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Articles - Sourcing Passive Candidates

Hot Tip #19 - Passive Candidate Recruiting Requires Professionalism and Product Knowledge

Lou Adler, July 5, 2007

Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing Passive Candidates

If you do any passive candidate recruiting you should go to LinkedIn.com and link to me using my lou@adlerconcepts.com email address. Of course, I won't give you a pass-through to any of my one million plus first and second degree candidates unless you clearly understand real job needs (here's an article on how to take the assignment and using performance profiles that you must read first) and have sent me a compelling email as to why this is a great job for a great person. Of course, that's not the purpose of this article, but it's a good introduction to my real point on how to contact and recruit passive candidates.

» Continue reading "Hot Tip #19 - Passive Candidate Recruiting Requires Professionalism and Product Knowledge"

Fail to Plan or Plan to Fail -
Have a plan before you pick up the phone.

Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat, June 28, 2007

Topics: Newsletter, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Before you pick up the phone and start calling potential candidates and referrals, what's your plan? Whom are you calling? Why are you calling? What's in it for the people you are calling? Know the answers to these questions, the approach you want to take, and what you want to achieve with every call, or stay off the phone. There is nothing worse than blowing a call with a great contact because you were not prepared to speak intelligently about your company, client, or the positions you are representing. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

» Continue reading "Fail to Plan or Plan to Fail -
Have a plan before you pick up the phone."

Hot Tip #18 - On the Sourcing Edge - New Ideas for Passive Candidate Development

Lou Adler, June 26, 2007

Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing Passive Candidates

I've recently created a ning.com business networking site called Sourcing Strategy. You should join it if you want to hear about the latest techniques in Internet sourcing. We'll be using this site to share, discuss, and create some great new ways to attract top people to a company's career website. The most obvious "in your face" idea is the use of a business networking site like this one to find and recruit top talent. I suspect some recruiters are already calling other recruiters who post clever, practical, and innovative ideas. Those who philosophize and pontificate are quickly shunned.

» Continue reading "Hot Tip #18 - On the Sourcing Edge - New Ideas for Passive Candidate Development"

The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World

Lou Adler, June 22, 2007

Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

I'm in the process of preparing a product requirement document for a state-of-the-art career website, and I need your help. While cash is somewhat limited, creativity isn't. The client has even suggested that the product spec by shared with every other company in the world as long as they help input some ideas into the design process.

» Continue reading "The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World"

In the War for Talent, the Biggest Talent Pool Wins

Kathy Barton, June 14, 2007

Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Last year, in 2006, a momentous event occurred - the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup (yeah!). In addition, however, and more to the point, the demand for labor statistically exceeded the supply. The long-predicted labor shortage arrived in fact. The timing and severity of the shortage over the next 50 years is subject to debate, but its existence is not. In the two decades between 1980 and 2000, the U.S. workforce grew by 54%. From 2000 to 2020, it is predicted to grow by only 3%, due primarily to the retiring of the baby boom generation. For those of us in the recruiting and hiring field, this makes a difficult job even more difficult. Given a projected gap of 14 million skilled workers by 2020, it's only going to get harder.

» Continue reading "In the War for Talent, the Biggest Talent Pool Wins"

Waking the Sleeping Giant - Passive Candidates Won't be Passive for Long!

Bryan Johanson, May 31, 2007

Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Life in recruiting used to be simple. Recruiters had exclusive jobs to offer to passive candidates who weren't looking for a job. Recruiters were the only ones who knew about these jobs, which gave them some element of control. The internet didn't exist and passive candidates stayed passive. Today the line between passive candidates and active candidates is crossed regularly.

» Continue reading "Waking the Sleeping Giant - Passive Candidates Won't be Passive for Long!"

Hot Tip #13 - How to Use the Phone to Get Referrals

Lou Adler, May 22, 2007

Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing Passive Candidates

I'll take Kevin Bacon's Six Degrees of Separation to a minor extreme, I suspect that with just the names on ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, or a simple Google search you are only one person removed from everyone in the country. (P.S. You can connect with me on LinkedIn using my email, lou@adlerconcepts.com. Everyone who buys my book can also connect with me and share advanced recruiting ideas like these on my Ning Recruiting Tactics site.)

» Continue reading "Hot Tip #13 - How to Use the Phone to Get Referrals"

Hot Tip #12 - Use MySpace to Get More Employee Referrals

Lou Adler, May 15, 2007

Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

If you don't have a MySpace page, get one so you can see how it works. Once you have the page start linking to all of your friends, then start adding other recruiters to your Friends List. If you go to MySpace find me via email (lou@adlerconcepts.com) and send me your link, so I can add you to my Friends List. Of course, that’s not the point of this hot tip. Leveraging technology is the point.

