Gone are the days of posting a job description blindly on job boards and in newspaper ads. Recruiters understand the value and true impact to a company’s bottom line and organizational success when the right people are placed in the right jobs. They also know the critical impact hiring the wrong candidates can have to a company and its culture. While we understand how vital it is to hire the right person, 47% of small businesses cannot find qualified applicants for open positions.
If you can’t find the right person for the job, you are not alone. In fact, nearly 50% of SMBs aren’t getting the talent they need according to researchers with NFIB Small Business Economic Trends.
The question circles back and recruiters are constantly asking themselves, how do we find the right applicant to fill this position?
According to Glassdoor, 84 percent of candidates would consider leaving their current company if another company with an excellent reputation offered them a job. So, how can you, an employer, use this to your competitive advantage?
Consider the passive candidate.
Recruitment has traditionally been focused on finding the candidates who are actively looking for employment, but there is a larger, untapped candidate pool known as the passive candidate who makes up a more significant size of the market. By definition, a passive candidate (passive job candidate) is someone who is being considered for a position but is not actively searching for a job.
How do you find passive candidates to fill your talent gap within your own organization? Here are a few ways to get started:
Utilize Social Media
Social media, in particular LinkedIn is an excellent method to find and source talent. When conducting your social media search, look at your competitors and their connections on LinkedIn. You can search relevant job titles, functions and skill sets to pair you with prospective candidates to fill your role.
Employee Referral Programs
According to the Undercover Recruiter, if you have an employee referral program, you can have an average retention rate of 46%, compared to the 33% retention rates of organizations that only use career sites.
Employees can be a great source of potential applicants—their friends or former colleagues may be good for a role but not job searching. If you give the employees an incentive to tell their network about a job, there’s a greater likelihood they’ll think of someone who may be qualified and interested.
Tap Into Your Pool of Prior Applicants
You may already have access to some of the best passive job candidates within your own files. Reaching out to past job applicants can be effective source of recruiting for your next opening. If the previous applicant still shows interest to work for your organization and their rejection was handled correctly, this may be an opportunity to revisit the relationship.
Successfully finding people for hard to fill roles requires a different approach. At Intellidig, we combine the most relevant and innovative sourcing techniques to help you hire the best talent.
If you are ready to find the people who aren’t looking, we can help.
Contact Intellidig today for your free consultation.