Does candidate status matter?

“Don’t buy that oven – THIS is the best one in the world. Ever!”

Okay, Comet man didn’t talk like a cheap recruiter.

But when I explained it was a direct replacement for the same model that had broken, he then hit me with how bad my parents’ oven was.

I walked across the road and bought it from Currys.

I’ve no doubt Cometman hopped straight onto MySpace to complain about being ghosted after a sure-fire deal disappeared.

See, I never needed to buy an oven until theirs had broken, and no amount of marketing would have convinced me otherwise.

When things changed, I was ready to buy, with purpose.

I just didn’t want to buy one from an oven knob.

The new oven was fine.

Another metaphor -

A few months after a kitchen refurb, with a swanky new induction oven no less, we’d just settled into our new open-plan living when my wife convinced me to look at another house.

We were very happy in our updated home, but an advert on Rightmove caught her eye.

It’s true a timely inbound message might have prompted the same viewing, but it was an advert with a rare combination of criteria that might just improve our lot which popped up instead.

We weren’t even passively waiting for a good house to come up, yet our heads were turned by the right message as Brooke passed the time.

These are parallels to the nature of active and passive candidates.

Active - people who actively apply for jobs.

Passive - people who may be open to someone contacting them about a job.

Typically, they are used to show that when you advertise a job you only access the active candidates who also apply for other jobs on the market.

How do you access passive candidates? Through headhunting of course.

Indeed, there’s an argument that passive candidates are better for no other reason except they aren’t active.

It’s a trite argument that ignores how people make decisions on their future, how their situations matter, and how some things are out of their control (redundancies / broken ovens).

It’s also an argument that stats can appear to back up.

‘87% of people are mildly passive, passive or very passive’ – click here for my LinkedIn post on why I see these statements as marketing tripe.

My view is that from a market access perspective, it doesn’t matter what the status of a candidate is.

While I do use the terminology active, passive and embedded, context is more important.

Every vacancy has a different context, describing different scopes and dimensions, different required skills, attitudes and behaviours – all of which define what good is in a candidate.

When you know what good is, and you match that against market context, you can establish which channels are most effective:

• Headhunting
• Advertising
• LinkedIn
• CV databases
• Agency databases
• Networking & referrals
• Hiring your temps, interims, consultants & suppliers
• Waving around a placard at a Data Science convention

The nature of your vacancy, relevant candidate base and market conditions are the key points in establishing which balance of channels is most effective in securing your next employee.

Not whether they are active or passive at any given time.

Yes, sometimes headhunting is the best approach. Candidates who might even be Active.

Yes, sometimes adverts will work after three months of trying, even if they are written by Cometman, if you catch someone suitable at the right time. When the same candidate was passive the day before.

‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ is relevant in how much work you have to do to find, engage and bring them on board.

But if you’ve been following YMMV so far, I’ve written about how to provide an optimal experience for potential candidates irrespective of their status, with no stone unturned.

With the crux being right message, right time, right person, and right medium.

I can tell you that a well-crafted advert will be attractive to even the most passive candidates, much like our house viewing, if you catch them at the right time, in the right place, and it speaks to their aspirations.

While treating active buyers poorly may push them away, no matter how badly they need a job.

If you’re genuinely recruiting for a ‘contextually right person’, their status shouldn’t matter.

If you don’t have the wherewithal to know which channels are best, or how to access candidates across these channels, that’s where outside expertise can help.

And sometimes it’s just the hard work to do it rigorously that you don’t have time for.