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Recruitment & Retention

Published December 2008

Appealing to the Passive Job Seeker

 

  Deanna Hartley

In an unstable economy, the war for talent intensifies and organizations look to build and sustain highly qualified talent pools. Typical recruiting strategies require the active participation of recruiters and potential hires alike. Passive recruiting, on the other hand, means pursuing skilled professionals who are currently employed but are open to opportunities that allow for professional advancement.

Bypass the 'Post and Pray' Methodology

According to Peter Cohen, vice president of product management at Authoria, a provider of talent management solutions, passive job seekers are characterized in the following ways:

• They are productive in their current positions.
• They are likely highly valued by their employers.
• They are open to bigger challenges and more opportunities.

"[A passive job seeker is] really anybody who's not actively seeking a job," said Stephen Lowisz, president and CEO of Qualigence, a recruitment research and professional search firm. "They're not on Monster, CareerBuilder or any other job boards, classified ads and so forth."

So how do recruiters find them? Jen Warne, director of recruiting at global professional services firm Towers Perrin, said one way is to build long-term relationships with potential passive candidates, as opposed to direct recruiting pitches for a specific opening.

"Our business partners [or] hiring managers are fully engaged and committed to taking the time necessary to network with great talent; therefore, when we call a strong prospect, we are in a position to offer something different," Warne said.

"We can offer them the opportunity to network with business leadership and other key decision makers in the firm. Networking is a key ingredient to business success, so most prospects are open to networking with us," she said.

Laurie Nielsen, corporate resource manager at RCM Technologies, a business and technology solutions provider, has spent almost a decade building a database of contacts that often provide her with references.

She also uses a variety of networking and job sites to locate potential candidates — not just ones currently looking for jobs, but also those who may have been job hunting years ago and now may be considering a change.

The traditional recruiting technique is referred to by many corporations as the "post and pray" method — post an opening, then pray the right candidate comes through the door, said Lauryn Franzoni, vice president and executive editor at ExecuNet, an executive recruiting and human capital firm. Recruiting passive candidates allows recruiters to play a much more active role in the process.

Recruiter Research is a Requirement

In the same way a salesperson must research a product prior to selling it, a recruiter must take the time to familiarize him or herself with the position. Having a conversation with the company's marketing representative is not sufficient to appeal to passive candidates.