Passive candidates are as elusive as they are desirable, a recruiters golden fleece!

Why are passive candidates so desirable?

Well, other than the fact that poaching a top performer away from your competition is a major win in the “war for talent”...

Passive candidates are more driven and 17% less likely to need skills development than active candidates. - Click to Tweet

This is according to research by LinkedIn that points to passive candidates as a better source for quality talent overall.

Passive candidates also make up the vast majority of the labor force!

60% of job seekers are considered to be passive candidates. - Click to Tweet

When asked by LinkedIn to describe their current job search status, here’s how fully-employed professionals responded:

• Approximately 25% of global respondents claim to be actively looking for their next role.

• A whopping 45% are open to talking with a recruiter.

• 15% are talking to their networks about other opportunities.

Unfortunately, these candidates are not looking on job boards, career sites, or in the help wanted section of the newspaper.

They have jobs. Good jobs.

Sure, they’re open to a chat, but you have to find them first.

If you want to reach passive talent, a combination of social recruiting and employee referrals is your best bet.

Remember that 15% of passive candidates reaching out to their network about potential opportunities? Chances are that some of them are chatting with your current employees.

A good employee referral program incentivizes those employees to jump at the chance to pitch your company to their peers.

Employee referral programs also encourage, and reward employees who can help connect you with that other 45% of job seekers who are open to exploring new job opportunities.

With referral based hiring you get the added bonus of improved retention rates, better cultural fit, and decreased time to hire.

Now lets add social recruiting to the equation.

According to research from Pew Internet, 73% of adults have social media profiles, 42% of them have profiles on multiple networks.

The average employee has at least 150 connections through social networks.

That’s a lot of potential referrals!

Then there’s the fact that even though passive candidates are not checking job boards, chances are pretty good that they are checking checking Facebook.

They belong to Facebook groups related to their field, they search twitter for hashtags relevant to their work, and they may even pop onto LinkedIn to see what past colleagues are up to.

If you have an employer brand presence, and a solid social recruiting strategy, you can reach those passive candidates.

Creating a branded Facebook Career Page, sharing job posts to Twitter that include relevant hashtags, and keeping up your LinkedIn presence makes you more searchable, more attractive, and improves your chances of engaging the passive talent you seek.

So what are you waiting for?

Win the war for talent with a social recruiting and employee referral 1,2 PUNCH!