Every company is well aware of today’s extremely competitive job market. As a result, businesses of all sizes must change their recruiting strategies if they want to fill their vacancies with skilled professionals, especially tech talent. Fortunately, there is a solution to hiring in these circumstances, such as focusing on passive candidates.
If your recruitment efforts are focused solely on attracting active candidates, you are losing out on a massive pool of highly-qualified talent. Besides, you are letting your competition win them over. So, why should companies focus their efforts on recruiting such talent? Is it worth the time and effort?
This article aims to answer these questions and explain why you should be putting a greater emphasis on attracting passive job candidates.
The Advantages of Recruiting Passive Job Seekers
Businesses used to have a wider pool of active candidates to choose from. These are individuals who are actively looking for new career opportunities and applying for jobs on a regular basis. In most cases, they are readily available.
Contrary to them, passive candidates are individuals who are currently employed and not looking to change jobs. These qualified professionals are not actively applying for available positions, although they are often willing to hear about new employment opportunities. However, they make up over 70% of global working professionals.
This startling number is only one of the reasons why you should direct your recruiting efforts toward hiring passive talent. Here are seven more:
1. Less Time Pressure
In most cases, companies have to act fast when hiring active job seekers. In such a tight labor market, it can be extremely difficult to reach top talent in time and take them through an entire hiring process.
Active candidates often have several opportunities at once and may even be in different processes, which puts pressure on you to act fast. If the potential candidate gets a better job offer, you lose your opportunity and need to start again by recruiting another candidate. This pressure is often lower when you reach out to passive candidates who haven’t yet decided to leave their current job.
Less time pressure gives you more space to focus on details without the risk of losing a prospective candidate or speeding up the recruitment process and hiring the wrong person.
2. Less Competition
There are more passive candidates than active ones, so when you go after passive job seekers, you already have less competition to deal with. Although finding and hiring active candidates is easier, this doesn’t mean that passive candidates aren’t worth your effort.
When you do passive sourcing, you can expand your talent pool and find candidates your competitors may not even be looking for. A lot of people would consider leaving their job if they found a better position with good benefits and an even better employer brand. So, you need to demonstrate this to different prospective candidates.
3. More Skills
A passive candidate currently employed at a company will likely have the necessary skills and expertise for the position you want to fill. You can evaluate their skills by speaking with their present coworkers or reviewing a portfolio of their completed projects.
Passive applicants have a higher employability rate and are more likely to be successful hires. You may trust that they have the right qualifications if, for instance, you need a qualified Java developer and they are actively working in that field.
4. You Can Build A Relationship With Passive Candidates Before Hiring
When you target passive job seekers, you may find candidates interested in your company but not currently in a position to become a part of it. Even if this happens, it is still an excellent opportunity for you to build a strong relationship with great talent. You can stay in touch and, once they are ready, hire them for your open role. This can shorten your time-to-hire for future job openings.
5. Passive Candidates Choose Your Company
Passive candidates take the time to study your company and choose to join it for a reason. They know exactly what they are looking for. The same can be said for active job seekers, however, due to their situation, these candidates are generally less critical. They either want to leave their job as soon as possible or are currently unemployed, making them more inclined to accept less desirable positions.
6. Passive Candidates Are Eager to Grow
Passive candidates are career-driven, which is great since every company needs ambitious employees who want to grow. By hiring passive candidates, you’re automatically bringing that growth-minded attitude into your company. However, this is also a challenge for your company because you must establish an environment where employees can grow.
7. It Strengthens Your Employer Brand
The relationships you build with passive candidates benefit your employer branding. By maintaining these relationships, you are expanding your network, referrals, and talent pools. Your employer brand will grow organically as a result of these measures, allowing you to attract other job seekers, both active and passive.
Conclusion
If your ideal candidates are not available among active job seekers, your other option is to look for them in the pool of passive candidates. This group of passive job seekers is also much bigger. Staying in contact with these candidates through passive recruitment provides advantages over more traditional forms of recruitment, like posting job openings.
With passive recruiting, you will save time, money, and resources, but more importantly, you will have a wide talent pool filled with quality candidates. So, once a role in your company opens up, you will know exactly where to find the right candidates for it.
Hundreds of new candidates are looking for job openings every day, and CIBR Warriors are here to help you find the right one for you. For more help in advancing your career or finding a qualified candidate in IT and Cybersecurity, contact us. We’d be happy to answer your questions and provide you with the best advice for getting started.
