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Hot Tip #25 - A Partial List of the Ten Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates

By Lou Adler, August 14, 2007

Here's a modified version of an earlier article that's worth considering today more than ever. Over my 25 years of recruiting experience, I've learned a few important principles about how to effectively recruit passive candidates. Most were learned by trial and error, and while they might not all be applicable to your specific situation, collectively they offer a pretty decent road map of what it takes to hire more top passive candidates on a consistent basis. Here are the first five of my favorite ten commandants for recruiting passive candidates. The next five will be covered in next week's Hot Tip article.

Read more articles by this author.

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1. You must know the job and why it's exceptional. Top passive candidates who don't know you will not return your voicemail, nor speak to you for more than 2-3 minutes, nor give you any top referrals, unless you know the job. Top passive people aren't looking, so to get them to look you must offer instant credibility with a job that offers significant upside potential. I suggest using a performance profile to define the real job. It describes the major challenges and problems required for job success. Recruiters who know the job this way are more confident when calling, and can use the screening process to create an opportunity gap. This is the difference between the person's current job and the new job.


2. You must become a partner with your hiring manager clients. Every candidate you present to your hiring manager client must be seen. And your hiring manager clients need to spend time meeting candidates who might not be perfect on paper. Managers won't do this unless they trust you. That's why being a partner rather than a vendor in the process is critical. Recruiters who are partners have more influence. Managers will then interview candidates who meet most of the requirements of the performance profile, even if they don't have all the requirements listed on the job description. Bridging this gap is the key to hiring more passive candidates. Becoming a partner starts by preparing a performance profile, developing a mutual agreement committing to put in the extra effort required to recruit passive candidates--and then delivering top people.


3. You must target 75% call-backs when leaving voice mails. You can't afford to call passive candidates and not have them return your calls. Some recruiters are willing to accept a 10-15% call-back rate. This is not recruiting, it's dialing for dollars. The best way to get a 75% or better call-back rate is to make sure the bulk of the people you call are referred candidates. Good people will call you back if you leave the name of another strong person who suggested you call. The key to recruiting passive candidates is really the ability to get great referrals, and in the process your call-back rate will soar. (FYI: we describe how to get referrals at all of our Recruiter Boot Camp programs.)


4. You must limit the number of calls to "unworthy" candidates. An unworthy candidate is someone who isn't competent and/or doesn't know any good people who are. This is the typical result of the typical cold call. At best, one in five cold calls turns out to have been to a worthy person. So even if the person calls you back you still need to qualify the person to see if they're worthy and this takes at least 15 minutes (to call, engage, screen, recruit, and/or get referrals). Spending these 15 minutes with an unworthy person is a waste of time. That's why you must restrict the bulk of your calling to highly qualified referred candidates. A worthy candidate is someone who is a potential finalist or someone who personally knows a top person who could be a finalist. That's why working a pre-qualified referral list is so important. When you get a referral--even from employees--make sure they are prequalified, meaning you know why they're strong. This way you can limit your subsequent calls to only the best people.


5. You must recruit the person directly before getting names. To maximize results, recruit the person directly when you call someone for the first time, rather than using an indirect networking approach. People will be more interested and more likely to call back when there is something in it for them. To get them excited, leave a voice mail that clearly indicates you're leading a recruiting effort for a senior level position in the person's field. When you get the person on the phone, ask them if he or she would be open to explore a situation if it were clearly superior to what the person is doing today. Most people will say yes if you sound credible, confident, and professional. Our statistics show that you'll get 2-3 times the number of call-backs and in-depth career conversations when the person you're calling believes the opportunity you're representing is a potential new career move for him or her.

These are the first five of the ten commandants of recruiting passive candidates. Knowing the job and establishing credibility with hiring managers and candidates alike is the key to recruiting top passive candidates. However, the key to successful recruiting passive candidates is getting great referrals. Very simply, this is the primary difference between great recruiters and everyone else.