How to attract passive candidates

What are passive candidates? 

Passive candidates are people who aren’t necessarily looking for a new role but have the right skills you are looking for and may be open to the opportunity if the position is right for them.

Passive talent are typically still employed with no real intention of leaving their current position. Attracting passive candidates can be difficult and requires recruiters to reach out and make first contact instead of the reverse. Because of this additional step, recruiters rarely target passive candidates unless it is for executive or niche roles. 

With traditional recruitment advertising out the window, businesses looking to attract passive talent have to turn to a passive hiring strategy to effectively engage passive candidates. 

What is passive recruiting?

Passive recruitment refers to the strategic process of reaching, engaging, and attracting candidates who are already employed or not actively looking for a new role. When organisations want to attract passive candidates, their recruitment process has to be adapted slightly. 

Passive talent isn’t actively looking for roles, so recruitment advertising isn’t effective. Instead, recruiters must look to build relationships with candidates by promoting their employer brand to capture the attention of passive candidates. 

Any successful passive recruitment strategy will include: 

• Social media recruitment campaigns
• Extensive Talent Pipeline 
• HR tech or an top-rated ATS
• Employee referral programs 
• Engaging career site

Passive vs active candidates

By now, you should be clued up on what passive candidates actually are and how they would differ from typical candidates, which, for the purpose of this article, we’re referring to as ‘active candidates’.

While the main difference between passive candidates and active candidates is that passive talent isn’t actively looking for a role, there are other distinct differences you must be aware of. 

When recruiting for new roles, it’s important for organisations to target both passive talent and active candidates to attract the best candidates and achieve hiring success. Below, we have created a simple table comparing the differences between passive candidates and active candidates. 

Passive candidates

• Often currently employed and will need convincing to leave current role
• Not actively looking for employment and may take longer to make a hiring decision
• Motivated by potential career growth and new opportunities

Active candidates

• Actively looking for new employment opportunities 
• Active across job boards and career sites and engaging with recruiters 
• Motivated by immediate starts and ready to switch roles quickly

How to attract passive candidates

Figuring out how to attract passive candidates often leaves hiring managers scratching their heads. And you can understand why – trying to get people who are already employed to leave their jobs and join your organisation is no easy feat. But that’s not to say that attracting passive candidates is impossible… 

Below, we have shared Talos360 tips on how to attract passive candidates and hire passive talent:

1. Stay active on social media

At Talos360, we’ve found that using social media is the best way to engage passive talent and spark interest in your open roles. In fact, 82% of businesses who are looking to engage with passive candidates use social media. 

We have found that businesses have had the most success attracting passive candidates on LinkedIn with 75% of jobseekers using LinkedIn to look for new opportunities. But that’s not to say you shouldn’t also focus on other platforms. Facebook, X, Reddit and Instagram are all effective in showcasing your brand and sharing your vacant positions. 

2. Retarget candidates with talent pools 

As a recruiter, you’ll already be well aware of the impact talent pools can have on your hiring success. When used correctly, they can help you source and engage passive candidates with ease. To effectively attract passive talent using talent pools, you must first have a pool of candidate data that is well suited for your organisation and that you can retarget for any open roles. 

Businesses using talent pools to engage passive candidates typically use hiring software like an applicant tracking system to effectively filter and engage with their pool of candidates. With sufficient hiring software, this can be a bit of a nightmare. 

3. Employee referral programs 

The best way for candidates to discover a job is still through employee referral. If you’re not taking advantage of an employee referral program – you’re going to be losing out on a lot of opportunities to attract passive candidates. 

Talos360’s employee referral program offers a cash incentive for our people if their recommendation is hired. This simple, yet effective hiring strategy helps to reach new candidates and keeps your current employees engaged. 

4. Showcase your employer brand 

If it’s not already, improving your hiring strategy must be part of your hiring strategy, especially if you’re looking to attract passive candidates. Accruing more Google and Glassdoor reviews, promoting employee generated content (EGC) on socials, and keeping your career pages updated are all ways you can promote your employer brand with passive talent in mind. 

5. Promote your benefits 

If you are going to have any luck attracting and engaging passive candidates, you first need to learn about your ideal candidate. Passive candidates aren’t actively looking for roles, so you need to showcase why they should switch roles and join you. 

Promoting benefits that are important to your target audience is one way to do this. From flexible working to salary sacrifice schemes, if you can promote your benefits, you have a better chance of capturing the imagination of passive talent. 

6. Offer opportunities to grow 

It can be difficult to persuade a passive candidate to leave their current employment, especially if they are already established. If candidates aren’t looking to move roles, they’re probably not going to be motivated by tangible benefits, instead, they might be looking for growth and development opportunities. 

If you are starting a recruitment advertising campaign to attract passive candidates, it’s important to highlight growth as a leading benefit for your vacant roles. 

7. Implement the right hiring tech 

When it comes to attracting passive talent, implementing the right recruitment software will massively increase your chances of success. The best recruitment software out there will integrate with social media platforms, have a powerful talent pool ATS features and recruitment advertising capabilities to help you find the best people for your roles, whether they’re active or passive talent.

Introducing...

Attract passive talent with Talos ATS

Attracting passive talent has never been easier. 

With Talos ATS, advanced recruitment software, you have all the tools you need to effectively source and engage passive candidates. From intelligent talent pool filtering to social media job board integrations, you attract, manage and hire both active and passive candidates. 

ATS features for attracting passive candidates:

• Multi-platform job poster
• Recruitment and advertising suite  
• Video interview screening
• Talent pool
• Social media recruitment
• Drag and drop career site builder
• Fully branded automated SMS & email comms 
• Automated progression for strongest candidates  
• Remote onboarding tools
• Reference checking & e-signing capabilities  
• Integrated background checks  

Fill your vacant roles efficiently with Talos360