Question
I recently hired the best employee I’ve ever had. Was catching up with an old friend and he told me about someone he ran into at a conference, said she should be on my team. I contacted her but she wasn’t looking and declined a job interview. But I kept at it as politely as I could. Finally she agreed to meet with me and one of my key staffers who is an expert in the field. Frankly, I don’t think she would have done the meeting without him. I learned something: there really are unicorns out there! But they’re not looking for us. The so-called passive job hunter will never see your job posting. So I’ve been reading about how to find these unicorns. It’s all silly tricks. Here are a few from SHRM: do a blog about professional topics, ask around (!), or start an employee referral program. And this genius advice: Make your job application form easy to fill out! (How’d you even get them to look at it?) Who writes this stuff? Is there a method or did I just get lucky?
Nick’s Reply
The holy grail of the employment industry is the passive job hunter. That’s the rare candidate everyone wants to hire.
Attracting the passive job hunter
You know: the top-of-the-class expert who is so successful she doesn’t need to look for a job. She’s happy doing the one she’s got and stays happily hidden.
The challenge, the employment industry tells us, is to attract that person to your website and get her to fill out a form so she can be notified when a great job comes along. Yah, right. Why would she fill out a form if she doesn’t need or want your help finding a job?
The answer to your question is in what you already said. See if you can figure out what I’m referring to.
Passive job hunter or passive employer?
I’ve got an epiphany for you about “passive”. Who’s passive is the employer, not the job hunter. Most employers are lousy recruiters because they’re entirely passive about the way they try to hire good people – whether the people they want are actively job hunting or “hiding.”
Employers sit on their duffs, waiting for “the websites” to deliver. They’re as passive as lottery players, waiting for their numbers to come up. And SHRM? The association of HR managers? They fully support the ATS lottery system: buy more numbers and one might be a winner!
Now I’ve got some news for you: passive job hunters don’t need you. They can get an interview or a job almost anywhere they want, any time they want. If anyone needs to get active, it’s you — the manager. Congrats on hiring your best worker, but if you want to do it again, get out there and meet the best people in your business. Go to them. Do it in person. Talk to them. Get to know them.
Activities of passive job hunters
You’ll find them at professional conferences. No, not filling out applications at the career booths. The best people are up at the podium, either delivering presentations and showing off their talents or talking shop with the speakers.
You’ll find them in training classes beefing up their highly desirable skills. You’ll find them online leading active discussions on Reddit or Stack Overflow, talking shop with one another. And guess what? They don’t want to talk about hot job postings. They want to talk about their work.
So, get off your duff and get out of your office. The answer isn’t passive job hunters; it’s active managers. The answer is what your buddy does: goes out and “runs into” the best in the field!
(Oops. Forgot. Managers are too busy running important businesses to go find and interact with the best workers out there. Never mind…)
If you’re a hiring manager or an HR manager, how do you find your best candidates? Do you wait for them to come along in the ATS or do you hit the road and search in-person? If you’re a passive job hunter, how do you pick your jobs? How do you avoid being bothered by solicitations you don’t want or need?
: :
This is, by far, the most ridiculous crap Posting I’ve ever read here yet.
NOBODY is indispensable. And deifying some random possible future employe makes you an extremely unattractive employer.
I’m SO sick of these kind of stories here. I know long-term unemployed geniuses that cannot BUY a job much less even an interview. These are smart fantastic people who are ostracized and pariah-ed by IDIOTS like you two proselytizing “the passive Candidate”, whatever the hell that really is.
And being so politically correct referring to the dupe you canmot live without as “she”.
You people are what is wrong and broken with American hiring.
Why don’t you do your part to alleviate suffering and hire the unemployed?!?!
I wouldn’t work for you or ANYONE who takes this MASSIVE discriminatory stance against good people who just happen to find themselves in bad situations, ie, unemployment.
Your hiring practices oughtta be investigated by the EEOC and your UI premiums auditted and raised.
Get your collective heads out and do the right thing, the HUMANE thing, and STOP playing these sorry silly hiring games.
The “silly hiring games” are those played by the geniuses in HR departments all over the country, having job seekers create accounts just so they can login to some company portal and reinvent the wheel by entering all the stuff that’s on a resume in the first place, feeding that into their ATS and then rejecting the job seeker within seconds for some super secret reason. Or if the job seeker somehow manages to get past the ATS gauntlet, they get insulted with so-called video “interviews” which aren’t really interviews in the first place (and don’t even ask about any of the biometric data that’s most likely being mined there and stored for God knows how long or sold to God knows who…), only to be strung along and then ghosted.
That’s the broken system resulting from the silly games HR plays… decidedly different from the approach you’ll see advocated on this website.
Well, looks like a nerve was touched and although I don’t agree with your all out bashing of the “passive” reality that exists in the job market place, I will comment on this:
“The best people are up at the podium, either delivering presentations and showing off their talents or talking shop with the speakers.”
That is fluffed up egoism at its best – or worst as the case may be.
Sorry, “the best” are NOT always at the podium, etc.
“The best” are frequently too busy busting their collective rear ends at work while many of the egoists are literally seeking out attention getting avenues such as “being seen and heard” on a podium or “presenting” like a carnival barker at a convention.
Class-A “look at me” cults of personality.
There are many, many “best” people NOT putting themselves on display (idolizing the podium) and even unemployed.
@Chris S: That’s a fair criticism. I don’t believe ALL the best people are at the podium. But some of them are (and I don’t think it’s worthwhile to characterize them all as egoists). Most are indeed busy at work. The question is, how does a manager find them? That’s what this Q&A is about. The ones at the podium are obvious but the manager or his agent have to go there. Getting to the best who are at their desks is harder. You can’t usually go to where they work, but you can go to where they hang out. Where is that? One place is a professional gathering.
How would you get to those who are busy at their jobs? How would that manager get to you, assuming you’re not into spinning the job-board roulette wheel?
You’re reading too much into what Nick is saying. In other words, taking him too literally.
His point is that the current system of job boards, LinkedIN, resumes and the like has caused much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We’re paying still paying $Billions, to allow HR to be lazy and they are telling us there is a talent shortage. The only shortage is of recruitment professionals to think out of the box and actually meet people accurately measure their talents vs. business needs.
I am trying to open two positions. In one case we have identified a potential candidate already working on the program. As a manager, I will also consider people who come across ATS. (Note: If someone talks to me and I think they are a good fit, I tell Talent Acquisition to be on the lookout for that resume.). Also, I am on the lookout for people who are hidden gems – they might not be to “Opera Star” status, but if you dig deeply enough you find a richness of experience. (Many times I have been that hidden gem – fortunately I have a boss and a colleague who have been very supportive.)
I’m “semi-retired” now, but in 2009, I had an incredible job. The best part: I was not looking and I turned them down – three times, in writing! My first two notes were the respectful, “thank you for the call” letter stating that, as I told them on the phone, I didn’t feel qualified for the job. I felt they needed to look elsewhere.
My third rejection letter was a two-page narrative explaining in explicit detail how I did not meet their job requirements, as well as how their job description demonstrated unrealistic expectations. I was certain they couldn’t find anyone to fill their requirement. The contracted HR company showed my letter to their client (who then realized the description did not fit their need) and told the vendor, “Go get this guy!”
This time, I humored them with an on-site visit and was hired the next day. And the rest, as they say, is history.