Often we see articles about recruiting passive candidates. The perception is that active candidates are not as desirable as their working counterparts.

Allyson Doyle, Contributor for About.com wrote, “Employers often actively seek passive candidates for employment, especially when they are seeking candidates with very specific skills and experience.”

Does that mean that active candidates are no good? Before making a premature judgment, please read on - It VERY important not to discount active candidates.

Manisha Gupta, on her LinkedIn article “Passive Talent – Not as Passive as you Think”, brought up a very important point. “…if you focus only on the passive talent pool (which comprises about 80 percent of the fully-employed workforce), you’ll find those who are truly ‘approachable’ (whether ‘Tiptoers’ or ‘Explorers’) far outnumber the ‘Super-Passives’ who claim they’re not interested in even discussing a move.” Most of these candidates are actually somewhat active.

Active candidates are usually inundated with calls by sourcers and recruiters for the same jobs all day. Because of this, active candidates can be “slippery” and hard to pin down. Honestly, it can take even more time to properly recruit candidates that are on the prowl than their more passive peers. I have always prided myself on having no candidate not accept an offer I presented. (ok maybe 4 in my career) The reason I can claim this, like quite a number of my peers, is because, I have never presented an offer to a candidate that I had not had on lock down.

Let’s look at four of the steps that you must do if you want your candidates to “stick.”

1. Get ALL the Red Flags out of the way during discovery. Most candidates that are actively looking could also be actively interviewing. They say Monday night they can interview on Tuesday. But when you call them on Tuesday, you find out they got a job! (Ouch!) If you are sure this is THE candidate, do a deep DEEP dive when getting to know your candidate. You need to know what they want in their career and whether or not you can provide it!
2. Talk to them every day!! Lead with the question: “Has anything changed since I talked to you yesterday?”
3. Assume that they have interviewed and/or received offers. “Where are you interviewing today?  Turn down any offers? Any pending?”
4. Repeat during each conversation the “specs”: “To follow up, I have submitted your resume to [Company Name or Hiring Manager Name] for the [Job Title]. You can interview at [times and days given to you by candidate] and if everything goes well, you are able to accept the position at [company name] in [city] for an annual (hourly) salary of [$$$$].

It really does need to be everyday by the way. And then 2x a week the first 2 weeks and once a week for the next 2 weeks at a minimum. Sourcers and recruiters remember the candidate is your product. Make sure before every placement you know what you are selling.