|
Icupira, Peru (SatireWire.com)
- GreatHeadHunters.com, which has decapitated more than 250 corporate
executives in the past three months, has run afoul of U.S. authorities,
who claim the Peruvian-based tribe-turned-Internet-startup is misleading
potential clients by urging them to "make a clean break with
the world's leading headhunting firm."
However, Boratu Jimenez Jenga, CEO of GreatHeadHunters, defended
his company's practices, arguing industrialized nations are to blame
for misappropriating the term "head hunter" to mean someone
who will help you find a new job.
"This is not false advertising," said Jenga. "We
are great headhunters. We hunt heads. Our fathers hunted
heads. Our fathers' fathers hunted heads. If we contact
you and you give us your information, we are going to find you and
take your head."
"But cleanly," he added. "We are not barbarians."
They are, however, successful. Since taking to the Web last
year, GreatHeadHunters.com has witnessed unprecedented growth. In
Q3 2000 alone, said Jenga, head acquisitions increased 985 percent
over the previous quarter.
"The Internet has been a most incredible boost for our business," he
said. "Before, we might get eight or 10 heads a year,
and for those we had to pretty much kidnap people, or hang out at
rock concerts. Now we get inquiries all the time from people
actually looking for headhunters. They give us their addresses,
their job histories. It's so easy to find them!"
In fact, Jenga said, the tribe now has more potential clients than
it can possibly decapitate, and soon plans to open offices in New
York, Chicago, and Silicon Valley. To staff the offices, the
company plans to hire outside the tribe for the first time, although
Jenga promised the heads of new hires would not be taken.
"I will salt the eye-sockets of the newly dead to ensure this
does not happen," he said.
Asked if this was some magic charm to guarantee a future outcome,
Jenga conceded it was not.
"Actually, I just say that to sound headhuntery. Really,
we have attorneys who handle the contracts. They are
pretty explicit. Mostly boilerplate."
According to the U.S. State Department, however, the success of
GreatHeadHunters is countered by the "deep pain" the company's
practices have caused the families of U.S.-based executives. One
example was Robert Copping, who until January was a senior product
developer at Nokia.
"Robert was being courted by a dozen headhunting firms, and
he was looking to move, so when he got the email from GreatHeadHunters,
he figured it wouldn't hurt to speak with them, too" said his
wife, Ashley Copping. "He sent them his personal info,
arranged a meeting, and the next thing I know, zip, his head is gone.
"GreatHeadHunters indeed," she added sourly. "I'd
like to give them a piece of my mind."
Jenga said he would arrange it.
More
Tech News
Recommend this
Story to a Friend
|
