Who is the passive candidate?

A passive candidate is someone who is not actively looking for a new job but who is open to exploring new opportunities.

This person is not searching through job sites or reaching out to recruiters and probably does not have an updated resume. However, if approached; a passive candidate may be open to exploring certain opportunities. 

They're in a grey area where they don’t feel so unhappy at work that they are motivated to actively look for a new job but neither do they feel fulfilled at work that they are ready to ignore new opportunities.  

Why bother recruiting passive candidates?

Simply because they represent roughly 60% of the workforce.

According to a LinkedIn survey, here’s the breakdown of today's workforce: 

• 25% Active Candidates
• 60% Passive Candidates
• 15% Professionals not looking

That is to say, 85% of the workforce are potential candidates but most of these candidates are passive. When your recruitment efforts rely purely on job ads, you’re only reaching 25% of the workforce and ignoring the larger 60%. 

The challenge with passive candidates

Back in the day when LinkedIn was new, the major challenge with recruiting passive candidates was finding them. That’s why recruitment consulting firms like Hays, Michael Page and Robert Walters thrived. They promoted the size and quality of their candidate database and charged employers for the privilege of accessing their professional network. It was the only way for an employer to reach passive candidates.

Today, thanks to the popularity of LinkedIn; a global database of passive candidates is accessible to everyone. Hence, the challenge has shifted. Finding a passive candidate is now relatively easy if you know how to use LinkedIn. 

Getting a passive candidate's attention is the real challenge.

Thanks to LinkedIn (and the proliferation of recruitment firms), passive candidates are now being bombarded with generic sounding cold InMails and emails from recruiters.

They get approached so much that they now have the power to pick and choose the opportunities they'd like to explore.