The recruitment scene today is more competitive than ever. With the rise of remote work, digital transformation, and talent shortages, finding the right candidates for your open positions can be a daunting task. You may have tried posting your jobs on various platforms, reaching out to active job seekers, and screening hundreds of resumes, only to end up with mediocre results. But what if we told you that there is a hidden pool of talent that you may be overlooking? A pool of talent that is not actively looking for a job, but may be open to new opportunities if you approach them the right way. A pool of talent that is highly qualified, motivated, and loyal. We are talking about passive candidates.
What Is a Passive Candidate?
A passive candidate is someone who already has a job and is not actively looking for a new one. They are not browsing job boards, sending out resumes, or attending interviews. They are satisfied with their current role, or at least not unhappy enough to leave.
However, that does not mean that they are not interested in hearing from you. According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce is made up of passive candidates, and 87% of them are open to new opportunities. [1] That means that there are millions of potential candidates out there who may be willing to join your company if you can convince them that you have something better to offer.
Passive Recruiting: How Does It Differ from Active Recruiting?
Passive recruiting is the process of attracting passive candidates. It is different from active recruiting, which focuses on finding and hiring active job seekers. Here are some of the key differences between passive and active recruiting:
Benefits of Passive Recruiting
You may be wondering why you should bother with passive recruiting when you already have enough active candidates to choose from. Well, there are many benefits of passive recruiting that can give you an edge over your competitors. Here are some of them:
- You can access a larger and more diverse talent pool that may not be visible on traditional channels.
- You’ll be able to reduce your hiring costs by avoiding bidding wars and paying high salaries for in-demand skills.
- Passive recruiting helps you improve your hiring quality by finding candidates who have proven track records, relevant experience, and strong referrals.
- You can enhance your employer brand by showcasing your culture, values, and vision to potential candidates.
- You can also increase your retention rate by hiring candidates who are more likely to stay loyal, engaged, and productive.
How to Do Passive Recruiting Like a Champ
Now that you know what passive recruiting is and why it matters, you may be wondering how to do it effectively. Here are five strategies that can help you succeed in passive recruiting:
1. Start with Your Own Network
One of the easiest ways to find passive candidates is to tap into your existing connections. Ask your employees, colleagues, clients, partners, alumni, friends, and family for referrals. They may know someone who fits your criteria and can vouch for their skills and character. You can also incentivize your referrals by offering rewards or recognition for successful hires.
2. Use Social Media Wisely
Another way to reach passive candidates is to use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You can use these platforms to showcase your company culture, share valuable content, join relevant groups, follow industry influencers, comment on posts, and send personalized messages.
3. Create a Talent Pipeline
Instead of waiting for vacancies to arise before you start looking for candidates, you should proactively build a talent pipeline of potential hires. You can do this by sourcing candidates from various sources like job boards, career pages, resume databases, etc., and adding them to your Applicant Tracking System (ATS). You can then segment them by skills, experience, location, etc., and nurture them with regular updates, newsletters, invitations, and so on.
4. Leverage AI Recommendations
One of the challenges of passive recruiting is finding the best match among thousands of candidates in your database. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help you. AI can analyze your job requirements and candidate profiles and provide you with recommendations based on various criteria like skills, experience, education, personality, etc.
5. Make a Compelling Offer
Once you have identified and engaged with your passive candidates, you need to make them an offer they can’t refuse. This means that you need to understand their motivations, expectations, and pain points, and tailor your offer accordingly. You need to highlight the benefits of working for your company, such as the culture, vision, growth opportunities, compensation, perks, and so forth. You also need to be flexible and respectful of their current situation and timeline.
Conclusion
Passive recruiting is a powerful strategy that can help you find and hire the best talent for your company. It requires more time, effort, creativity, and patience than active recruiting, but it can also bring you more rewards in terms of quality, cost, and retention. To do passive recruiting like a pro, you need to use the right tools and techniques to source and attract passive candidates.
One of the tools that can help you with passive recruiting is Manatal, a leading AI recruitment software that is designed to source and hire candidates faster. Manatal has many features that can help you with passive recruiting, such as:
- A LinkedIn extension that allows you to enrich candidate profiles with data from their social media accounts.
- A career page builder that lets you create a branded and customizable career page for your website.
- A talent pipeline that helps you source candidates from various sources and nurture them with regular communication.
- An AI engine that analyzes your job requirements and candidate profiles and provides you with recommendations based on various criteria.
- A collaboration and activity feature that allows you to manage user roles and invite hiring managers to collaborate. You can also integrate your calendar and mailbox to optimize your time management.
- And more.
Start a 14-day free trial with Manatal today to discover more of its innovative features and see how it can help you do passive recruiting like a pro with a few clicks.
Citations:
1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-100-hiring-statistics-2022-rinku-thakkar/