Limiting your candidate pool to people who are currently actively looking for a new job can actually increase your overall recruitment costs and can put you far behind your competition in hiring top performers, especially if you are replacing a key executive or an open position requiring a unique skill set. As a result, an increasing number of companies are making long-term commitments to include passive recruiting as an integral part of their overall recruiting strategy.
Passive recruiting isn't new - most companies have used it to find executives by engaging third party contingent or retained search vendors. What is different, is that businesses are now using this approach for lower level exempt and individual contributor positions as well, particularly ones where there may be a shortage of skilled talent.
Tips for hiring your next superstar
Below are some best practices to keep in mind to successfully recruit and hire passive candidates:
Know the job specifics well and why the position is uniquely exceptional
Since passive talent isn't looking, you must offer instant credibility with opportunities that offer significant benefits and upside potential for them. Recruiters who know the integral details of a job can use this information to better sell a passive candidate and then use the screening process to create an opportunity gap between a candidate's current position and the new job.
Know how to sell the company value proposition
Hiring managers must make a compelling first impression that persuades a passive candidate to consider your opportunity over his or her current job. Employers who ask people to jump through too many hoops during the process will likely find their much desired passive job candidates removing themselves from consideration in high numbers.
Keep the process flexible and fast
Hiring managers who are available to speak with a candidate by phone or in person when the candidate is most available will demonstrate - through their actions - their company's sincere interest in the person. Managers must also be timely (i.e., no longer than 48 hours) in their post-interview feedback and hiring decisions, or they could risk a candidate losing interest in the opportunity.
Position passive recruiting as a long-term investment
Passive talent takes three to five times longer to develop into qualified candidates, than active candidates who directly inquire about open current positions. As such, companies should use this strategy to attract high-quality future hires, not to fill immediate needs.
Having a dedicated resource to develop relationships with passive candidates at key competitors, in advance of actual need, will have a snowball effect on significantly reducing future hiring cycle time and costs, as your recruiters and company become well networked among your targeted talent pool.
Prepare a very competitive offer
A good rule of thumb is that most content candidates will not consider a job change unless the compensation differential is at least 10-20 percent higher than their current compensation. Anything less could insult the candidate and potentially damage your employment brand among the candidate's peer network, a group that could include additional people of the same calibre who you would like to recruit.
Develop a high touch hiring process
Frequent communication throughout the hiring process is key to keeping a passive candidate excited about an opportunity. Time that elapses between next steps can significantly increase the chance of a candidate withdrawing from the process or declining your offer.
A bad passive candidate hiring experience can result in significant damage to your employment brand among that person's sphere of influence. Be sure hiring managers are trained on the importance of treating ALL passive job candidates as if they were the "Michael Jordan" of your industry.
Make referrals a part of your culture - starting with your on-boarding process
New hires are excited about their new positions and, if cultivated properly, are more willing to give you names of people like them. Referral bonus incentives can supercharge your talent pool on an ongoing basis. Pay-stub promotional campaigns that pay a special bonus for select, hard-to-fill jobs (e.g., accounting, sales, etc.) and can be extremely effective if you have the mechanisms to quickly follow up on the referrals and promptly issue the bonus payment if the referral meets the established criteria.
Passive recruiting can be a very effective way to source top talent, but it is certainly not the only way. Many hiring managers worry that candidates who are actively looking for a new position may not be successful or stable in their careers and therefore are not suitable for critical positions.
In actuality, many high calibre candidates who are happy in their current jobs periodically post their resumes confidentially to job board resume databases or directly apply to open positions posted on a desired employer's website.
Therefore, companies need to take a multi-source approach to identifying a particular pool of talent or they may miss out on the one person who was not looking yesterday, but today is open to considering a new opportunity.