passive-candidates

Finding it Hard to Recruit Talents? Look into Passive Global Workforce

With the low unemployment rate currently now at 3.7%, the lowest it has been in 49 years, recruiters now face the fact that it’s going to be harder to fill up some key positions. What else is there to do but choose those out of the job market–passive candidates.

What are passive candidates? They seem to be harder to be found because they are contented in their current job. Still, there are strategies that recruiters — whether hiring locally or globally — can do. They’re worth looking into because there’s a reason they’re employed. Their companies are happy to have them around. We refer to this Forbes story for the significance of these type of candidates.

Passive candidates, it turns out, make up 70 percent of the global workforce, while those active seekers are limited to about 30 percent. Targeting both is a take-no-prisoners approach.

Recruiters need to be aware that 48.8 percent of recruiters had the most trouble placing candidates in the IT, engineering, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. About 50 percent of recruiters said these are the sectors that make up most of the hiring pool.

In a recent CareerBuilder survey, companies across the world are said to be looking to revamp their hiring efforts to fill both the temporary and full positions in 2018, in light of the fact that with low unemployment situation now, finding quality talent is harder.

In the same survey, the problem cuts both ways for both full-time and temp positions. About 44 percent of businesses are looking to hire full-time employees and 51 percent are planning to hire temporary employees. But roughly half of all the hiring managers surveyed, 45 percent said that they are unable to fill the much-needed positions due to the dearth of qualified talent.

The following results of the study require attention with the latest one providing a ray of home for recruiters looking for talents:

  • 42 percent of employers are worried they won’t be able to find the talent they need.
  • About 72 percent are struggling to find relevant candidates
  • About 86 percent of the most qualified candidates for open positions are already employed and not actively seeking a new job
  • About 40 percent of employees surveyed said they plan on changing jobs in 2018

Today, candidates wield more power which have resulted in many job-hopping cases. A report by USA Today pointed to how candidates are even ghosting interviews and job offers because of the strong job market. This is an interesting development, considering how applicants have always considered this to be an employer’s attitude toward them.

Since 2012, IT jobs have soared by over 470,000 and healthcare jobs have increased by over 600,000.

So what is the best way to source passive candidates?

Because passive candidates aren’t looking for jobs, they won’t be on job board websites. Your sourcing strategy must be different for passive candidates. Here are a couple of ways to source passive candidates. These are tips from Forbes and Linkedin, with the latter’s metrics based on its Talent Solutions report:

  1. Build your own database and know your candidate’s strengths, qualifications and experiences. Your database could be as simple as a spreadsheet or a sales slash recruitment tool, so you can refer to them quickly if need be.
  2. Use referrals. Employees may want to recommend their peers and friends for a job. They would also know if their referrals would be a good fit. Make sure to give incentives to the referrer.
  3. Tap social media. Most people are in social networks. Small businesses who don’t have the resources of big companies can leverage social media to find potential candidates. It’s a given that recruiters will also need to be on social networks, especially Linkedin, if not Facebook or Twitter. Post jobs in there.
  4. Practice diversity while recruiting candidates. Diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity have always made companies more successful, not just in terms of generating revenue but also how companies become global brands.
  5. Adopt new interviewing tools and process. Relying on traditional interviews will not do it anymore. Make use of new tools out there.
  6. Increase use of data to make strategic hiring decisions. This is different from building a database, as it’s about segmenting candidates in a more granular way.  Candidates can be evaluated based on their skills and their job preferences.
  7. Use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. In many ways, most of the sites now can figure out an assignee’s skills based on the information they put on their portfolio profile. Linkedin and other job sites like hired.com have started automating automating job search that help them get the right candidates.
  8. To reiterate, know that 70 percent of the global workforce are passive candidates. Yes, companies need to look for local talents locally but with the low unemployment rate and work getting more specialized, a global company with big ambitions will need to source the best global talents out there.bbe are the must-dos for companies based on the Linkedin report. Make these variables very clear to potential hires.
  9. Talent is four times more likely to consider a company when assigness get constructive feedback. Being honest to an assignee means also giving them constructive feedback. It helps organizations maintain its brand and create a network of talent around good talents.

How does one get passive candidates to apply, though? Instill in passive candidates that they’re going to miss out on some things. For global mobility managers, it’s important to cultivate relationships with candidates who may be passive now but active job seekers later.