Engagement and Attraction: How to Recruit Passive Candidates Effectively

Passive candidates are what recruiters and hiring managers crave for. They are the elu­sive can­di­dates that aren’t on job boards and usu­ally don’t even realise there is an amaz­ing oppor­tu­nity wait­ing for them around the cor­ner. Their CVs don’t fill job boards, pas­sive can­di­dates often come from rec­om­men­da­tions, social media or alter­na­tive channels.

Pas­sive can­di­dates may take a lit­tle per­sua­sion, but they are often the biggest sur­prised and the hap­pi­est that they land a job they didn’t even know they wanted. Don’t these can­di­dates sound great! So, what’s the best approach for attract­ing pas­sive candidates?

A live chat func­tion that allows poten­tial employ­ees to engage with your organ­i­sa­tion is a good start. Firstly, you will make your com­pany avail­able to poten­tial can­di­dates in a way that few already do. Sec­ond, you demon­strate to the world that you are a forward-thinking, tech­no­log­i­cally advanced com­pany and just the sort of place the mod­ern worker would want to be. Third, you human­ise the pub­lic face of your organ­i­sa­tion and give it per­son­al­ity beyond the cor­po­rate facade.

Become techno-savvy. Are you a black belt Boolean searcher? Do you know how to insti­gate a Twit­ter search to find the peo­ple you want by skill-set and geo­graphic loca­tion? You don’t? Well, now is the time to get up-to-speed. Using web­sites like Fol­low­er­Wonk will allow you to find spe­cific skills in spe­cific loca­tions based on people’s tweets or bio infor­ma­tion. Such sites allow you to find peo­ple with spe­cific skills and inter­est in places you might never have searched pre­vi­ously. There are many other tools avail­able, but too may for this article!

In our mod­ern world there is noth­ing more appeal­ing to peo­ple than a good story, and what bet­ter place to tell a story about your com­pany than on your own careers web­site and social chan­nels. What suc­cesses have you had with employ­ees? Tell their story! Pro­mo­tions, pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment, and per­sonal devel­op­ment, How­ever you have sup­ported your staff and how happy they are as employ­ees pro­vides you with the per­fect oppor­tu­nity to sell your own employer brand. What bet­ter way to attract a pas­sive can­di­date than by hav­ing a cur­rent employee win them over from a per­sonal, pas­sion­ate article/blog about their expe­ri­ences within your company.

How social is your social media strat­egy? Peo­ple expect instant replies to enquiries — if some­one pas­sively con­tacts you via your com­pany Twit­ter account who will reply? What will the reply be? What poli­cies do you have in place for social responses? This is a key tool in attract­ing pas­sive can­di­dates so make sure you have a plan and that it is upheld and tracked.

Being social is vital (and a fan­tas­tic way to con­nect with can­di­dates), but merely being social isn’t enough. Once you make con­tact with a can­di­date you must stay in con­tact — use your social con­nec­tions with pas­sives can­di­dates to invite them to net­work­ing events and update them on your lat­est vacan­cies. Cre­at­ing your own con­tent that can be shared across your social net­works will demon­strate to pas­sive can­di­dates that you have your fin­ger on the pulse (and it will keep them inter­ested in you) — blog about the lat­est hot topic or write an in-depth arti­cle about the lat­est leg­is­la­tion affect­ing your indus­try — but remem­ber, to keep your audi­ence engaged, what you cre­ate must catch their imagination!

A pow­er­ful brand is a huge attrac­tion to poten­tial can­di­dates — a well-branded com­pany with a respectable name can be all the draw needed to rip a can­di­date out of one com­pany and into the next. How does your employer brand appear to those look­ing closely at you? Get an objec­tive opin­ion — Is your organ­i­sa­tion the sort of place that peo­ple will nat­u­rally flock to? If not, why not?

The con­tem­po­rary recruit­ment mar­ket is a tough one. There is a bat­tle for the hottest tal­ent and you must tap into the pas­sive mar­ket if you are going to win. There are a mil­lion ways to attract pas­sive can­di­dates, but the best, time tested, proven method for secur­ing top tal­ent — be a great com­pany that looks after all of your employ­ees, pro­mote from within and develop staff to excel. Word will quickly spread and the pas­sive can­di­dates will flock to you!