I think that the success of a company is the activity of its employees. Brand, ownership and product means little, but the way your employees work means everything. Active is always better than passive.

posted January 29, 2008

I would be hard pressed to determine any correlation. Once that passive candidate was interviewed or contacted they then became an active candidate. Which truthfully, everyone is an active candidate if the right opportunity presented itself.

posted January 29, 2008

In general, I would say yes. It always seems more difficult for anyone who is out of work to be looking for work. Job offers seem to come to employed folks. I don't have any statistics on this, it is just based on my observations.

Links:

• http://hamiltonjones.com/Default.aspx?tabid=225

posted January 29, 2008

Hi Jindrich

The preference of hiring a passive candidate over the candidate who posts him/her intention of applying to a job could be different depending of which are your needs as a recruiter. Let us why:

If you have the urgency of hiring relevant talent to fill an opened job position, a candidate who posts his/her offer as a professional in hiring portals possibly could be a good option, although, perhaps, not the better available.

Such candidates usually are more eligible if you are developing an urgent hiring and recruiting processes of talent. Active candidates could have abilities, capacities, skills, professional experience, education and competences, that although could be suitable for the opened position, not necessarily signifies that such candidate could be the best fit, particularly if he/she is desperately searching for a new job due to personal misbehaviours, difficulty to endorse a stable professional career, or easiness of feeling frustrated or disempowered in most of the common job events.

For the opposite, a passive candidate could be favoured because he/she is not looking for a new job currently, he or she is working at this time in a company where his/her engagement and motivation are essential to produce outstanding outcomes that can be measured in the present, he/she could has the best conditions of eligibility, particularly if the employer needs to hire talent with the willpower of developing professionally for the long term.

Hiring passive candidates requires from most time to close the hiring and recruitment cycle and implies higher costs to effective hiring from the employer. Nevertheless, a passive candidate possibly signifies a lesser risk for the employer in the long term and a bigger level of satisfaction for both employer and recruiter.

I hope this helps you.
Octavio

posted January 29, 2008

Jim Wahl is dead on point when he says that eventually every candidate is active at some point in time. Additionally, depending on the volume and hiring deadlines passive talent is not always the best sourcing channel to meet the demands of a business.

That said, the very best talent tends to be employed and not actively looking for a new opportunity. Establishing relationships with talent (not just people) that excel and not actively looking for a new opportunity will allow a skilled recruiter the opportunity to uncover whether or not the person is positioned for growth, what their career wound is (everyone has one) and what decision making criteria they will use to make a change. Once that is unearthed it is merely a matter of time (and a lot of relationship management) before a great recruiter will find the right situation based on this information and leverage even the most passive talent from their current situation.

I present all of that information to demonstrate that truly passive suspects and prospects make decisions differently than other types of prospects or candidate. They tend to make strategic decisions (something Lou Adler talks about often). Strategic decisions often require more information and have more long term impact. Because passive talent typically make strategic decisions they are likely to last longer in their next opportunity.

In terms of whether or not they perform better that is most likely dependent on how well the recruiter or company interviews and how the recruiter sourced the talent in the first place. The best source of passive talent that will stick and perform is from competitive intelligence referrals. Not just getting names but getting competitive intelligence on those names (how do you know them? what work did you do together? how do you know they are good? why are you referring them? etc.). Once a recruiter develops a pipeline of TALENT in which they are matriculating and fostering relationships the quality of referrals goes up exponentially and that is when passive talent typically outperforms and outlasts active candidates.

It is better to run to something then to run from something and active candidates, unfortunately, are often running from something. The number of high performers in the active candidate pool is significantly less than the number of high performers in the passive prospect pool. Getting the high performing passive talent takes a lot more effort and work but tends to have a bigger pay off.

posted January 29, 2008

I've been recruiting for 17 years and can't really say that I see any correlation between employee performance and whether or not they were hired an active or passive job seeker. I've seen absolutely fantastic candidates that were actively seeking new roles and those who were not.

posted January 29, 2008

Passive candidates often have a 'career' orientation. Their employment status
allows for a different set of discussions when evaluating the opportunity. It also provides a more strategic viewpoint of the hiring firm typically requiring a strong 'sales' emphasis of the opportunity, the firm and the firms forward plans. Active candidates must still be considered as there are always 'jewels' that are pushing their own career envelope. Having both types of qualified candidates makes the evaluation more precise and often the right selection/offer. It may be worthwhile for us all to measure?

posted January 29, 2008

Not necessarily. Passive vs. Active is a silly debate in most cases because it really all comes down to timing. A fabulous passive candidate can become active because of many different things so it's a matter of luck and timing that determines the switch. Or, a recruiter calling with a role that happens to be an ideal fit...for whatever reason.

All passive means is that the person isn't actively looking. That doesn't mean they're better. They could be an absolute slug, doing just enough to get by...you don't know until you look closely. That active candidate who answers your ad could be a super star who just moved to the area or had some change at work that made her consider looking at new opportunities.

Each individual should be evaluated based on what they bring to the table and their overall candidacy....not whether they are 'active' or 'passive'.

Just my two cents.

