With a candidate shortage in many industries today such as healthcare, technology and retail, the need to create candidate pools long before a position becomes open is critical. Having a passive candidate strategy in place plays a key role in your overall Talent Acquisition performance and your ability to win the best candidates. In fact, Bersin's high Impact Talent Acquisition research1 indicates that candidate pool development is the second most influential driver of Talent Acquisition performance.
So why are so many organizations still struggling to incorporate this into their overall strategy? The bottom line - having a passive candidate strategy takes time. While Talent Acquisition departments continue to be stretched thin and top talent is scarce, the time is now to develop your passive candidate strategy.
A typical strategy will take at least six months to a year before it bears the fruits of passive candidates. This also depends on how much time you are willing to dedicate to this strategy. We recommend dedicating 1 sourcer/researcher to every 3-4 recruiters in mid-size to enterprise organizations. If your organization is small and recruiters wear many hats, try dedicating a percentage of time every day to researching where your best passive candidates work.
Not all sources cost money--just time. Research what associations and conferences your candidates attend and meet up with them live. Even though we are living in the digital age, there are many positives to a traditional face to face meeting. If it is not a conference that you would typically attend, draft your hiring manager to meet up with the candidate. Candidates will love to learn directly from hiring managers what it is like to work in their area of expertise.
Work with your hiring manager and HR business partners to identify alumni and stay in contact with previous employees. Given that 20% of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment4, often times keeping up with previous employees who thought the grass might be greener with another organization can produce the boomerang effect and convince them to return.
Promote your Employee Referral program vigorously. It is a great way to uncover candidates who would be open to a conversation that may not be seeking employment. It has been proven time and again that employees who are referred are better producers, learn faster and have a higher retention rate than those from other sources.
In our second installment, learn why your process must be differentiated in order to attract passive candidates.
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You may also want to read The Most Effective Recruitment Process and download our Recruiter Workload Calculator.
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1Navigating a Complex Function & an Explosive Technology Landscape; Bersin by Deloitte / Robin Erikson, Ph.D., 2016)
2 https://www.work4labs.com/restaurant-staff-recruiting/
3Effectively Engaging Prospective Candidates: Propelling CDW’s Aggressive Growth Targets with a Recruitment Marketing Platform; Bersin by Deloitte / Denise Moulton, 2016)
4 http://blog.octanner.com/editor-picks/an-onboarding-checklist-for-success-infographic