Hiring from previous employers

When I started out my company I has this un-written principle, where I said I was not going to hire from the companies that I previously worked at. Since I was still in very good terms with the management of those companies I didn’t want to create any frictions in those relationships by getting their people.

But as we grow as a team and as we are constantly on the look out for the best and the brightest, there is going to be a time when some of those people in those companies, who were there when you used to work there, are going to apply for advertised openings in my company. Some may apply knowing who I am, but some are simply responding to a job advertisement that is publicly posted.

I am facing such a dilemma now. I have a position that I had advertised and one of the top candidates that had applied is from one of my previous employers. This is a guy who has joined his current company (my previous employer) after I left that place. But I know him from another previous employer, where both of us used to work.

Since I never approached him directly and enticed him to join us, I really see no issue as such. I don’t think there is an ethical conflict as I never head hunted him. He applied to us. If I don’t recruit him, chances are, that he may move to another company.

And he and I never worked at his current place of employment at the same time. I just know him from his previous place of employment, where we both used to work.

But if I do hire him, I am going to be frowned upon by the company where he works now. I can still drop by that company and and chat up my old friends when I pass that way. But that will have to come to an end, if I do get this guy. Because afterwards, if I drop by that way, they may think that I have come to steal their employees.

I am searching for a solution that would allow me to still hire the best people out there while maintaining a good relation with my previous bosses. Any ideas or suggestions on this regard are gladly accepted.