Telling Company Secrets Could Lead to Career Suicide

When I was still handling the recruitment group of my present company, I encountered several applicants who are willing to "spill the beans" just to make a career or to have a job opportunity in our company. You can't really blame these people because I was the one who asked them about their lives in their previous or current company, but truth be told, these questions that I often asked where just innocent questions that would make the applicants feel at ease.

There are some applicants who are not really into telling some company secrets to the HR Recruitment Team of our company, and little did they know, these are the people that we really are looking for. You just can't kiss and tell a company trade secret to anyone especially if the company you are applying or position you are applying for is in the same industry as your previous or current one. These kind of applicants are the honest and trustworthy employees that companies might want to hire and keep for a long time.

On the other hand, there are some applicants that tell some of all of the company trade secrets and thought that this might be their key to be employed. These kind of applicants for our HR Recruitment Team are not really potential employees but unscrupulous individuals who just wanted to get out of their current company to get even maybe because of low salary or no government benefits or unpaid overtimes or whatever reasons there might be. In the end, these kind of applicants are making a career suicide for themselves.

Here are some of the trade secrets that I found out during my time as an HR Recruitment practitioner. I intentionally changed some of the details and did not disclose any location to protect these companies from their trade secrets:

1. One of the little known corned beef manufacturers is using a synthetic protein in their product. Synthetic. Meaning, artificial beef.
2. A hamburger joint factory mixes beef and mutton (sheep) meat in their burger patties. Yep. Not pure beef. 
3. A government employee only receives a P 7,000.00 monthly salary pay even though the employee is already working for 4 years! Not even a regular employee!
4. A large-scale manufacturer is on the verge of losing some money because of not using its equipment and machinery very well. Tsk tsk tsk.
5. A well-known imported coffee brand was transferred or perhaps bought or handled by different distributors or companies several times. Fortunately, the coffee brand is doing well in the market!
6. A cornick (crunchy corn snacks) manufacturer is said to be delaying the salaries of their employees, even forcing them to skip work just because the company is losing profits.
7.  The former celebrity endorser of this instant noodle company is really good despite the negative comments against the endorser in the past.
8. When this record label was on the verge of closing or shutting down, they made their bet on a controversial singer and turned out to be that record label's best-selling record ever. The record label survived!

True or not, the above mentioned company trade secrets are still what it is... a SECRET! "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!" and so should be the trade secrets of a company.

In the end, applicants who are willing to "spill the beans" are most likely having their difficult time finding a long-time career for themselves. They must change their attitude towards finding their next employer or else, the career suicide is just a word away. Happy job hunting!