Attracting passive candidates in recruitment process
The best candidates are the working candidates. This golden rule has been a long-standing one in recruitment of employees, and it is true. A candidate who is currently employed is good for the current employer and is likely to be just as good for the next one, so attracting them has become a major challenge for recruitment companies. Recruitment is a process that usually involves three parties: the recruitment firm, the employee and the employer. It is the recruiter who first introduces the candidate to the job offer. Therefore, it is the recruiter who needs to be fully aware of the rules for attracting passive candidates in the recruitment process. These rules are 3:
1. Ask, don’t tell
It is not a good practice to tell a working candidate about a new job offer. The first thing to do is to ask what the candidate expects. It is important to find out what his/her career plan is, what kind of positions he/she would be interested in, what he/she would change in his/her current role. The difficulty of recruitment is that no two candidates are the same. Each candidate’s career goals are different. The only way to make an offer to a passive candidate is to have a good understanding of their motivation to change their current job, their career aspirations and their plans.
2. Be specific
Changing a job for an unplanned employee is stepping out of their comfort zone. If the recruiter sounds abstract and doesn’t know the exact answers to questions, trust in the recruiter is reduced. At the same time, the risk that the offer may not meet expectations increases. The employee needs to know exactly what the future responsibilities are. What are the employer’s development plans, the financial situation and the prospects of the position. If the recruiter is not sure about these parts, then a candidate who is passive on the job market will immediately sense the risk and will not look into the offer.
3. Take your time
If the candidate has been interviewed, he/she should be given time to think things over. For a candidate who is not looking for a job, the decision to participate in the recruitment process does not come in a day. He or she needs to think carefully and may have many questions. The recruiter needs to have a lot of patience and not rush the candidate. Rushing a candidate usually results in his rejection because he feels rushed in a place where he already feels comfortable enough.
These three rules must become the cornerstone of the recruiter’s list of rules. They must be applied in every recruitment of employees: whether it is the initial message to the candidate, the brief telephone introduction, the live meeting, etc. The most important thing to understand is that the candidate is currently in a successful job and whatever is offered to him/her must be well tested, clear and useful. If it is only clear and verified, but not useful for the candidate in question, there is no point in talking further. So it is important to combine all three rules at the same time.
