Apple Rubs Salt Into BlackBerry’s Wounds By Poaching Its Employees

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Smashed-BlackBerry

Thanks to the iPhone, it seems there’s little hope left for BlackBerry these days. Apple has stolen most of its market share, and now it’s stealing its employees, too. The Cupertino company has reportedly been contacting BlackBerry staff via LinkedIn and inviting them to recruitment events in Cambridge, Ontario.

 Just a few years ago, everything was looking pretty sweet for BlackBerry. The Canadian company’s smartphones were dominating the business world, its stock price was hitting new heights, and it once commanded a 50% share of the smartphone market.

It had even attracted a large cult following of BlackBerry addicts who couldn’t live without its trademark physical keyboards — hence the name “CrackBerry.”

But BlackBerry’s failure to react quickly enough to the iPhone and competing Android devices has left it at death’s door. It had no idea that the iPhone would make such an impact following its debut in 2007, and falsely predicted it could compete with Apple without drastically changing its approach.

Now the company is in desperate need of help. Its stock price has fallen more than 96% since its high and will now cost you less than $10, and according to the latest data from comScore, BlackBerry smartphones account for just 4% of the smartphones being used in the U.S.

And to make matter worse, Apple is poaching its employees.

“If you are interested in working on the world’s most advanced mobile devices and operating systems as well as alongside other amazing, talented and passionate engineers then Apple may have opportunities for you,” reads an invitation the company has been sending to BlackBerry employees via LinkedIn.

The invitations were targeted at BlackBerry’s engineering and operations talent, AllThingsD reports, and most of the positions are based at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. You can read the full invite at the bottom of this post.

It’s unclear how many BlackBerry employees Apple has picked up so far, but AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski says that the recruitment event was “well-attended.”

Of course, Apple could actually be doing BlackBerry a favor. Back in September, after predicting a nasty $995 million loss for the second fiscal quarter, the company announced that it was planning to sack 4,500 employees as part of a major restructuring process in an effort to reduce expenditure by 50%.

Source: AllThingsD

If you are interested in working on the world’s most advanced mobile devices and operating systems as well as alongside other amazing, talented and passionate engineers then Apple may have opportunities for you. Apple’s Engineering and Operations Recruiting Team is hosting a career event in your town! We will have Hiring Managers and Recruiters present to talk about exciting opportunities throughout Apple.

The career event will be on Thursday, September 26th from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3 pm to 7 pm. … Please bring multiple copies of your resume on the day of the event as there may be a chance to speak with multiple hiring managers.

Most positions will be based in Cupertino, CA. Relocation and immigration assistance will be provided for candidates that are hired, as needed.

You can check out all Apple career opportunities by visiting www.apple.com/jobs. Thank you and we hope to see you in person Thursday, September 26th.

If you happen to know of others that might be interested in attending, please pass along this invite as we would love to meet them as well.

Warm Regards,

Apple’s Recruiting Team 


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