The first five minutes of your call are the most important aspect of recruiting passive candidates. The success of all the other efforts to engage an expert, who is currently not looking for a new job, depends on those five minutes. Lou Adler writes about it in another of his articles on the topic of recruitment, published on the LinkedIn network. He summarizes the three following indicators that measure the overall effectiveness of passive candidates recruitment.
1. Success of the first call
During the first call, a successful recruiter should make at least 80% of the contacted passive candidates seriously interested in his offer or get at least two recommendations for other high-quality passive candidates.
2. Number of candidates contacted per position
If you have a good pool of pre-selected candidates, you should not have to contact more than four of them with one job offer. Problems may be caused by a poor understanding of the needs of the position, insufficient cooperation with managers or poor passive candidates recruiting skills.
3. Proportion of passive candidates
If passive candidates represent less than 50% of all the candidates you offer one job to, your recruiters do not have sufficient skills working with passive candidates.
The first five minutes
The metrics above clearly indicate your gaps. Lou Adler further describes how to make the best possible use of the initial five-minute conversation with pre-selected passive candidates.
1. Before calling anybody, make sure that you know the job well. You should not only describe the necessary skills, but really explain exactly how the offered job is done.
2. Prepare reasons why the passive candidate should consider your offer. Describe them in as much detail as possible.
3. Try to uncover hidden motivators specific for individual passive candidates.
4. Be persistent. You need to be really persuasive to encourage most of the candidates to call back.
5. Encourage the candidates to speak about themselves. Start by asking whether they would be interested in a new career opportunity.
6. Do not describe your offer as "awesome". Do not ask how much money they earn. Do not read a list of skills to check off according to the candidates' answers.
7. Remain in control of the call. Do not sell the job, but a conversation with you.
8. Identify whether the difference in what your business offers and what a candidate represents indicates a career move. Then present it as an interesting career move.
9. Get the candidates to try to convince you that he has what you want.
10. Decide whether you are still interested in the candidate or whether it will be more beneficial to ask for recommendations of more suitable candidates. You should gain at least two good recommendations.
Read more Lou Adler's ideas about passive candidates recruiting in Are you wasting your time when recruiting passive candidates?. More tips on how to measure recruitment effectiveness are available in What indicators are worth measuring in recruitment?.
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