How to Recruit Passive Candidates

We’re now working on a major survey with LinkedIn on determining the percent of its 70mm+ network that is active, passive, or somewhere in between. Recent data from the Recruiting Leadership Council ( CLC Recruiting — Building Talent Pipelines Survey ) indicates that for a broad sample of the U.S. workforce, 15-20% are very active and around 20% passive, with the remaining 60% showing a mix of passive and active behaviors. Our internal research would indicate that higher-quality and more senior-level prospects are more passive than the population at large. Regardless, this means that a significantly larger percent of the workforce is passive rather than active. This is a critical and overlooked point when developing new recruiting and sourcing processes.