Passive candidate recruiting

LinkedIn Poll Results - Passive Candidates are Better Employees

Recruiters say passive candidates are better employees

The LinkedIn team started a series of three polls over the last month that have received interesting results.

The first poll asked whether passive candidates were better employees - 60% said Yes, 23% said No, and the remaining 16% indicated that it was unclear.

We were expecting such an answer. It’s a widely held belief that the best talent is employed and that top performers get hired into new positions (including internal transfers) even before they start looking.  This explains why recruiters value referral programs, social networks sourcing, talent networks and thir party agencies so much. They are all great sources to identify the best talent early.

Recruiters, do you find better employees when hiring passive candidates?

There was quite a bit of discussion on the poll results page.  Some felt that the attitude of the candidate had a bigger impact than whether they were passive. Others commented that passive status indicated a level of satisfaction between the employee and the employer (i.e. if they are actively looking then maybe they are not as good, or not as loyal.).

We want to hear your thoughts on this topic.  Please post your comments to this blog.

Stay tuned to this blog to get the results of the remaining two polls in this series.

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