It’s one of the oldest dilemmas in business: everyone worth hiring is already working for somebody else.

Consequently, to get at top-notch talent (even during a recession), you’re going to have to do more than throw up a banal job posting on the job boards. This is where passive recruiting comes into play.

Great talent isn’t just sitting around actively searching for new jobs. They’re too busy contributing to the goals of their current employer. To reach them, you have to entice their interest through channels where you know they can be reached. Not only that, but you must also have an efficient way to keep track of a large pool of candidates at different steps in the recruitment process in a single applicant management system or pipeline.

In order to start passively recruiting the best talent for your business, ask yourself these five questions:

#1—What brought my top talent through the door?

If you are wondering how to expand your talent pool, look no further than the top performers you already have working for you. Step out of abstract musings and actually go ask your top talent what brought them through your door.

• Where did they hear about the job before they applied?
• What convinced them to apply for the position?
• What was their impression of the company before they began working at it?
• Was there anything they wished was different about the recruitment and application process?

You can get a wealth of useful information on what does and doesn’t work about your recruitment process this way, while at the same time gaining the added benefit of making your current talent feel valued. You may find yourself surprised by the paths that actually brought your talent into their positions.

#2—Do my job postings offer or demand?

While you certainly should not be relying on your job postings to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to talent recruitment, that doesn’t mean that this important step in the process should be ignored. Your job posting is a great place to reinforce to potential applicants that you have something worthy of their time to offer.

Far too many job postings consist of nothing but a bland job description and a list of requirements. This is a waste of a great chance to communicate what you have to offer and a missed opportunity to help potential applicants picture themselves in the position. If all your posting communicates is demands, what is there to entice interest from talent? For every job requirement you list, you should include at least one reason the applicant should want to fulfill that requirement for you.

#3—Where can talent for my field be reached outside of work?

If you want to effectively recruit passive talent, you are going to have to catch them when their guard is down. Get your recruiters out of the office and out into the social spaces where your talent can be reached. Invite them for coffee, send them to a movie, host a dinner, or get crazy and go rock climbing. A little investment goes a long way here, especially with talent that has already had one or more successful contacts with your company.

Don’t be remembered for phone calls interrupting their lunch every Tuesday. Instead, have them looking forward to answering your calls. Let them know they are more than names on a spreadsheet during the recruiting process, so then they know they will be valued if they decide to consider a position at your company.

Remember: candidate needs to know that you are offering something better than they already have if they are going to be willing to give up the stability of their current position for something new.

#4—How am I going to keep track of my talent pool?

Passive recruiting requires being in contact with a large number of potential hires on a constant basis. If you are going to give each candidate the kind of attention that’s needed for successful recruitment, then you’re going to need an efficient way to keep track of your potentials and your interactions with them.

The most effective solution to this is investing in a good applicant tracking system (ATS). A good ATS will allow you to maintain easily searchable files on applicants and other people of interest. It should help you to track the effectiveness of recruiting campaigns by linking applicant files to the campaigns that brought them in. The best ATS options will make it easy to share applicant files between departments and managers, allowing recruitment done by any department to benefit the company as a whole. An applicant that wasn’t a great fit for the sales department may wind up being just who the HR department has been searching for.

#5—What job am I really hiring for?

While this may seem like an odd question at first glance, it’s worth considering that you may be passing up great talent to fill a position because your eligibility criteria are too narrow. It’s easy to think that to fill a position in your call center, you are required to look for someone with call center experience, but is that really the whole picture? Would it widen your applicant options to consider talent coming from unrelated jobs that also required them to develop strong customer service skills?

To find the absolute best fit for a position, try looking at hiring from a new angle. Are you hiring to fill a static job heading or are you really hiring a set of skills when everything else is stripped away? Would recruiting from a wider range of backgrounds that produce those skills uncover talent that was hidden from your view before?

The Applicant Manager (TAM) can help your organization’s passive recruiting efforts with an intuitive and modern applicant tracking system. In addition to providing applicant tracking, TAM is also fully integrated with background checking, reference checking, video interviewing, and behavioral assessment partners for more targeted recruiting and hiring efforts.

Request a demo of TAM today and see what it can do for your organization!