A new survey by CareerBuilder finds more than one in five workers is planning to change jobs in 2017. Many of these — and even more who are not “officially” planning to change jobs — are passive job seekers. They are open to hearing about a new position, but they are not actively seeking out and applying to any at the moment. Passive candidates are often considered to be higher quality candidates. But they can also be more difficult to engage and convince to make a career move.
Passive job seekers have not fully committed to tackling head-on the stress of a job change. It’s going to take more than a graphic on LinkedIn to light their fire. They are not searching the job boards, following you on social media, opening your unsolicited emails, or checking out the career page of your website. They have not updated their résumé or online profile in a while, either. They are waiting for opportunity to knock. Often, it must knock very directly and loudly.
Use Multipronged Strategies to Reach the Passive Candidate
If you have a hard-to-fill or challenging position, you probably don’t have the luxury of waiting for the right candidate to stumble across a job post. This is especially true of the large segment of qualified people who are only passively open. You will need an active approach to identify and engage with every category of job seeker — active, casual, passive, and inactive. Kickstart your efforts by mining the data in your ATS, searching résumés on job boards, and reading LinkedIn profiles.
But what about all those RNs, LVNs, CNAs, OTs, PTs and others who aren’t in your ATS, and who don’t have a résumé on a job board or a LinkedIn profile? Ahhh … there’s gold in those mountains! For your specialized position in management, nursing, physical therapy, or occupational therapy, you need to target people who have specific qualifications and live in specific areas. And most importantly, you’ve got to make them look at your offer. How can you possibly do this? If direct mail didn’t pop into your head, it should have!
Direct Mail: A Tried-and-True Activator
Direct mail gets you into the mailboxes of 100% of the licensed candidates in your target area. No other medium reaches a higher concentration of a geo-targeted audience than direct mail. Period. And we should know. We’ve been helping healthcare recruiters send full-color, visually-exciting job announcements to qualified, licensed candidates who live in specific areas for more than 15 years. The next time you have a hard-to-fill position, ask Precinct Recruitment Solutions for a quote!
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