Tools For Uncovering Passive Candidates

When you’ve exhausted your candidate pool and need to find top talent for a job req, what’s your go-to for uncovering passive candidates? On a recent NPAworldwide trading group conference call, participants discussed tools used to uncover passive candidates. Here are a few popular with our cybersecurity recruiters:

• Plugins and online tools
  • “I use a Chrome plugin called Hiretual. It’s dynamite, I highly recommend it. It does cost money, but not as much as LinkedIn lite.” Hiretual is a Chrome Extension that allows you to gather additional information on your passive candidates in LinkedIn. It also has a Boolean search assistant for more efficient searching.
    
  • Source Hub – “It’s similar to Hiretual, but it’s free. It works LinkedIn and 10 other social media platforms. I’ve had some good luck with it.” Provide the skillset, job title, and location of your ideal candidate, and Source Hub searches sourcing sites without “the pesky stop words and inaccurate searches.”
  • “We recently looked into a new thing called Go Gig, for developing a passive candidate network. It’s a way to chat with people who are just keeping their eyes open. It’s new, so there’s not a lot of people on it, but could be good.” GoGig is a mobile professional network that helps currently employed and actively seeking individuals advance their careers anonymously. Hiring companies can match to passive candidates based on culture fit and desires through AI and powerful algorithmic search.”

• Live events
  • “Our best source of candidates comes from live events – industry organizations holding regional events in your area. Nothing really replaces in-person. It’s really helped us establish relationships because of the in-person touch.  It helps builds our brand naturally. Different affiliation are always looking for speakers or sponsorships for their meetings. You can get a table for not a lot of money at the local level.”
  • Recruitment networks often host regional, national, and/or international meetings. NPAworldwide is hosting it’s annual conference in Florida next month, and more than 125 recruiters are signed up to go. Every year, deals are made due to relationships built and strengthened from meeting face-to-face at the conference. You never know who might have a candidate that could fit one of your open reqs. Make yourself visible!

• Thought Leaders
  • A good source of client leads and passive candidates are thought leaders on industry podcasts  – It helps you have a pulse on what’s going on in that area.
  • I ask candidates what events they go to, online news feeds they read, podcasts they listen to, who they follow on Twitter… Twitter is a great place to get information security news and find thought leaders in that space.

• Social media
  • Think outside just posting job ads to your social media accounts. Facebook and Twitter are good places to establish yourself as an expert in the space and connect with different thought leaders. People will retweet jobs you post if they trust you. You never know when one of your posts might catch the eye of a passive candidate.
  • Another member is an avid social media user, and says Twitter is “my window to the world.” The information you get is phenomenal and it’s given me the opportunity to connect with people I wouldn’t have otherwise connected with. I’ve met quite a few clients through there. It’s about engaging people. It’s more a tool for connecting than broadcasting; more listening than talking. 90% of the time, I’m trying to curate info and engage with others.

What are your tools and tricks for uncovering passive candidates?