Recruiting should not be a waiting game

Waiting around for applicants on job boards won’t guarantee you a perfect candidate. Did you know that only 32% of hired candidates are sourced from job boards? That would suggest only a small percentage of the workforce sees your company’s job board. Only ‘active’ candidates (those looking to leave their current positions) are typically surfing through job boards.

According to LinkedIn’s 2016 Global Talent Trends, 90% of professionals are open to speaking to a recruiter but only 36% of the working force are active candidates. So, who are the remaining 64%? They are your passive candidates.

What is a passive candidate?
 
Passive candidates are employed and not actively seeking new opportunities. They consider themselves happy in their current situations, but, if the right offer came along, they might be willing to speak with a recruiter or consider a new, better position. Active candidates are regularly checking job boards, reaching out to their network, and sending out their resumes. While active candidates are easy to find – they come to you, for the most part – they’re not necessarily the best choice.
 
Why go through the trouble of looking for passive candidates?
 
Passive candidates may seem difficult to engage, but there are several reasons to seek them out:
 
1)  They’re desirable.
Since passive candidates are happy with their present employment, it would suggest that their current employers have retained them because they have some skill, training or trait that makes them desirable.
 
2)  There is less competition.
A passive candidate is less likely to have other job offers since they’re not actively sending out their resumes to companies. This makes it easier to come up with an acceptable compensation package.
 
3) They have the right skill set.
Given that passive candidates are employed, they are likely currently developing their skills in their current position. If hiring managers know a candidate is actively using the same tools, it would make the decision process easier.
 
4) They are more honest about their qualifications.
Because passive candidates feel secure about their current positions, they likely will not feel the need to exaggerate on their qualifications.
 
How can you find passive candidates?
 
Sourcing passive candidates can be a long and tedious process. The traditional method involves sorting through candidates, one-by-one, on LinkedIn or some other website to gauge potential interest and experience. However, if you want to hire top talent, you have to do things differently. By posting job openings with the same cookie-cutter skills, experience, and academics, you are cloning your current employees. With this tactic, you will continue to achieve the same results you currently have, without raising the talent bar. Luckily, there is a faster way to source passive candidates.

Sourcing passive candidates faster with Candidate Intelligence

At headhuntr.io, we use Candidate Intelligence to cut down your existing recruiting cycle by 50%. Our database contains over 69 million candidate profiles of both active and passive candidates. To ensure that the data is relevant to you, we tag and classify data to incorporate candidate and company data:

Candidate Data

• Job Title and Department
• Previous and Current Job Roles
• Product Expertise
• Geography
• Skills and more

 
Company Data

• Technology Profile
• Size and Growth Profile
• Specific Industry Classification

With data, you can choose to screen out candidates who don’t have the right experience, traits, etc. for your job and company. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) may be able to streamline the resume sorting process, but there are limitations when it comes to categorization. A perfectly good candidate’s resume can be rejected for invalid reasons. Overall, ATS solutions can be inaccurate and costly. 1

With our Candidate Intelligence database, we can source a large pool of relevant, high-quality candidates in a fraction of the time while utilizing a fraction of the resources. Learn more about our sourcing services here.