5 Ways to Engage Passive Candidates

A few years ago, passive candidate recruitment strategy wasn’t at the top of the agenda for all of us because there weren’t many jobs floating around, meaning candidates couldn’t be too picky.

Nowadays, it is fair to say that every recruiter has been in a time-crunch situation where hiring is becoming tough in such a competitive market. With great talent in high demand, recruiters need to think outside the box when approaching their candidates. 

Don’t you think that if recruiters want to hire top talent, they must start building good relations with candidates? 

I believe it is Yes!

Recruiting passive candidates isn’t the easiest part of the recruitment process, but if you practice the following behavior every day, it will be easy for HR professionals to attract passive candidates. 

1. Personalize Approach

   If you want to get a response from passive candidates, start writing better connecting messages to them. Make a genuine human connection with your candidate. This will make a difference in your approach and will increase your response rate. Search effectively on candidates’ profiles and collect more information that will help you to know more about your prospects’ skills and responsibilities. You can add lines like ‘I’ve reviewed your profile’ etc., in your message will give candidates a sense of sincereness. This will help you stand out from the crowd. 

2. Enrich Your Passive Candidate Database

   Quality passive candidates can be hired only if HR professionals have authentic and updated information about their candidates. Updated information in hand will help HR professionals to make the right decision based on their skills, experience, qualifications, etc. Enrich your resumes through enrichment marketplace by getting recent candidate information through their social profiles, etc. 
   
   Also Read: How can a marketplace help you in enriching your data?
   

3. Take Follow-Ups

   Getting the first response doesn’t mean your chance of getting a positive response increases. There is no guarantee of success. Most of the passive candidates that you contacted will not reply. Still, it doesn’t mean they are not interested. This makes following up is essential if you want to hire a passive candidate. Silence doesn’t mean no. Try to add value with each follow-up email. Share a good quality of content that gives candidates a clear perspective on why your organization is a good opportunity for them. Adding testimonials of current employees and sharing their working experience will add credibility to attract passive candidates.
   

4. Sell Opportunity Not Jobs

   Always keep in mind while engaging passive candidates that you need to build a relationship first. Try to understand why candidates want to leave their current role and use it to shape how you can pitch your job opening in front of them. Entice your candidate by telling a compelling story about what they would be doing on the job, how they can grow personally and professionally working with your organization. If they are not looking for a job, they must need a good reason to consider a move, so always focus on what you say to your passive candidates.
   

5. Work on Your Job Postings

   There are more than a million job searchers available on google. Don’t you think the more potential candidates that view your job, the greater the chance of getting talented candidates? I believe SEO is a key factor that can help your job advertisement move higher up the search rankings. SEO is one of the essential parts when getting your job posting being noticed. Start crafting an effective job advertisement that appeals to the passive candidate. Always make sure that any objectives linked to the opening are clearly defined. 
   

6. Keep Your Passive Candidate Warm for Later

   It is for sure that not everyone you speak with will be ready to move. If you are contacting passive candidates, you will likely get plenty of responses where candidates directly say ‘NO’ to you. Many of them will be happy where they are, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. These applicants are leads for future roles. Start nurturing them with relevant content to keep your relationship warm and build a good rapport. 
   
   We all know passive sourcing candidates is a challenging task. But in the highly competitive market, HR professionals must develop new and attractive strategies to engage those audiences who aren’t actively looking for jobs. Focusing more on building relationships will help recruiters to attract talent. What are your opinions about all this? Please share your views with us.