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When Semi-Passive Candidates Become Active

By Kathy Barton, September 20, 2006

Here you are: an experienced recruiter with a high-profile requisition involving hard-to-find experience. You rise to the challenge, investing time with the hiring manager to define the 6-8 critical things the person needs to do to be successful in the job (what we call a Performance Profile). Next, you write a great job ad with an attention-getting title because you know to find top talent you need to offer a top job. You post your ad on all the big job boards, including some niche boards that have been successful for you in the past. You use the latest networking tools, like ZoomInfo, LinkedIn and Jobster to come up with names that seem to have the right experience. You network your socks off generating a short list of qualified people. Of course, all of them are currently working. So you turn on the charm, approaching each of them with both persistence and respect, and manage to get three of them to agree to an interview.

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Congratulations! You've done exactly what you were supposed to do. You've also just transformed these three semi-passive candidates into active ones. Why? Because one of the primary reasons people don't look for jobs is that they don't have the time or energy to update their resume. It may sound trivial, but let's face it - finding the bandwidth to create a complete and compelling resume can be a real roadblock when you're working full-time. Once you convince your semi-passive candidates that your opportunity is exciting enough to motivate them to do just that, a major obstacle has been removed. And now that you've convinced them that there are better jobs out there than the one they currently have, they start to wonder what else is out there. So they use their newly updated resume to search the job boards, send to other recruiters, and apply for jobs. Before you know it, some other recruiter has gotten the benefit of all your hard work. I don't know about you, but our clients are seeing this more and more as the competition for top talent increases. In fact, it's not unusual for once-passive candidates to have three job offers before the first company can even get them in for an interview.

The truth is that the Internet makes it much easier for qualified candidates to find a new job than it does for companies to find qualified candidates. Think about how people used to apply for jobs: wait until the newspaper or publication came out with the jobs or help wanted section, read through the relatively small number of jobs, write a cover letter, copy the resume, and mail it off. If you were looking for a job outside of your area, you had to subscribe to the local newspaper and wait for it to be mailed to you. The recruiter on the receiving end opened the letters, skimmed through them, and sorted them into stacks: A, B and C candidates.

Today a job seeker can go on-line and find jobs from all over the world with one search. A candidate can easily search for a given company, given industry, and/or specific position. Applying is as easy as loading up a cover letter and the resume that was just updated. Posting that resume means your carefully cultivated candidate is now available for other recruiters to find and interview. Before the Internet, there simply wasn't any kind of public database of candidates for job-seekers to join. Meanwhile, recruiters are still opening applications, reviewing them, and trying to find the best candidates. You may be opening job applications in an ATS system and reviewing them with search tools, but you are essentially doing the same things faster. Candidates, on the other hand, now have visibility to jobs that simply weren't accessible to them before the Internet.

So how do you protect your hard-won candidates long enough to turn them into employees? First of all, make sure you communicate a clear value proposition to the candidate from your first conversation to closing. Yes, there are lots of jobs and companies out there - however, none of them are as good as yours. You want your candidate to become emotionally invested in your job and your company as soon as possible. So make sure you understand what the candidate is looking for and speak their language. Are they looking for a chance to have a big impact? Your project has Board of Directors visibility. Are they looking for a great team? Your team is recognized in the industry for its innovation. Are they looking for life-balance? Your company encourages flextime and telecommuting.

Second, understand that from the moment the candidate sends you an updated resume, the race is on. The faster you can make the process, from interest to offer, the better. Don't think that just because the candidate wasn't looking before you talked to her, she still isn't looking. Trust me, she is. This means that the entire hiring team, including your hiring manager, needs to understand that time is of the essence. The sooner you can make your top candidate a productive member of your team, the better. Set clear targets - what is the cycle time now? Can you cut that time using panel interviews? Could you cut it to a week? To three days?

In the case of semi-passive candidates, technology works against you, not for you. Be aware of this and use some good old-fashioned relationship building and hustle to close the deal.

©2006. All Rights Reserved by The Adler Group, Inc. Emailing, printing and copying in any form is permitted only when accompanied by the following statement: "This is copyrighted information. Permission has been granted by The Adler Group, Inc., to reprint/use this information. See www.adlerconcepts.com for more information.