» Continue reading "Hot Tip #12 - Use MySpace to Get More Employee Referrals"

Do You Have a Winning Sourcing Strategy?

Lou Adler, March 30, 2007

Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

What's your company's sourcing strategy? Do you have a target audience in mind you want to hire, and do you have the appropriate plans, tactics, and resources in place to pull it off? If you do, you probably have this strategic plan written out with the trade-offs analyzed and argued about and each sourcing channel then optimized to produce results. Of course, before it was implemented, the plan was presented to your senior management with all of the ROI "guesstimates" for approval.

If you don't have this type of sourcing strategy process in place, you might find this article of interest.

» Continue reading "Do You Have a Winning Sourcing Strategy?"

When Semi-Passive Candidates Become Active

Kathy Barton, September 20, 2006

Topics: Newsletter, Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

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.

» Continue reading "When Semi-Passive Candidates Become Active"

The Best Article Ever Written on Passive Candidate Recruiting

Lou Adler, May 12, 2006

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

This could be a very good article, maybe even a great one. It all depends on your point of view. For the chance it turns out to be a great article, wouldn't you agree that it's certainly worth investing a few minutes' reading time?

» Continue reading "The Best Article Ever Written on Passive Candidate Recruiting"

The 10 Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, April 21, 2006

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

During my 25 years of recruiting experience, I've learned a few important principles about how to effectively recruit passive candidates. I would now like to pass these on to you.

» Continue reading "The 10 Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates"

10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates

Lou Adler, November 18, 2005

Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Here are two basic principles of recruiting that you need to apply when targeting passive candidates, diversity candidates, or any type of candidates in high demand:

• The more competition there is for a group of candidates (like nurses, pharmacists, sales reps who always exceed quota, design engineers who were elected to Tau Beta Pi, diversity candidates, etc.), the more recruiting effort is required to attract and hire them.
• Top people want top jobs, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or religious background or gender.

» Continue reading "10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates"

The Essential Elements of Every Great Hire

Lou Adler, September 16, 2005

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates, Working With Hiring Managers

As I get ready for another great ER Expo in Boston (September 28-29, 2005) and a chance to meet old friends and make new ones, some big recruiting questions come to mind. Here's probably the biggest

» Continue reading "The Essential Elements of Every Great Hire"

Get Off the PC and On the Phone

Lou Adler, June 17, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

We're now in the midst of my annual recruiting and hiring challenges 2005 survey. You might want to take it. You'll be doing yourself a favor by participating in an important industry study. It will be especially important to you if you're not hiring enough top candidates right now. The survey will show you what you need to do to break this bottleneck.

The preliminary results so far are quite revealing. Two big findings stand out:

» Continue reading "Get Off the PC and On the Phone"

A Service Level Agreement for Hiring Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, May 6, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

As recruiters make the shift to hiring more passive candidates, having a formal service level agreement (SLA) in place with their hiring manager clients becomes more important. While I don't do as much recruiting today, I still never take an assignment without having a formal agreement in place with the hiring team as to what each person's roles and responsibilities are in the search process. I use this agreement both to establish my professionalism and to insure that the hiring manager and the other members of the interviewing team don't do anything that would compromise the search process.

» Continue reading "A Service Level Agreement for Hiring Passive Candidates"

Are Passive Candidates Becoming More Passive?

Authors, April 29, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

John Sullivan's great article on innovative sourcing ideas should be read by everyone in recruiting. The essence: You need to be super creative to reach out to the best candidates - who by and large all are passive. This requires a shift in resources, from waiting for people to apply to reaching out and getting them interested.

The implications of this shift in sourcing are huge.

» Continue reading "Are Passive Candidates Becoming More Passive?"

Handling the Problems with Passive Candidates and Hiring Managers

Lou Adler, April 15, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates, Working With Hiring Managers

There are more name-generating tools becoming available everyday. My favorites include Jobster, SearchExpo, Broadlook, ZoomInfo, AIRS Oxygen, and LinkedIn. These and the other networking tools should be checked out and used.

But there's more to recruiting and hiring passive candidates than generating a list of names. Success with these tools depends on how well you convert these cold names into hot candidates.

Here are some other factors that need to be considered when hiring passive candidates:

» Continue reading "Handling the Problems with Passive Candidates and Hiring Managers"

The Passive Candidate Report: Networking and Metrics

Lou Adler, April 8, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

For the foreseeable future, I'll be using this weekly ERE column to write exclusively about the challenges of finding and hiring passive candidates. Feel free to comment, send questions, or suggest topics. Recruiting less active and passive candidates will become the focus of attention as corporate recruiting resources are shifted away from pursuing active candidates.

» Continue reading "The Passive Candidate Report: Networking and Metrics"

4 Things Recruiters Must Do to Hire Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, April 1, 2005

Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing Passive Candidates

If you missed ERE's ER Expo 2005 Spring in San Diego, you missed a great event. You should attend one of these bi-annual event every year or so, just to stay on top of the latest trends. There is some great practical information presented by an extraordinary group of recruiting experts.