Pam

posted January 29, 2008

I assume by passive and active you mean, passive: the company went out and found the candidate, active: the candidate was actively seeking work and found the job posting.

I would believe a candidate who is actively looking for work is going to have a better work ethic than a candidate who sends a canned resume to a few recruiters and hopes someone finds them a job.

The problem is, you might have found a candidate thus they are defined as passive but they are actually actively looking for work.

When I was looking for work, I was still working full time but I spent 3 hours every night at my 'second job'. I set up a home office, researched resume writing, searched for job boards, scanned for jobs on a daily basis, applied to numerous jobs and set up a tracking system were I could determine who I applied to, when, what the full job description was, did I interview, did I do a follow up letter, etc.

As a back up plan I did make sure my resume got into the hands of as many recruiters as I could. Occasionally a recruiter would call me up and arrange for an interview. From these companies' point of view I was a passive candidate. But was I really?

posted January 29, 2008

I have been a recruiter the better part of 9 years and I consider it my function to surface talent that is appropriate to the opening. The way that talent is sourced doesn't enter into the equation as far as performance is concerned. The question to consider is does the method of sourcing the candidate impact other factors besides performance!

In the recruiting business and life in general the rule of thumb is -- the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So, do you need talent to solve an immediate need that provides immediate benefits or are you seeking talent that will be a long time employee and provide dividends over time.

posted January 29, 2008

The answer is there is no definitive proof that either make a better employee performance-wise.

posted January 29, 2008

I just ran across an articl at TechCrunch about this very topic. There is a prevelant idea that the best hires are passive candidates because thier current employers are making sure to keep them happy. There is a new start up based upon this theory, notchup.com, that opened its virtual doors January 28th.

The concept is that passive job seekers post thier information and employers pay a fee to interview them. Once a candidate enters thier information/experience/etc. the website calculates an "interview fee". An employer pays this fee to Notchup and when the passive seeker has interviewed, Notchup transfers this money (minus a 'transaction fee') to thier paypal account.

Links:

• http://www.notchup.com

posted January 29, 2008

My question would be - what makes them passive. Maybe their interaction style requires them to take in all of the information surrounding an issue, before responding - and often they are unable to offer (what could be a fantastic suggestion) because the people who 'speak what they're thinking' drown them out. Some introverted people can offer a world of knowledge but they won't offer a response until they are ready.

Assessments are always helpful in identifying what personalities are on a team and how they can be best leveraged. Just because they seem passive, does not mean that they can't contribute - maybe they just are not given the opportunity?

posted January 29, 2008

Not sure what is meant by "passive" or "active" candidate....

However, I believe passive candidates (not go getters if you define it so) are still needed in an organization - they are fundamentally important to keep the sanity!

Performance is relative - they keep the home fires burning! The very fact they do their work (at time routine, monotonous, humdrum, uninteresting etc.) keep the organization alive and free to pursue options for growth!

posted January 30, 2008

By passive, you are probably referring to someone who's not actively searching in the job market. Either way, I believe the quality of candidates does not substantially correlate to their state of activity in the job market.

However, I am more concerned with the other comparison: passive vs passionate. I will be very uneasy if the shortlisted candidate choose to be "passive" through the interview and selection process, thinking that it is the recruiter's job to sell the role and the package to him. I will drop a candidate, no matter how impressive he is, if he is not passionate about the role and the company.

posted January 30, 2008

In most areas passive is ideal, except in critical issues, or non reviewed workers ( no HR - aka small company) . Passive have a tendancy to only do what they are told and are more corporate. They rely on the rules being there and the infrastructure. Without it , they just sit and do only what their told. Most small businesses cant afford per person managers or people who need by the hour instructions and need more active canidates.

There is a definite correlation between performance and personality. Some people are un-stopable, others sit and wait for retirement. This is based first on their personality , since that is what drives the ego.

posted January 30, 2008

It doesn't matter whether they are passive or active - a candidate makes a good employee is s/he has what you need (skills set, experience, education, etc). The debate 'passive' vs 'active' seems kind of irrelevant, as no one can say one is better than the other. Bottom line, it depends on your position, geography, benefits, incentives, etc AND candidate's experience, education, skills, etc

posted January 30, 2008

Jindrich

Jim Wahl has got it right in my opinion. Once they are in the process, there is no difference. By looking at passive candidates you widen your choice and access specific expertise that may not be actively on the market.

If you are working with a headhunter, it is his or her job to create interest from relevant passive candidates.

Best regards

Geoff Salmon
Director
Renaissance Recruitment

posted January 31, 2008

There are a lot of varied responses to this question. As well there should be. One main thing to remember is that passive candidates represent a very large demographic of candidates that need to be targeted in your search to ultimately find the best candidate for your position.If you don't target passive candidates you are basically giving up on a gigantic pool of talent that is already in the position you are looking to fill. You actually become "passive" in your recruiting efforts by allowing the candidates to come to you rather than you hunting them down. Furthermore, if you are only calling on active job applicants, are you really recruiting? That's closer to application screening and computers can do that. Whether or not they are better in the end can be debated, but you have to allow yourself the chance to even find out.

posted January 31, 2008

In my experience, I have found the opposite to be true.

posted February 4, 2008