay and a low cost of living. I’m not
surprised Sariah took that job.

Natalie: Sariah was very talented. We couldn’t match the offer she received and
she took the better deal.

Diego: And today, Melinda tells me that she’s probably going to accept an offer
from a startup that’s made her an offer she can’t refuse.

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2012). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

6

Natalie: Not Melinda, too! You know what, I think I’m finally catching on. Maybe
we should be putting out feelers for better job offers ourselves.

Diego: No, not you, too! Before long, I’ll be the only one left here. I thought you’d
help me talk Melinda into staying.

Natalie: No, not me. You know what they say: If you can’t beat them, join them!

[end of dialogue]

Our dialogue begins with Diego saying to Natalie. “That’s three in six months!”
Natalie says, “What's three in six months?” Diego says, “That’s three of this
company’s employees,” people who work for the company, “who have been hired
away by other companies.” To “hire” (hire) away someone is a two-word, phrasal
verb meaning to give someone who was working for one company a job at
another company. So, company A says to one of the employees or workers at
company B, “We’ll give you a job here. Why don’t you come here?” They hire that
person away from the other company. Diego says, “First, there was Lamar.”
Lamar is a man’s name. “I wasn’t surprised that headhunters were interested in
Lamar, since he was clearly a rising star. A “headhunter” (headhunter), one word,
is a person whose job it is to find people, qualified people for usually high level
jobs. There are companies that do nothing but go around and find good
employees for other companies and that’s what a headhunting company does –
that’s what a person who works for that company, called the “headhunter,” does.

My brother, for example, was headhunted. He had a headhunter contact him
about working at another company, and then he moved to another company and
then he got headhunted again and so on. So, sometimes companies will hire you
away. They will take you from one company and bring you to their company, and
they often do that by hiring professional, really what they are, are scouts that look
for good employees. Diego said that Lamar was clearly a “rising star.” A “rising
star” is someone who is doing very well and has began to get a reputation.
People begin to know about that person. They respect that person. And a lot of
people say, “Wow, that guy, he’s real good.” No one ever says that about me, not
at my company anyway!

Natalie says, “Yeah, Lamar was a tough loss.” A “loss” (loss) is when, of course,
you lose something. You no longer have it. “Tough” is an adjective meaning here
difficult. So, it was a difficult loss. It was hard to lose Lamar. “His unique set of
skills is hard to duplicate.” Something that is “unique” (unique) is one of a kind. It
is unlike anything else. There's only one of that thing. Natalie thinks that Lamar’s

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

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7

“set of skills,” the things he was able to do, is hard to duplicate, is hard to copy, is
hard to create again.

Diego says, “You're telling me!” That expression, “You're telling me,” means yes,
I understand. I already know. “We haven’t been able,” Diego says “to find a
replacement.” A “replacement” for a person or a thing is something new that you
use instead of the thing that you lost or the thing that is old and doesn’t work
anymore. If you have an old car, you might have to get a replacement, a new car,
something that you can use instead of the old car. Diego says, “After Lamar,
there was Sariah. Sariah is a classic case of brain drain.” A “classic case” means
a perfect example of something, an ideal example of something. For example,
“The way that Derek lied to his sister is a classic case of dishonesty.” It's a good
example or a great example of someone who is not honest.

“Brain drain” (drain) is the situation where the most intelligent, hardworking, best-
educated people leave where they are and go to a different place. Usually we
talk about this in terms of people leaving one country and going to another
country, going from India to the United States or from the United States to China,
whatever it is. It's when one country typically loses the best of its workers, the
best of its students sometimes to another country. Diego says, “There are great
jobs in McQuillanland,” which is obviously another country, a very nice country, I
think, “with lucrative pay.” These great jobs have lucrative pay. “Lucrative”
(lucrative) means making a lot of money, very profitable: “This sales campaign,
this sales effort was lucrative.” We made a lot of money. Sometimes jobs can be
lucrative and that’s why Diego says that there are great jobs in McQuillanland
with lucrative pay, meaning you'll get paid a lot of money “and a low cost of
living.” That means it's cheap to live in this different country. Diego says, “I'm not
surprised Sariah took that job.”

