Purchase Windows 7 blog lassoing-the-passive-candi

A reader lately posed a query to me in response to my post on energetic v passive candidates. (Btw – read that post,Cheap Office 2010, people! It;s one of my favorites but received some of our lowest traffic to date. You are missing out, especially if you are or ever plan to be a Hiring Manager!) But I digress … The query: Very interesting suggestion that there actually exists passive candidates. How do you go about luring them to investigate your job / position / career? Ooh, good question. I suppose I should first explain a bit more about what I mean by passive vs. active job seekers. Other articles define these terms, but my characterization would be as follows: Energetic Job Seeker – This person may post a resume on a job board like Monster or Dice or proactively submit a resume to an open position. He/she is making a concerted effort to find a new job. Passive Job Seeker – This person is currently employed and not actively seeking a new opportunity. He/she may or may not be happy in his/her current role. Nonetheless, job hunting consumes 0% of his/her time. Now, you;ll notice a large portion of the population actually falls between these two profiles, and I;d be apt to put the remaining people into a slot I;ll call “Somewhat Passive Job Seekers.” Somewhat Passive Job Seeker – This person peruses job listings on an occasional to regular basis, has an up-to-date readily available, and networks with friends and colleagues to ensure he/she doesn;t miss the next good thing. As I said in my earlier publish, most Hiring Managers believe their recruiters only target the Energetic Job Seekers. (Just a thought – wouldn;t that make us passive recruiters?! Anyway … ) Yes, lively candidates are easy to “sell” or recruit … but often the jobs we need to fill require people with different skill sets then what exist in the active pool. When I approach the Passive and Somewhat Passive Job Seekers, I do so carefully. First, I want to gauge their interest and see if I can get them to give me just 5-10 minutes of their time. Most of my initial communication is done via e-mail. I know other recruiters who cold call (instead of cold e-mail), but I;ve found a simple introductory e-mail remits far higher results than a phone call. (I should note I think this trend has to do with my target candidate set. A Marketing candidate may love to get a weird phone call out of the blue, but honestly,Office Standard 2010 Key, how many Developers do you know who are willing to talk on the fly with a stranger … let alone even answer their phone!) An e-mail is much less intrusive, and personally, I know I;d be more willing to return an e-mail with “tell me more” then return a strange person;s phone call. That said, I want to be really careful about my wording since I;m putting my request in written form. Usually the passive job seekers are working in a similar field or technology so I;ll say something as simple as: Hi <name> – My name is Gretchen Ledgard, and I work at Microsoft. I read a little bit about your experience (on the internet, via your whitepaper, through a colleague etc). My team has some current career opportunities based in Redmond, WA, that I believe you may find very interesting given your experience, and I wanted to contact you to see if you might be open to learning more. Although my response rate is really high, if I don;t hear back from the person within a week, I;ll usually send a quick follow-up note just to ensure he received my first message. Often, respondents aren;t interested in talking to me. That;s fine … they may know others who are. I;ll say something like: “Since you seem to be well-connected XYZ industry, please feel to forward my name and contact out to your colleagues and associates.” Good people know other good people. If respondents are interested in learning more, I want to get them on the phone for about 10 minutes, but I want to tread very lightly in my “assessment.” I usually don;t have a resume to review, and since this is a “soft sell,” I don;t need to jump in with, “So why do you want to work for Microsoft?” I know what the answer is going to be, “Um… I don;t. You called me.” Instead,Office 2010 Pro Plus, I want to tell the person about the job opening and gauge his/her interest. If interest exists,Microsoft Office 2010 Pro Plus, I ask more about the candidate;s experience and career goals. A lot of times I find these don;t align with my opening (after all,Purchase Windows 7, I contacted them rather blindly – usually only with knowledge of a job title). From here, I tell them honestly my job doesn;t sound like it would suit their interests, but “Since you seem to be well-connected XYZ industry ….” These folks are also great people to include on a future contact list. They are well connected and at least somewhat interested in a future role with the company. If we do have a mutual match, I;ll try to get them on the phone with the Hiring Manager as quickly as possible. I do this for two reasons: 1) I;m currently playing the role of good cop so I don;t want to jump into interview mode and scare them away, and 2) the HM can sell the opportunity a hell of a lot better than I ever could. I should note that having a well known and mostly respected corporation behind me helps in the sell. I;ve never been anything but a corporate recruiter so I;d love to hear how independent recruiters approach this situation. The Microsoft name (most of the time) assists tremendously in getting the passive job seekers on the phone … the hard part is finding them. :( gretchen P.S. And here;s a shout out to my Dad, Alec Garland, back in my hometown of good ol; Manchester, Tennessee. He told me today that he enjoys my writing style but my content is “over his head” and he “couldn;t care less about resume tips.” Better hold on to that job, huh, Dad?