Looking for a talent matching your needs at least in part is a daunting task. Timing is an important factor in attracting the contextually right talent to your organization. Tagging along with time is the approach to attracting talent.

This article seeks to shed light on the approaches to attracting and onboarding talent.

Active and Passive Candidates

The candidates available in market can be classified broadly into two categories depending on whether they are actively looking for job opportunities or are latent in their job hunt.

These are:

• Active Candidates
• Passive Candidates

Active Candidates

These are candidates who are seriously looking for a job in the job market. One can tell by the frequency of updates they perform on their resumes in job boards, job communities and interactions in LinkedIn. In other words explore all possible avenues to land a job as quickly as possible. The reasons for the active look out can be varied, chief among them being:

• Unforeseen Lay off: candidates may not see the layoff coming until the fateful day there are handed their pink slips.
• Pay: a common grouse is the pay disparity between two employees performing the same role. This may cause the lesser paid employee to drop out and look for opportunities outside as an active candidate.
• Relocation: personal reasons such as family in another location, need to look after sick parents, feeling home sick, and weather may influence an employee to contemplate jumping ship. In this case candidates will keep a close watch on the job openings pertaining to the location he/she wants to relocate.
• Bored/Don’t fit: Stagnant work or environment and a feeling of “I don’t belong here” can trigger a morose commitment and hence decision to move to a more amenable work place.

Active candidates make up about 25% of workforce looking for a change.

Passive Candidates

As explained in earlier, passive candidates aren’t in a hurry to change jobs. They will however entertain calls for potential job offers, evaluate each of them and choose the best one to ring in the epoch change in careers. Reasons why they need to be coaxed into listening on exciting job offers are as follows:

• Satisfied Jobs: a job that meets most of their needs and promises further growth is a potion strong enough to make such candidates stay put in present vocations
• Good to excellent monetary compensation: pay is an emotional booster. A good pay better than peers or the market standards is another reason such candidates will stay put in the same job.
• Is kept busy: some employees are die hard workaholics who just enjoy the thrill of working hard and working late. Such souls cannot be expected to look for change even if a transparent bag containing gold and labelled “Take me” is dangled before them.
• Migration allergic:some talent who are well settled in one location will dread at the thought of relocating no matter how bigger and better another job may be. Such candidates would prefer to stay put in current organizations.
• Other commitments: employees who have received loans (company or private), undergone company sponsored courses, assignments in the firm’s other locations and other such commitments/incentives will want to continue in present roles

Passive candidates make up 75% of the workforce that needs to be convinced into a job change.

The Inbetweeners

Though we have defined two main categories Active and Passive, there are a couple of in between categories as well. These are:

• Tiptoers who will not apply directly but seek out referrals from friends to move on to other jobs
• Super passive who prefer to stay rooted to their present jobs and will not budge until they see paradise!

Active Candidates Sell and Passive Candidates are Sold

An Active Candidate endeavors to sell his/her expertise on the job profile to the recruiter/hiring manager and get them to hire him/her.

A Passive Candidate needs to be sold on theidea of this job opportunity for which he/she is being approached is the best career move and way better than the current role.

Please remember the percentages mentioned for Active and Passive Candidature make up is nominal and varies in each survey, from 71% to as high as 85%.

Approaching Candidates

There cannot be a one size fits all method to approach candidates with job opportunities. A proper selection based on methods available and your business needs will yield the desired results. Here are a few steps that can help you in your endeavor.

Marketing your Brand: candidates check the reputation of the company they are applying. This puts the onus on the organization to project itself as a friendly, affable place to work. Media like social networks, advertisements, and outreach messages have the potential to bolster the image. Plus, employees of the organization can be great brand ambassadors and refer quality talent.

Social Media Presence: the importance of social networks to carry forward and magnify company reputations cannot be ruled out. Soliciting talent for jobs along with a robust brand management get maximum eyeballs. Both active and passive candidates use these media to apply or check on the company.

Proactive Sourcing: social networks, job posts and binary searches are some of the methods by which one can proactively source candidates whether active or passive.

Employee Referral Program (ERP): Active candidates, tiptoers and passive candidates reach out to their friends in other companies for roles that will suit their profile. Having a robust ERP will net quality talent on virtue of the talent being known to an existing employee.

Network: showing candidates courtesy, enthusiasm and goodwill when calling them makes them respect your call, you and your organization. Even if they reject the opportunity thy may refer a friend of theirs who may fit the bill. This will help you build a database of profiles.

Conclusion

Attracting and engaging candidates to a potential hire is now a sought after science. It has spawned a bevy of software aimed at making the right hiring a possibility. But still the human element of reaching out to candidates in person and engaging has not lost its sheen. It is this aspect that makes or breaks a deal between the candidate and the recruiter.

While there are many HR technology vendors in the market, only Spire Technologies makes recruiting the right candidates a sure exercise. Its game changing contextual search and demand-supply mapping technologies ensure you identify the right talent to approach for your vacancies in your organization keeping in mind your business objectives.

–Article by Maheshwar Antony