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September 27, 2024
If you’re struggling to find high quality candidates for a role, it might be time to take a new approach. Traditional recruitment involves posting a job opening and waiting for applicants to apply. These applicants are usually out of work or unhappy in their current role. While this process might work for the majority of situations, there are some occasions where you might want to take a different approach.
Passive candidates are those who aren’t currently looking for a new role – but they might be curious to hear about new opportunities if they are available. They might be quite happy in their current role, but the opportunity to take the next step in their career or work for a larger or more prestigious company could be enough for them to consider a change.
By opening up your search to include passive candidates, you are vastly increasing the options available to you. This means you’re not just speaking to candidates that are actively looking for work, you’re also speaking to those that are content in their current roles.
It’s a commonly held belief that it’s easier to find work when you’re in work. Recruiters can use this to their advantage by starting conversations with passive employees that might not necessarily be actively looking for work. Here are just some of the benefits of hiring passive candidates:
When you approach passive candidates, they are already happy in their current role. They have no reason to consider a move – unless, of course, you can offer them a compelling reason to look elsewhere. When passive candidates are willing to have a conversation, you can be confident they are really interested in working for your company.
They aren’t motivated by the desire to land any role available to them, as they already have a job they like to fall back on. This can lead to a more engaged, honest and open recruitment process where the candidate and the employer can be realistic about the role and their expectations.
When you start your search with passive candidates, you can be confident they’ll be ready to hit the ground running in their new role. This is because they might already be working in a similar role. The task for the recruiter is to convince the candidate that they should simply continue doing their current job for a new employer.
Many passive employees aren’t actively looking for a new role because they aren’t actively unhappy with the existing position or worried about being made redundant. However, the attention that comes from being headhunted and the boost that comes with a pay rise or a signing bonus to join a new company can be highly motivating. So not only do you get an employee who is ready to hit the ground running, they are also motivated by the added boost of knowing they have been hand-chosen by the company.
Some roles are so niche that you’ll struggle to find the ideal candidate from a sea of applicants. Instead, you need to take a proactive role in approaching candidates that you already know are qualified for the position.
In some cases, there are only a handful of qualified individuals in an area, so you’ll have no choice but to approach passive candidates to determine if you can convince them to have a conversation.
If you are operating in a highly competitive sector where skilled workers are always in short supply, you’ll have no choice but to accept that this is an employee’s market. You may have to compete on things like salary and benefits – you can also expect the candidate’s current employer to make a counter offer that you might have to match.
When you identify passive candidates, you’ll often find that the interview process looks a lot more like a conversation rather than an interview. Passive candidates are not actively looking for work, so they aren’t pushed into self-promotion mode. This means they will show up in a more genuine and authentic way, without the need to inflate their skills or experience.
This can make the interview process much easier, as you’ll be in a better position to find a long-term hire for the role. Candidates can be upfront about their expectations and long-term ambitions. They are far more likely to be honest about these factors if they aren’t motivated by the need to find a job.
The process for hiring passive candidates will be much more labour intensive than if you simply advertised the role and waited for applicants to find you. It requires a proactive approach and an in-depth understanding of the role you are hoping to fill.
It could also be more costly. It requires a dedicated headhunter to spend time identifying candidates for the role. It’s also possible that the candidate will have a long notice period they have to honour, so it’s not suitable if you need someone to start as soon as possible.
As with all kinds of recruitment, there are pros and cons to every method, including passive recruitment. In some situations, it’s essential to fill roles that it would be unwise to advertise externally. This could be the case when the job opening is strategically important and revealing information about the role would be problematic from a PR perspective or it could reveal information about plans for growth.
If you are hiring for a very niche role, it can also be beneficial to choose passive hiring. This will give you access to a larger pool of candidates. Bear in mind that you may need to offer a competitive salary package if you are hoping to convince a candidate to make the switch. Candidates will know that being headhunted means that they are in high demand, and they will want to negotiate the best possible deal.
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