The talented candidate you’re seeking to fill an open position can often be a passive one -- someone not currently looking for new employment. Does your recruiting program have a strategy for identifying and targeting passive candidates?

1. Creating a Proactive Recruiting Strategy to
Target Passive Candidates
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2. About Our Sponsor: Cachinko
• Reduce administrative time and wastes by 60% or more
• She can focus more time engaging the Talent Community and filling
positions
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3. What is a Passive Candidate?
• Individuals not currently looking for new work
– But open to opportunities that pique their interest
• Fully employed
– Usually relatively happy in their current jobs
• Might be looking for a better job, but sparingly
• Won’t find these candidates through traditional
channels
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4. Passive Candidate Statistics
• A recent CareerBuilder survey of more than
2,400 employers & 3,900 workers nationwide
revealed:
– 76% of employees reported that they would change jobs in
2011 for the right opportunity, although they were not
actively looking
– That’s a lot of passive candidates!
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5. Why Target Passive Candidates?
• The talented candidate you’re seeking to fill an
open position can often be a passive one
– Talented candidates tend to be employed
– Traditional recruiting tactics often overlook passive
candidates
• Individuals with sought-after skills and specific
expertise tend to be passive candidates
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6. Where to Find Passive Candidates
• Passive candidates aren’t looking where active
candidates are, such as job boards
• If you’re looking to target passive candidates,
you need to focus on:
– Referral programs
– Networking tactics
• Social & professional networking sites: LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter, etc.
– Niche job sites
– Talent communities
– Highly targeted campaigns
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7. How to Attract Passive Candidates
• Typically happily employed and not looking to
transition
– However, they are open to opportunities
• Need to be thoroughly convinced of the reasons
to change jobs
– Better opportunities -- Title change
– Employer brand -- Different responsibilities
– More room to move up -- Better compensation & benefits
– Higher quality team
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8. How to Attract Passive Candidates
• Make the “upsides” clear to the candidate:
– Why should they leave their current position to work for you?
– What additional responsibilities will they have?
– Do you offer a better culture, team, supervisor, etc.?
– What else makes your company unique?
– Will you offer superior compensation or benefits?
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9. Developing a Strategy for Passive Candidates
• Proactive networking
– Developing a unique employer/recruiter brand on LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter and niche sites
– Develop relationships with candidates
– Fill your talent pipeline before an opening occurs
• Employee referral programs
– Employees often have talented people in their personal
networks from past jobs or personal connections
– These individuals are essentially pre-qualified by your
workers
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10. Developing a Strategy for Passive Candidates
• Niche job sites
– Many passive candidates are not looking on job boards,
but are active on niche industry and organization sites
• Talent communities
– Platform for interaction between job candidates, recruiters,
hiring managers, former/current employees
– Can be divided into talent networks
– Great way to keep passive candidates engaged and
interacting with your organization
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11. Developing a Strategy for Passive Candidates
• Focus on the employer brand
– Should have a compelling mission, vision or strategy
• Focus on the job
– Should provide an opportunity for the person to grow &
develop
– What will they be doing?
– What’s in it for the candidate?
– Why would they want to leave their current job for this
position?
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12. Developing a Strategy for Passive Candidates
• Target the passive candidate
– They may be looking and interested, but often they don’t
take the next step and apply for an opening
– Highly targeted ad campaigns can help get the passive
candidates’ attention
– Many organizations use Facebook Ads as a way to get in
front of a passive candidate
– Other social networking platforms give you insight into a
candidate in order to figure out what their needs & wants
truly are
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13. Developing a Strategy for Passive Candidates
• Consider going mobile with your recruiting
– Make it easy for the candidate to connect with and follow
you
– Mobile websites
– Applications
– SMS campaigns
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14. Execute & Measure the Strategy
• Determine how to best go about targeting
passive candidates
• Measure your efforts along the way
– What’s working?
– What isn’t?
– How do you know?
• What other tactics can you implement to
improve your passive recruitment strategy?
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15. Thank you!
Contact Heather at heather@comerecommended.com