The Passive Candidate

The term “passive candidate” has existed for almost as long as I can remember.

A passive candidate is basically you – if you happen to not need a job at the moment.

It’s not a term everyone likes, partly (I think) because it’s somewhat glib and belies a complexity that exists in every single person. 

I don’t particularly like it either. It’s almost an oxymoron because if someone really is a “candidate” for a particular job, they’re not passive, they’re active. But maybe I’m just being picky.

A definition

What it was intended to mean, and how most experienced recruiters understand it, is this:

Someone who doesn’t need another job, but might be interested in one if it seems better than the one they’re doing.

And to be clear, these people only become passive candidates once they’ve responded to a job post, email, InMail, PM or phone call. Until that point they’re just regular people, not candidates.

The drivers

There are basically 3 types of people who will look at (and sometimes read) job posts and messages from recruiters. People who are either:

1. Unemployed
2. In a job they hate
3. In a job they don’t hate

Most passive candidates are in the 3^rd group.

Of all those people in that 3rd group, around 30% of them are very happy in their current job and would need something remarkable to turn their head – and that’s assuming you can get and keep their attention for long enough. So they’re out of reach for the majority of recruiters, if not all of them.

Most of the remaining 70% are typically doing a similar job (usually for between 3-4 years) and probably aren’t feeling quite as challenged or as engaged as they once were. That can be caused by all kinds of things – some positive, some negative.

A positive driver might be that they want to learn more or get better at what they do. A negative driver might be that they’ve inherited a new manager or they didn’t get that pay rise they were promised a year ago.

Whatever it is, it hasn’t yet grown to the point where they’re desperate to leave, but they’ll occasionally stop and look at any job-related content that’s relevant.

A survey from Indeed found that 71% of people who are in in jobs, are open to new job opportunities. It breaks down like this:

• 26% are content with their current job
• 19% are looking to change jobs within the next 6 months
• 10% are looking to change jobs within the next 12 months
• 20% are occasionally browsing job postings in case they see something they like

The one thing that unifies them is this…

They’re not desperate.

The big middle

I used the term “look at” job content rather than “read” job content because there are certain things passive candidates are less likely to read, and certain things they’re more likely to read.

It’s important to remember that these are not people who are keeping a spreadsheet to track their job applications. They’re neither “job seekers” or “candidates”. They’re in that big grey zone in the middle.

Things passive candidates won’t read:

• Job descriptions
• Emails or PMs that are nearly as long (and as boring) as a job description
• Emails or PMs that are only about what the writer wants
• Social media posts that carry any of the above content

Things passive candidates might read:

• Job adverts
• Short emails, InMails or PMs (50-70 words)
• Emails, InMails or PMs that don’t read like an edited copy and paste of a job description
• Social media posts (about a job) that intrigues them to click the link

Things passive candidates will read:

• Anything they get sent about that job after responding to the advert, email or InMail
• Any research they might find on the hiring company

I guess the two big questions are; 

How many passive candidates are there? And, is it even worth trying to attract them?

It’s unarguable that a large majority of qualified candidates for any perm job are going to be employed – although the percentage will vary depending on the job discipline and the economic conditions in that sector.

That means if you’re only posting a job description (as opposed to a job advert), your target candidate audience shrinks by between 80-90%.

Then you have to factor-in how many of these employed people are motivated to leave as soon as possible. This is a tough one to guess, but some basic research on market conditions and reported threats of redundancy in the sector might give you some indicators.

My best guess would be that somewhere between 10-20% of people are in jobs they’re very keen to leave. So that bumps up your target candidate audience to about 20-30% of the total. So if there are roughly 500 people with the right skills and experience to do the job, only around 125 of them would look at the job description – assuming they even saw it.

And that’s “look at”. Not “read” or “respond” or “apply”.

This leaves 70-80% of all the people with the skills/experience you’re looking for that are unavailable to you – regardless of whether they see your job post or message. And that’s because you’re not attempting to answer the one thing that’s in their mind, which is “What’s in it for me?” Or the longer version; “Why might this job be better than the one I’m doing?”

If you can’t answer that question (or at least start to answer it) at the beginning of the job post, then you’re only reaching people who are either unemployed or in jobs they hate. Or between 20-30% of your total target candidate audience.

Is it worth it?

Passive candidates are difficult to reach because they’re not actively (or regularly) looking, so are statistically less likely to ever learn of your job vacancy. But some will occasionally look at a job postings and when they do, and they see yours, you need to keep them on the page for as long as possible. 

Passive candidates can find out about your job vacancy in several ways:

• They browsed a few job posts after a bad day at work
• They opened and read your email, InMail or PM
• They bumped into your job post on social media
• They already know and trust you
• Word of mouth from others in their sector

That last one only happens when the job sounds attractive. People don’t tell other people about job descriptions.

And if they already know and trust you, chances are they’ll listen to whatever job you put in front of them.

We only need one

A job advert (or outreach campaign) only has to find one buyer – or the candidate that gets and accepts the job. That’s the one big advantage recruitment advertising has over most other forms of advertising. 

So getting 3 or 4 additional applications from qualified people will more often be the difference between filling the job and having to start the process again.

According to this research, around 60% of job board traffic is from people looking to improve their situation. This would suggest that passive candidates do look at job postings.

And of course, there are degrees of passivity. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, at 1 you have people who love their job and at 10 you have people who hate their job. The majority of recruiters aren’t reaching those people in the “big middle” (between 4 and 8) because their job posts and outreach messages look and sound like job descriptions.

Passive candidates are generally people who try to manage their careers carefully, which means they’ll only consider jobs that they think might improve their situation in some way. And because they’re passive, they are never going to wade through a long boring job description to look for the clues that might suggest the job is worth pursuing.

Somewhere between 70-80% of your target candidate audience won’t engage with your job marketing because you’re not making that job marketing about them.

Some ideas

Let me leave you with a couple of tips that might help you engage with a few more of these passive candidates.

First, when direct sourcing, focus on people with around 3-4 years experience in their current job.

Given that in many perm jobs, it takes around 1 year to get comfortable and 1-2 years of being fully effective, by the time they’re in years 3 or 4 there’s a reasonable chance they’re more likely to be ready for a new challenge.

Second, when discussing a new vacancy with the hiring manager, ask them why someone (who doesn’t need another job) might be interested in this one.

Once you get sensible answers to this line of questioning, you’ll probably have enough quality information to tempt more of those passive candidates to respond to your jobs.

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