HRevolution

This notion of categorizing the population into “active” and “passive” jobseekers has become stale. For most corporate recruiting, only active jobseekers matter. Lacking the skills and focus that are the hallmark of executive recruiters, the corporate recruiter is limited to advertising, referrals, and resume pools.

The term ‘passive jobseeker’ implies an individual is receptive to a new job without acting on it. While many people may be receptive to a better job, the fact that they aren’t actively pursuing one means they are not a jobseeker. I’m receptive to winning the lottery but I don’t buy lottery tickets. Does this make me a ‘passive’ lottery player? No. It makes me someone who doesn’t play at all. The point is, if one is not actively seeking a job, one is not a job-seeker. The term “seeking” implies activity. The term “passive” describes a lack of activity. You can be one or the other. If you are active, you are a jobseeker. If you are passive, you are not a ‘passive’ jobseeker. You are simply not a jobseeker. As far as corporate recruiting goes, you are a non-factor. (If approached by a headhunter, it may be different).

The problem is a recruiter-centic notion dividing the world into two camps, the jobseeker, and the jobseeker-who-wants-a-new-job-but-just-doesn’t-know-it-yet. The latter being the larger group. Since the jobseeking group is small, we feel the need to appeal to the larger population. We tend to see this as an advertising opportunity (like all recruiting problems). So, we post to more job boards and get a whole lot of unqualified resumes. Then we complain. We complain because, instead of getting all those passive jobseekers, we got active ones who don’t fit the requirements. Damn. It’s really frustrating when we try to appeal to the passive population and we find out they’re not reading the want ads. News Flash: people who aren’t reading the want ads are not job hunting. They’re not job hunting because they are not jobseekers. Not active, not passive, not jobseekers.

By defining everyone as some type of jobseeker we have obscured the target population. We have failed to identify, target and attract whomever it is we want and attracted a bunch of chaff instead. This happens all the time. We’d be much better off simply accepting that, while there may be qualified people interested in our opening, they aren’t going to see our posting. Then we can begin a problem-solving approach to identifying who they are, how to reach them, and what we can offer to attract them. While we persist in the notion that people are passively seeking our jobs we’ll continue to be frustrated by our current recruiting methods.

There you have it. My rant on “passive” jobseekers. I’m tired of the word, fed up with the debate, and have no time for anyone using such language.

Now, if you were to call them “latent” jobseekers…