A modern day headhunter is some person that recruits top people for whatever field they work in.
We know several industries that have used headhunters before. Remember the Avro Arrow that was a world leader in both speed and aeronautical engineering in the ‘50s? It was to be powered by the new Iroquois jet engine that was designed in Canada for that jet plane. At the time, that Iroquois engine was the most powerful in the world. Why was it scrapped and destroyed? When the project was scrapped, many of Canada’s top aeronautical engineers from the Avro project were mysteriously scooped up by NASA and shortly after the U.S. put a man on the moon. Somebody may have used a headhunter?
I have known several very smart mechanics in my lifetime who were not engineers but had a lot of common sense and were very advanced in their knowledge about how to redesign machines and engines to make them much more powerful, better and reliable. They were head hunted by some very large automotive and agricultural machine companies to work directly in their engineering department. They refused because they wanted to remain in Pontiac County, help their neighbours, and enjoy life. But this example is rare. We more often hear about talented people leaving.
A smart, young boy a few years younger than me from Shawville became a lawyer and was soon head hunted by a corporate law firm in Toronto. That boy is now a top corporate lawyer in North America.
A couple years after I came home from college, the two smartest animal scientists and animal nutritionists, who were both professors at Quebec universities (McGill and Laval), were both head hunted by U.S. universities, pharmaceutical companies, and animal nutrition companies.
There was a young farm boy from Sheenboro that went to medical university and was scooped up by a large Ottawa hospital. Wilbert Keon performed the first artificial heart transplant in Canada. Dr. Keon performed the first successful heart transplant on a Shawville hockey player which Dr. Keon had played against in his younger years. A few years later Dr. Keon told Royce that when he held his heart in his hand, he had to forget the time that Royce ran him into those hard, cold boards in that old hockey rink in Shawville. Dr. Keon also started the Ottawa Heart Institute in 1976. Dr. Keon was awarded the Order of Canada and later became a Canadian Senator.
Several local farmers have been headhunted to be farm manager of a Quebec university, and for a position as nutritionist for a major feed company.
I have one friend who was a headhunter in the high tech world for several years but became head hunted himself for a similar position at a science centre.
Headhunters are not trained as such but always have a huge network of very smart, very inquisitive, open-minded people. Headhunters do not have a formal degree but a tremendous ability to use common sense and find solutions to a very wide range of problems. Quebec has become a prime target where headhunters look for smart, open minded, bilingual professionals like doctors, nurses, technicians, professors, teachers, policemen, CEOs of businesses, managers, and even entire companies that also do business outside Quebec. The latest Bill 2 is no help.
What does it take to hold onto our people? What changes have to be made so people want to stay in Quebec?
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