» Continue reading "4 Things Recruiters Must Do to Hire Passive Candidates"

"Blink" and Hiring More Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, March 25, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

If you want to hire more top-performing passive candidates, you should read a new book called Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. While it has nothing to do with hiring or management or recruiting, reading it will make you a better recruiter, since it has much to do with human nature.

» Continue reading ""Blink" and Hiring More Passive Candidates"

How to Attract and Hire Passive Candidates, Part 5

Lou Adler, March 11, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

Candidates can be divided into four broad categories, depending on how active or passive they are:

» Continue reading "How to Attract and Hire Passive Candidates, Part 5"

How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 4: The 30% Solution

Lou Adler, March 4, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

Over the past few weeks I've been focusing on what it takes to hire more passive candidates. Here's a quick take on the key themes:

» Continue reading "How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 4: The 30% Solution"

How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 3: Sourcing Strategies

Lou Adler, February 25, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

Here's a basic principle you'll need to follow if you want to hire more passive candidates: Offer careers, not jobs. But more on this in a moment.

» Continue reading "How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 3: Sourcing Strategies"

How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 2: The Basics

Lou Adler, February 18, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

Passive candidates are different from active candidates - in both how and why they look for new opportunities. If a company wants to hire more passive candidates, it must rethink every aspect of its hiring and sourcing processes. In this series of articles, I'll describe what it takes to set up a corporate recruiting department to hire passive candidates.

» Continue reading "How to Hire Passive Candidates, Part 2: The Basics"

How to Hire Passive Candidates - Part 1

Lou Adler, February 11, 2005

Topics: Sourcing Passive Candidates

As I read the articles published every day on ERE, it's very clear to me that as writers we live in two different worlds. One group provides advice and insight on how to hire active candidates more efficiently. The other group focuses on how to hire more top passive candidates. When looked at from this perspective, the reasons for disagreements are obvious. The tools and techniques required to hire passive candidates are far different than those required to hire active candidates.

So, if you're a recruiter who wants to hire more top passive candidates, read on.

» Continue reading "How to Hire Passive Candidates - Part 1"

Technology Trends: Recruiting Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, January 21, 2005

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

In a recent ERE article (Recruiting Lessons from the iPod) I made the case that recruiting must become more iPod-like. The point was that the iPod is more than a music player, it's a music system. By tying together a very neat music player with simple player management software, an online store, drop-and-play plug-in sound systems, and a host of well-designed accessories, Apple quickly became the dominant name in the music industry.

» Continue reading "Technology Trends: Recruiting Passive Candidates"

How to Recruit and Hire Passive Candidates

Lou Adler, December 17, 2004

Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing Passive Candidates

To get started recruiting and hiring top passive candidates, it's important to understand the theory of recruiting. The following has never before been revealed in print, so please tread carefully as you proceed through the balance of this article.

» Continue reading "How to Recruit and Hire Passive Candidates"

The Future of Hiring: The Shift Is On to Hire Less Active Candidates

Lou Adler, September 24, 2004

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Forget active candidates. Pursuing less active candidates should be your goal.

» Continue reading "The Future of Hiring: The Shift Is On to Hire Less Active Candidates"

Systematizing Semi-Sourcing

Lou Adler, August 1, 2003

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Semi-sourcing is a recruitment technique that maximizes candidate quality while minimizing time to hire and cost per hire. Most current recruiting programs focus their efforts on finding a few good people in large pools of active candidates - for example, by using job board advertising. Surprisingly, most companies continue to spend too much money and time on this tactic and are having limited success.

» Continue reading "Systematizing Semi-Sourcing"

These Secrets of Semi-Sourcing Will Change the Way You Find and Hire Top Candidates Forever

Lou Adler, July 8, 2003

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Passive Candidates

Are you aware that you are one of 10,000 people who saw this headline?

Are you aware that you are one of 1,000 people who decided to read this article?

Are you aware that you are about to be only one of 100 people who will respond to the offer I'm making at the end of this article? As a result of responding to this offer, you are about to become a better recruiter. Enjoy!

» Continue reading "These Secrets of Semi-Sourcing Will Change the Way You Find and Hire Top Candidates Forever"

The Sourcing Sweet Spot: How to Find the Best Without Really Trying

Lou Adler, May 16, 2003

Topics: Sourcing, Sourcing Active Candidates, Sourcing Passive Candidates

While there are only three types of candidates in the world, there's a world of difference in how you find and hire each type. If you're not seeing enough good candidates, it's possible you're using the wrong tactic to find the right candidate.

» Continue reading "The Sourcing Sweet Spot: How to Find the Best Without Really Trying"