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Lou Adler's #1 Secret to Sourcing Passive Candidates

By Lou Adler, March 25, 2009

Pre-internet, circa 1995, there were three primary means to obtain names of passive candidates: industry guides, cold call ruses, and networking. Today there are at least 30 and the number is growing weekly. Some of these include LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Broadlook, the AIRS stuff, Twitter, Facebook, Google/Boolean searching, all of the LinkedIn search offshoots, and everything else not mentioned. However, the most important one is getting on the phone and networking.

Because it's now so easy to get names, they become less valuable. Try this string to see how easy it is to get some names of the best pharmaceutical sales reps in New Jersey: "~CV (sales OR rep) awards -reply -respond -yours -jobs -find -results NJ pharma."

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

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If you're LinkedIn to me (lou@adlerconcepts.com), this string will get you connected to people in Texas on LinkedIn who know some great J2ee developers - "J2ee|java (site:linkedin.com/pub Texas consultant|sales|systems| project|developer|engineer|product."

This is too easy, so there must be a hitch. If everyone can get the names, either they can't be very good or they're getting so many calls they won't respond to yours.

There is a way out of this dilemma, which is the first part of my big secret. The idea here is not to look at these names as potential candidates, but rather as direct links to your potential candidates. If you're good at networking, then any one of these tools can give you access to just about everyone you need to know. This is where my real secret to sourcing passive candidates now comes into play. It involves how you get these people to tell you who the best people they know are.

Consider this: you can either use the original list of names and dial for dollars, or call these people to get names of other people. Dialing for dollars doesn't work when recruiting anyone any good, passive or active, so this is a big time-wasting trap. Regardless, dialers (aka desperate recruiters) are somehow awed by how many names they can generate, not by the numbers of qualified candidates they can send out on interviews.

Yet, even if the person calls you back, you still have to qualify the person, recruit them if they're any good, and get referrals from them if they're not a fit. There is a better way.

To turn these endless lists of names into sendouts, you need to know the real secret of recruiting in today's environment. It's simply that "you have to be someone worth knowing."

Here's why this is so important. First, consider that the person has to either call you back or respond to your email. If you're worth knowing your odds increase from about 20% to 80% this will happen.

Then, you need to get the person interested in what you have to offer. If you're worth knowing they'll want to talk with you even if your current job is not a perfect fit.

Next, you need to qualify the person to see if there's a fit for your job. If you're worth knowing they'll tell you all about themselves before they even need to learn about your job.

Then, you need to convince the person to get serious and participate in some type of formal interview. If you're a person worth knowing, you can determine if you're interested in pursuing the candidate, rather than if the candidate is interested in your job.

If the person isn't a fit you have to tell the person he or she is not qualified and then get names of referrals who are qualified. If you're worth knowing, you don't even need to deal with this – you can just start getting referrals when you realize the person isn't a fit.

If you're not worth knowing, it takes about 100 outbound calls to find one decent candidate to send out on an interview. If you are "someone worth knowing" you can improve these odds by 2000%, about 1 in 5 calls! That's why being worth knowing is such a powerful secret.

While you'll have to attend Recruiter Boot Camp to learn how to become "someone worth knowing," here are some ideas to get you started:

1. You need to work for a hot company.
2. You're known as a hot recruiter in your field.
3. You're a subject matter expert in your industry.
4. You're accessible. People are willing to call you and ask for your advice.
5. You provide great career advice even for those candidates you don't place.
6. It gets around that you have a great track record of placing top people.
7. You prep your candidates before and after each interview. Here's a short YouTube video of the prep we suggest. The full prep is available as a video to send to your candidates.
8. You provide excellent career advice, rather than push your candidates to take the job even when you know it's a bad fit.
9. You clearly understand the jobs you're recruiting for, you personally know the hiring managers, and you can provide evidence that your jobs offer great career opportunities.

Too many recruiters believe cold calling a list of names is how to source passive candidates. It isn't. Passive candidates are looking for careers. More important, they want to work with recruiters who offer something more than a one night stand. To prove this to them, you need to be someone worth knowing.

Attend our live Recruiter Boot Camp in Washington, D.C. on April 21st if you want to become someone worth knowing (among other great secrets), or attend our online program starting on April 3rd. If you're a recruiting manager, contact me personally and I'll show you how to determine if your recruiters can become worth knowing.