Passive Candidates Part 1: Do you know the % of employed professionals open to a new job? The results are surprising…
Many recruiters will have been in the position where they feel there is a severe lack of good candidates for a role. But what they’re probably overlooking is the ‘passive talent pool’. We take a look at what passive candidates are and assess how recruiters are currently dealing with this rich talent market.
Active and passive candidates: a definition.
If you’re not sure what the difference between an active and passive candidate is, it really is quite simple:
Active candidate
– Actively looking for a job, or
– Casually searching for a job a few times a week
Passive candidate
– Talking to their friends, colleagues and network about possible new opportunities, or
– Open to talking to a recruiter.
Active and passive candidates: the numbers
Linkedin’s Talent Trend Survey 2014 asked fully employed professionals to describe their current status in terms of job seeking. The results make remarkable reading:
12%: actively looking on a daily basis
13%: casually looking several times a week
15%: talking to their personal network
45%: open to talking to a recruiter
15%: completely satisfied and do not want to move jobs
These results show us that a mere 15% of professionals are not in the market for a new job, and 25% of people are actively looking for a new job. The most interesting findings however are the percentage of people we would class as passive candidates, those that are considering or are open to a new job, a huge 60%.
Are recruiters making the most of the passive talent pool?
With the knowledge that 75% of the workforce are either active or passive candidates, Linkedin’s latest survey, their Global Recruiting Trends Report makes essential reading. Looking in detail at passive candidate recruiting, their survey, which covers the responses of over 4000 recruiters in 31 countries shows that globally, just 61% of companies are recruiting passive candidates, whilst in the UK it’s just 57%.
What does this mean for UK recruiters?
Quite simply, it means that recruiters need to take a good look at their recruitment processes and assess where they are actively sourcing their candidates from. Where do you look for your candidates? If you are solely recruiting on direct applications and those sourced on job boards, then you are missing out on a huge number of very good candidates who are open to talking about a new job.
In our next blog, we’ll take a look at how recruiters can capitalise on the passive candidate pool, which will not only enable you to source a greater number of well-qualified and suitable candidates, but you’ll undoubtedly be putting yourself ahead of the game in terms of your competitors.
Are you making the most of passive candidates? We’d love to hear your experiences, let us know in the comments box below.
Till next time,
Cheryl