Are your critical positions staying unfilled? Why aren’t qualified candidates responding to your carefully crafted job postings? Is your ideal new hire even out there?
To connect with top talent in the current market, you may need to shift your approach from a more “post and wait” style to a more active talent acquisition model.
Your Ideal New Hire Might be a Passive Candidate
When looking at why traditional job postings aren’t attracting top IT talent, we need only to look at the stats to see the problem:
- In technical fields like IT, the workforce is often fully deployed, meaning that the most skilled professionals are already working elsewhere and rarely check job boards.
- Around 75% of the workforce falls into the passive candidate bucket — those who may be ready to discuss new opportunities if approached directly.
- Top candidates typically receive multiple weekly outreach messages from recruiters.
- High-performing candidates may stay on the market for only 10 days, giving you a narrow window to connect with them when they become active job seekers.
This creates a significant gap between available positions and accessible candidates. Your job opening may be reaching thousands of people, but there’s a good chance that the most exceptional candidates aren’t in your ATS.
Where are they? They’re focused on their current work. If they are open to roles, it’s likely that they’re already being courted by companies that take a proactive stance to personalize their offers.
4 Strategies to Reach Your Ideal New Hire
To land more passive candidates, you’ll need to get proactive and a bit creative in your process.
1. Take a Proactive Approach to Sourcing and Networking
A great way to find those passive candidates is to leverage your current team’s professional networks. The best IT professionals typically know the other best pros in their field. That means employee referrals are one of your most valuable recruitment channels.
You can supplement this effort by attending virtual and in-person industry events where you can rub shoulders with those who may be in the passive camp.
Search tools like LinkedIn, GitHub, and Stack Overflow can also help you spot and connect with potential hires.
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2. Craft Clear, Compelling Job Descriptions that Passive “Browsers” May Notice
Just because they’re not actively looking for a role doesn’t mean the top candidates don’t occasionally browse their options.
You can take your current job postings as effective passive marketing tools. Avoid dry lists of requirements and focus on job satisfaction, role impact, and how the position would make a difference.
Clearly differentiate between “must-have” and “nice-to-have” skills and weave your unique culture and benefits into the job opportunities — anything that may raise an eyebrow and keep them reading the post.
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3. Simplify Your Application Process
The number one way to make sure top candidates don’t apply or quit along the way? Make the process full of friction and frustration.
You’ll want to simplify your application process by removing all unnecessary obstacles. One-click applications allow candidates to apply with their LinkedIn profile or a simple resume upload.
Don’t forget to optimize the process for mobile devices, as many passive candidates browse opportunities during commutes or breaks. Only request essential information at the initial application stage. Save detailed discussions for later in the process.
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4. Personalize Your Outreach
When approaching passive candidates, generic messages usually get ignored. If you’re hunting for specific talent, make sure to do your research as well. This includes candidate work history, projects and contributions they’ve made to the field. You can use all of this data to personalize your outreach and respect their time and interest.
Offer multiple engagement options — like informal coffee chats or informational videos — all of which can reduce the tension and create space for talking about the opportunity freely.
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Partnering With a Staffing Agency Can Help You Bridge the Gap
While each of the above strategies can work for finding those top candidates, implementing them effectively can be time-consuming. That’s when working with an experienced staffing agency can help.
Experienced staffing agencies maintain extensive networks of active and passive candidates built through years of relationship development. These networks often include IT professionals who may never appear in your job search but would be perfect for your needs.
With established processes and wide talent pools, staffing agencies can fill positions up to 30% faster than traditional methods. Plus, their guidance and experience in crafting job descriptions can help you reach the right talent faster.
Don’t Post-and-Wait
To win the IT talent war, it’s time to make the shift from passive to proactive recruitment. A good staffing company can provide the most efficient path to accessing this hidden talent pool with an extensive network, industry expertise and proven processes that work.
We know hiring the right team members can be time-consuming. But many of the best passive candidates are just one conversation away from their next career move. The key is to make sure your company is part of that conversation when it happens.
If you need help, BravoTECH’s experienced recruiters can find the talent you need — even if they’re not on the market. With 30 years of experience in recruiting for clients throughout the U.S., from small firms to Fortune 500 companies, we can help you tap into a network of top talent to fill your key roles.
Contact BravoTECH at 800.726.7286 or visit bravotech.com to learn more.
