lateral hire

a professional with several years of experience who takes on a similar job at a new company

TRANSLATION

lateral hire = eine Person mit entsprechender Vorbildung und Berufserfahrung, die bei einem anderen Unternehmen einen gleichwertigen Posten annimm; Seiteneinsteiger (DH) --- GOOGLE INDEX lateral hire(s): approximately 50,000 hits

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

The firm aims to grow its international dispute resolution team in the forthcoming year through LATERAL HIRES.

(www.thelawyer.com)

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Approximately 70% of our third-quarter hires were recent college graduates who will enter our training program, and the remainder were LATERAL HIRES of experienced IT professionals.

- Gordon Coburn, CFO & COO of Cognizant Technology Solutions

Did you
know?

lateral hire(s)
noun phrase

- professionals with several years of experience who move to a new company and assume a job at level similar to the one they left

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WORD ORIGIN

Lateral stems from the Latin lateralis (belonging to the side) and from latus (side). Hire is from the Old English hyrian, which meant "to pay for service, employ for wages, engage." Thus a lateral hire is literally someone hired from the side, meaning at the same experience and wage level as their previous job.

Among other things, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines lateral as "of or constituting a change within an organization or a hierarchy to a position at a similar level, as in salary or responsibility, to the one being left (he made a lateral move within the company, she made a lateral move to a new company).

Although not limited to these professions, the term is frequently used by legal and consulting firms, where there is keen competition for top talent. It's not unusual for these so-called professional services firms to give experienced employees financial incentives and non-cash benefits (cars, fitness centre memberships, promotion to partner level, etc…) to keep them from leaving. For the company losing the employee, especially if they hired them without any experience and invested in their training, lateral hires can feel like "employee theft."

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IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS TODAY
say something like:

"We invested in several lateral hires this year to build our international sales force."

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