Attracting Passive Candidates: The What, When, Why, and How

The Difference Between Active and Passive Candidates

Active and passive candidates differ in whether they are looking for a job or not. Their job-related behaviors reflect the same.

Active Candidates

• Active candidates are those actively seeking jobs.
• They participate in usual job-seeking activities such as browsing and applying to postings, getting in touch with companies and recruiters, and overall being active on job boards.
• They tend to have broader skill sets and more flexible career aspirations.
• The active candidate pool is diverse, with varying levels of experience and expertise under each potential recruit’s wing.
• The active candidate pool also has more volume.
• Recruiting active candidates requires greater investment such as platform fees, training costs, etc.
• Active candidates can join sooner, sometimes immediately.

Passive Candidates

• Passive candidates are people who are currently employed, content with their employment situation, and not necessarily looking to change.
• They participate in and add value to the industry as a whole by developing content, attending networking events, conference participation, conducting and attending workshops, etc. However, they aren’t active on job boards and rarely reach out to recruiters and organizations.
• Passive candidates have more focused career aspirations.
• Passive candidates possess a greater degree of specialization in their job field.
• The passive candidate pool is very narrow, as meaningfully getting in touch with and persuading such candidates requires tact and strategy.
• While passive candidates might require higher packages, they don’t incur usual recruitment costs and end up being cheaper to hire.
• Passive candidates usually have to serve a notice period before joining and/or close any projects they might be part of.

Attracting Passive Candidates: When to Recruit Them?

Dipping into a pool of passive candidates might not always be the best course of action. Some roles do require more flexible and diverse skills, especially for entry-level and mid-level positions. Thus, attracting passive candidates is ideal when you’re looking to fill a very specific role with clearly defined requirements. The roles best suited to passive candidates are:

Highly skilled roles

You can consider attracting passive candidates when you are filling a highly skilled role that requires years of industry experience. The benefit of passive candidates in such a scenario is that you can look for people already working in similar roles. These candidates will likely require little to no training and serve as experts right after joining.

Roles critical for your business

For the same reasons mentioned above, passive candidates are ideal for filling critical positions. They have the right experience and expertise to serve your business in the right capacity, ensuring success.

Leadership roles

Lastly, you can think of attracting passive candidates for leadership roles. This is already a common practice in recruitment as these roles require confident, experienced, and proactive individuals who have a proven track record of making decisions that reap results.

Attracting Passive Candidates: Why Should You Recruit Them?

If the pool of active candidates is wider than that of passive candidates, why should you recruit them? Here are some reasons why:

The active candidate pool is not abundant

According to LinkedIn, out of active job-seekers, the top talent gets recruited within 10 days of actively searching. Due to this, only 10-20% of people are actively looking for jobs at any given moment (Source: LinkedIn and Indeed). Thus, recruiting active candidates can sometimes be very competitive and may not guarantee that you get the best talent.

Passive candidates require less training

Passive candidates are already proficient in their roles and thus, require lesser training. They can start contributing to the organization quicker and save the business training dollars. According to LinkedIn, the likelihood of passive candidates requiring training is only 17%.

Passive candidates make a guaranteed impact on the business

Lastly, a passive candidate will make a guaranteed impact on your business. Figures suggest that compared to active candidates, passive candidates are 120% more likely to reap tangible rewards.

Attracting Passive Candidates: How to Recruit Them?

Now that you are familiar with who passive candidates are and when and why they are good fits, let’s look at some strategies for attracting passive candidates.

Relationship building and talent outreach

The first strategy is relationship building and talent outreach. It is recommended to stay proactive if you plan on recruiting passive candidates. Thus, it is important to build relationships with known professionals even before you start recruiting.

Have a group of professionals you can reach out to ready, so you can contact potential candidates the moment a position opens up. One great way to do this is by making connections on LinkedIn. By building relationships, you prime your company for potentially quick and easy recruitment in the long term, eliminating the time and investment strategies like cold emailing and browsing job boards might require.

Develop talent pipelines and build talent communities

Consistently connect with professionals in your industry through relevant industry and business updates such as industry knowledge, new projects, job openings, and company culture. By doing so, you can build interest in your organization and its work. Talent pipelines and communities also help in building cordial relationships with professionals, making it easier to reach out and connect with them when a position opens up. When you have already known a passive candidate for a while, they are more likely to consider your offer and less likely to reject it outright.

Participate in networking events

Participate in networking events and showcase your company’s work, culture, perks, benefits, and potential. Doing so is a great way for attracting passive candidates by increasing your business’ visibility in your professional community, establishing rapport, and generating interest.

Establish strong employer branding

Build your employer brand and highlight your industry influence and the ways in which you are pro-employee and growth-oriented. Build awareness about your company’s culture through sneak peeks, testimonials, and web and social media content.

Make compelling pitches and tailor the recruitment process to passive candidates

Since passive candidates are employed and content, they require very compelling pitches to be swayed. Activities such as networking and participating in communities gives you a peak into what each passive candidate is looking for. Use this knowledge to your advantage by making tailor-made pitches that address what passive candidates are looking for.

Additionally, be specific about perks, benefits, and the salary package you are offering so you have better sway over candidates. Additionally, tailor the recruitment process to working individuals by keeping applications short, interviews focused on skill and competence, and giving leeway when it comes to up-to-date resumes and portfolios. Additionally, schedule interviews during times that work for your candidates, eliminating the need for them to sacrifice breaks or take half or full-day leaves.

Utilize employee referrals

Lastly, utilize employee referrals. Ask your employees to spread the word among their professional communities and leverage the benefits of word-of-mouth and trustworthy testimonials. This is a fast, cheap, and highly effective way of recruiting passive candidates as people are more likely to trust a job offer when it comes from someone they trust.

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Knowledge Check!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who are passive candidates?

Passive candidates are professionals already working in roles you are looking to hire in who are content with their jobs and not considering a switch anytime soon.

How do you attract passive talent?

Some tips for attracting passive talent are:

• Relationship building and talent outreach
• Develop talent pipelines and build talent communities
• Participate in networking events
• Establish strong employer branding
• Make compelling pitches and tailor the recruitment process to passive candidates
• Utilize employee referrals

How do you find passive candidates?

You can find passive candidates through LinkedIn, networking events, professional communities and groups, and referrals.