Passive candidates: how recruiters actively look for them

Peter Crush

In just about any other walk of life, those described as being ‘passive’ would be people most companies wouldn’t waste their time and effort even attempting to engage with.

Home sellers want active buyers; clubs want active members. Passives are the proverbial tyre kickers – the time wasters. Except, that is, in recruitment.

Passives are the hard-to-gets. Their very ‘off-limits’ nature makes them perfect to chase for new roles.

“There is no doubt that passive candidates continue to be the segment recruiters want,” says Donna Weiss, MD at management consultancy, CEB. “Research shows 51% of the labour force are ‘passive’, against the 18% that are currently ‘active’, so not only do they represent a larger pool of people, they’re also the people haven’t flogged their CVs around. They’re the people who are doing great jobs, who aren’t looking around; and that makes them highly desirable.”

According to research from Monster, 1.2 million people in the UK are actively looking for a new role, but there are 7.7 million that apparently can be tempted. But the very reason Weiss says they are attractive also means they’re a problem. They’re just not looking around, and they can be unresponsive to being approached.

So, just what are the methods agencies should use to find passive job seekers, and how should they persuade them to up-tools, and leave their current employer for someone else?

Limitations of social networks

In recent years the most obvious method has been to make greater use of LinkedIn – regarded by many as the largest reservoir of passive candidates. But its popularity means it is also something candidates have become wise to.

Denise Hughes, MD of Woopjobs! – a specialist recruitment agency for the audio-visual and digital sector, says approximately one third of her candidate sourcing now comes from the business social network (normally lower level roles), but advises: “You’ve got to pick your approach carefully.”

She adds: “People are a lot more wary of recruiter activity now, and that has made our job harder. We couch an approach very much along the lines of – ‘would you like to learn about opportunities we think you may be suited to?’, and we prefer to build them up as warm candidates first, rather than try to sell them a specific job there and then.”

According to Peter Burgess, MD at Retail Human Resources, the UK’s largest recruitment company specialising in the retail sector, it’s still traditional approaches that matter – and that means learning what interests people.

“Tools like LinkedIn only go so far,” he argues. “It’s a good shop window, but on its own it does not provide the depth recruiters need. It’s still through learning what motivates a candidate; what inspires them, and talking about their experiences and strengths in their own language that an expert consultant earns their crust.”

According to Weiss, it’s the content (such as the sincerity shown) that is of greatest importance, rather than the specific channel agencies use to communicate this message through that matters most. Although here, she argues it could be bad news for agencies.

“We’ve often found that when a ‘are you interested in this role?’ message needs to be sent, there is greater cut-through if it actually comes direct from the employer.” She adds: “Passive candidates are passive for a reason. Messages that comes from intermediaries are treated with more caution.”

Building people’s trust

Hughes says she is acutely aware of this. A solution she has come up with has been to actually use the parts of social media people like engaging with to her advantage – the networking side of it.

“We’ve actually built our own LinkedIn interest group, where we have wider conversations about the industry as a whole,” she explains. “We will obviously also post posts up about jobs, but doing things this way means people feel part of our community.

“What actually happens,” she continues “is that people are now coming direct to us, within LinkedIn, because they say our brand really sticks out. We’ve become somewhere people can go and people trust us. This saves us having to go to them.”

It may well be that a further strategy (particularly from the smaller agencies), is to piggyback the technology of the mainstream job boards more. Not only do these websites have more money to invest, they still need to prove to employers that they provide a channel that works. For instance, sites like technojobs.co.uk are now developing new ways jobs can reach passive job seekers.

Anthony Sherick, its director of technologies, says: “We now have about 25-30 of our own targeted Twitter feeds, that will deliver job details to people based on the skillset profiles of different sets of people. Increasingly, Twitter is how younger people should be sent information about jobs. We know for a fact we deliver clients hundreds of jobs applications from passive people this way.”

The fact of the matter is, passive candidates will increasingly have to be the pool of people that recruiters need to talk to. ONS data suggests that unemployment is now going down, but at the same time, the number of job vacancies (ie number of positions being advertised) is going up.

The market has now reached a point where there are falling numbers of unemployed people to satisfy the rate of new jobs being advertised. There will be knockbacks, from those who don’t want to be contacted by agencies, but those who are smart will have developed strategies to reach them.

It’s worth remembering however, says Andy Sumner, MD of Monster (UK), that while passive candidates are good, the industry should not forget to target those who are classed as active also.

He says: “Employers want a mixture of both. At least those who are active have taken a conscious decision to look for a new role, so recruiters should never discount these people.”

Social media in the recruitment process: statistics

 80% of LinkedIn users not currently seeking a new job (they are passive candidates)

Top external sources of hire: iCIMS
Recruitment Agency: 21%
LinkedIn: 4%

How recruiters use social networks: (Jobvite Social Survey 2013)

LinkedIn:
96% to search for candidates
93% to keep tabs on possible candidates
92% to vet candidates for interview
91% to post jobs

Facebook:
65% to showcase the brand
51% to generate referrals
48% to post jobs

Twitter:
47% to showcase brand
43% to post jobs
19% to contact candidates