You can’t recruit and hire passive candidates using the same workflow, nor the same recruiters, used for active candidates. As shown in the pie chart, 83% of fully-employed members on LinkedIn consider themselves passive when it comes to their job-hunting status. These are the Super Passives, Explorers, and Tiptoers. This breakdown is based on multiple surveys over two years (2010-2011) of LinkedIn’s fully-employed members with approximately 4,500 participants in each survey.

Over the next several months I will be putting together a series of articles, webcasts, recordings, and training sessions focused exclusively on how to find, recruit, assess, and hire passive candidates. Much of this will be converted into eBook form. Collectively, these will represent a complete guide on what it takes to recruit outstanding talent for your organization. Much of the content and examples will assume you’re using LinkedIn’s Recruiter platform; however, it will be useful for anyone who wants to find and recruit passive candidates.

You can’t recruit and hire passive candidates using the same workflow nor the same recruiters used for active candidates. 

I’m concerned that most corporate recruiters don’t understand what it really takes to recruit passive candidates. In three minutes, I think you’ll agree. If you’re looking for candidates where the demand for talent outstrips supply, the ability to recruit top passive candidates will now be more difficult than ever. Those people with good jobs will hang on even tighter, and recruiters will need to use every technique in the book to pry them loose.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out is his bestseller The Tipping Point, little things can make a big difference. The same is true when it comes to finding, recruiting, and hiring passive candidates. One big thing recruiters can do is tame their hiring manager clients. Taming your hiring managers is an essential first step if you want to recruit passive candidates.

Some points to make before you read this article:

1. It’s somewhat controversial, but by the end you’ll agree (if you get that far).
2. If you’re a corporate recruiter or HR leader, put your confirmation bias in the parking lot before reading this article.
3. You might want to listen to this YouTube video of a webcast (Future of Recruiting Circa 2020) we recently held. It will give you a sense what’s happening now and what will happen soon.

As I ponder the future of where our industry is headed, I’m reminded of Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve, from his fine book, Crossing the Chasm. It describes how users (aka “buyers”) of technology follow a predictable adoption rate, generally based on their comfort with the technology and their ability to implement change. 

Technology, especially the use of advanced business networking tools, in combination with state-of-the-art Internet marketing techniques, are fundamentally changing the face of recruiting as we once knew it. Surprisingly, most major U.S. corporations are still moving too slowly to take full advantage of these important changes. Worse, many are actually fighting or are oblivious to these changes.

Over the past several weeks we’ve devoted these articles to the topic of recruiting passive candidates, with a big emphasis on the power of LinkedIn. Much of this emphasized the need to convert boring jobs into compelling career opportunities. This is the first step for hiring top-notch passive candidates in any significant quantity. Here’s a short video Lou has prepared to show you how this is done.