You've probably heard by now, the hottest trend in hiring is to go after passive candidates: the top people who aren't actively looking for another job. If you’re interested in trying the passive candidate recruiting game, you'll have to learn a new approach. Here's an introduction:

The Recruiting Process: The process when you're sourcing and hiring active candidates is fundamentally different than what’s required to hire passive candidates. Passive candidates go slower, take more time to decide whether to become a candidate and won’t follow traditional approaches.

Most companies use a “surplus of candidates” model to plan their workflow—meaning their hiring processes are designed to get lots of people to apply, with the hope that a good person emerges. If you want to hire passive candidates, you have to use a "talent scarcity" model—designed around the concept that great talent is much more discriminating and a career opportunity discussion/decision dominates every step, from first contact to the final close.

Making Contact: When you're dealing with passive candidates, the criteria for engaging in a discussion are different than the criteria to accept an offer. Upon first contact, passive candidates usually want to know the job title, the company, the location and the compensation for your position. However, before they accept an offer, passive candidates will ask about the career opportunity, the importance of the work, the hiring manager and team, the compensation and total rewards package, work/life balance, and the company mission and culture. If you can bridge this gap on first contact, it can make the difference between hiring great people and wasting your time.

Adjust Your Pace: For top passive candidates, the decision to change jobs is a strategic decision, and it takes extra time. As a recruiter, you'll have to use consultative selling every step of the way, fashioning a career move for the candidate as part of the process. In this situation, being results-oriented is more about advancing the process along the path and hiring the best vs. getting positions filled quickly.

Want more advice on reaching passive candidates? Contact Donaldson & James today.