Since Recruiter.com keeps deleting my reply to Art on this article, I figured I’d post it here. Just got back from a Caribbean trip and catching up with work, missing the blue water.
Reply to Art:
I think you missed the point, Art. The title of the article is, “Is Passive Talent Better Than Active Job Seekers?,” and is not asking whether or not a passive strategy is a good, and sometimes necessary thing, which it is. However, the incessant harping on passive! talent by many recruiting ‘thought leaders’ leads to just that problem: people think ‘passive’ means ‘better.’ It doesn’t. It just means the person in question wasn’t actively looking for a job when they were contacted.
The best qualified person is the one who performs better, it doesn’t depend on how they were sourced. The correct approach is to always employ both active and passive strategies to varying degrees, depending on the needs of the particular position as in the situations you mention, and pick the best person from the pool of people you get regardless of how they were sourced.
The problem at base is that thanks to the incessant harping on this issue it has been reframed in the minds of many people outside the industry as passive = inherently better, when in reality it’s just a marketing distinction to delineate strategies for reaching as wide a candidate pool as possible. It is not a determinant of job performance. But, that’s how many see it. That’s the problem, because people then pass over ‘active’ candidates who could very well be superstars because, well hell, they’re not passive!, so how good could they really be? Hell, they’re looking for a new job.
After all, we wouldn’t want to employ anyone who actually wants to work for or with us, would we?
