Passive and Active Recruiting

Time

Active recruiting generally involves scanning LinkedIn or other sites and databases to identify candidates whose background and experience match what you are looking for in a new employee. If you need a Director of Strategy, you’ll likely look through the databases for consultants at firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Once you identify a candidate, you’ll then send a well-crafted message with an overview of the company and the position. In general, you’ll do this several hundred times before you find an interested candidate that is a good fit for the role.

Passive recruiting, on the other hand, requires that you pay one of the many online job boards to post your open position on their site. You are then charged per click or application. On the surface, this sounds much more time-effective than active recruiting. However, you’ll likely receive hundreds of candidates applying for the position, most of whom will not be qualified for the job and you have to spend the time to sort through the resumes and follow up with the candidates who are a fit.

Cost

If you are employing an active recruiting method, you are likely using LinkedIn or a site that allows you to view a collection of resumes and contact information. Usually, you will pay for each potential candidate you send a message to. The process varies depending on the site and the service you purchase, but you can expect to pay a couple of dollars on average for each person you send a message to.

At ECA Partners, we’ve found that interest and response rates vary depending on the seniority of the position (with the more senior-level positions receiving a higher response and interest rate). Through tests and research, we’ve found various ways to adjust the messaging to increase the interest rate and attract the type of candidate we are looking for.

With a well-crafted message, you can expect a 7% interest rate or higher, if you are targeting candidates whose background is a good match for the position. This means you’ll need to send at least 15 messages to receive one interested candidate. Effectively, you’ll spend about 40-50 dollars for each one of these candidates, not including the cost of your time.

The cost per interested candidate can be reduced dramatically if you take the passive recruiting route since we can presume that every candidate that applies to your job ad is interested in the position. However, since you will likely pay a fee for each person who clicks or applies to your job, you will be paying for interested, but unqualified candidates. Also, if you stick to the passive method you miss the opportunity to talk to strong candidates who are not actively looking for a new role but might be open to leaving for the right position.

Using Both Methods Simultaneously

At ECA, we often lean on both the passive and active approaches, but most managers expect to find the best person for the position via the active approach. Often, the person who ends up being the best fit for the open role is not actively looking for a new position and only comes across the role when they receive a message directly.
Using both methods simultaneously is likely the fastest way to fill the position. It allows you to contact candidates who are an obvious fit on paper but may not be interested, at the same time as you review profiles of candidates who applied for the position, and are interested, but may not be the best fit.

Steven Haug, Ph.D. is a Project Manager of ECA Partners. He can be reached at [email protected].