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We have a clear fact: the consulting firm Talent Now, in a recent interview, pointed out that 73% of employed developers are interested in new job opportunities even if they are not actively looking for them.
And another even more significant fact, about 40% of these candidates have not been contacted by a recruiter in the last year. 🕵️
What does this mean? That there is a huge pool of potential but not active candis. And we must take advantage of it. This is where the concept of passive recruitment comes into play.
Let’s take a look at what it is and how to leverage it to get the best candidates.
What is a passive candidate?
A passive candidate is a developer who is open to new job opportunities, but is not actively looking to change jobs. These are typically people who are employed and usually play an important role in their job.
In this sense, these are more difficult candidates to identify, because they don’t initially show any signs that they want to change jobs or move on.
But if we find them, we will find some very cool advantages:
Advantages of passive candidates.
Passive candidates can lead to great hires. It’s not easy, but if you succeed you may score big. Although they are difficult to identify, once you have, they can bring you some major advantages:
They are usually candidates who are not in the middle of any hiring process.
It is usually easier to identify the experience and skills of this type of candidate. First of all, because they are usually working in a specific place and performing a specific job.
They tend to have more work experience than active candidates.
Passive candidates have a greater potential impact on your company. Because of their level, skills and vision. They have more experience, less rush to get hired, and it shows.
This all sounds great, yes. But… how do I get these candidates?
Here we get into passive sourcing 🛀.
Passive candidate sourcing
With this procedure, you must work in a different way to identify candidates who would like to change jobs. In this sense, it is a much more proactive action than traditional sourcing. You have to go out on the hunt for candidates.
Let’s look at some useful strategies for doing so.
Networking and obtaining referrals
Word of mouth and networking are still a very relevant factor to find “hidden” candidates. Ask your employees or your closest network for candidates with good skills in what you are looking for.
You will suddenly see some names of people who, initially, are not looking for a job. But if you contact them in the right way and offer them some kind of advancement in their career as a developer, you will surely catch their attention.
This type of task is ideal to do with networks like LinkedIn, where you’re sure to already have many connections with passive candidates if you’re a recruiter.
The importance of branding
Betting on having a powerful brand and good branding is a basic element to attract the attention of passive candidates. Instead of contacting and selling the passive candidate a specific job offer, you contact them to have a conversation about possible improvements in their professional career and, at the same time, mention the brand we work for.
If you have done a good job of branding, it will greatly increase the attention of these passive candidates, who will see your brand as an incentive to change jobs.
Write a careful initial message
If you contact via LinkedIn, you know that the typical message doesn’t work. Here you need to be clever to grab attention without being too invasive. In that sense, mentioning the job opportunity, the brand, can be enticing if they improve the candidate’s current position right off the bat.
In the message, you should imply that you already know well what the candidate works on and what are their outstanding skills. Enter this way, showing that you know who they are, can be ideal to capture their attention.
Also, be brief and concise in your first approach. Seek to grab the candidate’s attention so that you can schedule a more extensive meeting with them. Don’t start with all guns blazing.
In the beginning, probe, leave honey in the mouth… 🧛♀️
Passive recruitment with Getwith
If you are a company looking for candidates, you will be interested in this. From Getwith we have created a platform for evaluating developers through technical challenges: Rviewer. It’s as simple as registering as a company and inviting your candidates to perform the available challenges. Our team takes care of the evaluation and provides you with a complete report of the candidate’s skills.
We have already done hundreds of challenges and have helped dozens of companies. All candidates who have gone through us are in our database and are passive candidates.
If you have a relevant position to fill, we will not only search for new candidates for you with our Recruiting service. We will also forward your open position to all our already evaluated candidates.
It may be that from there, as has already happened to us, your new candidate will emerge. Even if they already have a job.