Natalie says, “Sariah was very talented. We couldn’t match the offer she received
and she took the better deal.” To “match” (match) means in this case to do
something at the same level or extent as someone or something else. I can
never match the performance of great singers when I sing their songs here on
the podcast. I can't match that level. I can't be at the same level. Natalie says
that her company could not match the offer, meaning the amount of money the
other company said they would pay her, and so Sariah took the “better deal,” the
better offer, the better job.

Diego continues, “And today, Melinda tells me that she’s probably going to
accept an offer from a startup that’s made her an offer she can't refuse.” A
“startup” is a new company, is a new company that has been established very
recently. Often it’s associated with technology, especially here in California, we

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2012). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

8

talk about “startups,” we're often referring to technology companies or Internet
companies, but it could really be any new company. This startup offered Melinda
“an offer she can't refuse.” This expression, “an offer you can't refuse,” is
something that is so good you cannot say “no.” It's so attractive, it’s so desirable
that it's impossible to say “no” to it.

It became popular in a movie called The Godfather many years ago, when the
star of the movie, Marlon Brando – at least this is what people think happened in
the movie, I don’t know if it actually happens in the movie, I think it does – he
says, “I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.” I'm going to give you
such a good situation you're going to say “yes.” But there's a little bit of comedy
there because of course, if you're Marlon Brando and you're a gangster,
someone who does illegal things, you may not be able to refuse because if you
do he’ll kill you, so that could be happening, too, but not in our dialogue. No one
dies in our dialogues (usually). Well, cats sometimes die, but usually no one dies
in our dialogue.

Natalie says, “Not Melinda, too! You know what, I think I'm finally catching on.”
To “catch on” is a phrasal verb meaning to begin to understand especially
something that other people around you already understand. Natalie says,
“Maybe we should be putting out feelers for better job offers ourselves.” To “put
out feelers” means to let other people know that you're looking for a job. You
don’t go and knock on their door or email them and say “I want a job.” You just let
people know who you think may be hiring in the future that, yes, you’d be
interested perhaps in working for their company. That’s to put out “feelers”
(feelers).

Diego says, “No, not you, too! Before long (or very soon), I'll be the one left here
(I'll be the only one still at this company).” “I thought you’d help me talk Melinda
into staying.” To “talk someone into something” means to convince or persuade
someone to do something, often something that they may not really want to do.

Natalie says, “No, not me. You know what they say: If you can't beat them, join
them!” This expression which is normally pronounced “if you can't beat ‘em, join
‘em”, where we kind of drop the “th” sound of “them,” means that if you are in a
situation where the people who disagree with you or who are your enemies are
stronger, it's best to just stop fighting and instead join them – do what they are
doing, give up your position, give up your opposition. So, if you can't beat them, if
you can't defeat them, then you should join them. You should become one of
them. You should become part of them. That’s the idea.

Now let’s listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.

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ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2012). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

9

[start of dialogue]

Diego: That’s three in six months!

Natalie: What’s three in six months?

Diego: That’s three of this company’s employees who have been hired away by
other companies. First, there was Lamar. I wasn’t surprised that headhunters
were interested in Lamar, since he was clearly a rising star.

Natalie: Yeah, Lamar was a tough loss. His unique set of skills is hard to
duplicate.

Diego: You’re telling me! We haven’t been able to find a replacement. After
Lamar, there was Sariah. Sariah is a classic case of brain drain. There are great
jobs in McQuillanland, with lucrative pay and a low cost of living. I’m not
surprised Sariah took that job.

Natalie: Sariah was very talented. We couldn’t match the offer she received and
she took the better deal.

Diego: And today, Melinda tells me that she’s probably going to accept an offer
from a startup that’s made her an offer she can’t refuse.

Natalie: Not Melinda, too! You know what, I think I’m finally catching on. Maybe
we should be putting out feelers for better job offers ourselves.

Diego: No, not you, too! Before long, I’ll be the only one left here. I thought you’d
help me talk Melinda into staying.

Natalie: No, not me. You know what they say: If you can’t beat them, join them!

[end of dialogue]

We're lucky here at ESL Podcast that our rising star, Lucy Tse, has not been
hired away. Thank you, Lucy, for your scripts.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come
back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ESL Podcast 812 – Losing Employees to Other Companies

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2012). Posting of
these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

10

English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Tse,
hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan, copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational
Development.