While every recruiter has their own take on the “recipe for success” when it comes to recruiting passive candidates, the basic ingredients remain the same:

• clever email subject line
• personalization
• concise, informative content
• persistent follow-ups
• identifying common connections
• building value and highlighting benefits

All of the above are great practices and techniques for successful passive candidate recruiting, however something fundamental is missing – trust.

Trust is the foundation (or main ingredient, if you will) of engaging – and eventually, recruiting- passive talent. Unfortunately, it’s something that doesn’t come naturally in recruiting relationships.

So how do you build trust?

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of “trust” is ‘reliance on another party or entity.’ That is, everyone involved in a relationship needs to work in the others’ best interest. For you, this means presenting the right candidate, the right opportunity at the right time.

Right Candidate- Determine the right candidate for the position. What are they all about? Where do they come from? Where are they going? ENGAGE provides a 360° view of candidate’s work history, experience, social profiles and contact information. Do your research and even reach out to them to introduce yourself. This will establish an initial relationship and provide a better understanding of the candidate’s career goals.

Right Opportunity- If you discover they are looking for an opportunity that doesn’t match the current opening you’re trying to fill, don’t break down your trust by trying to sell them into it. Add them to an ENGAGE watch list to save their profile for the future. It’s better to take the long approach of finding another opportunity with them, vs losing them as a resource by trying to fit them into a role they aren’t interested in.

Right Time- You have the right candidate and the right opportunity for them, but how do you know they will be willing to listen? This is where the timing comes in. Using predictive algorithms, ENGAGE helps you determine when a passive candidate is most likely to consider a new job. ENGAGE’s proprietary algorithms utilize data points from the candidate’s job level and function, industry tenure and turn over trends, social signals, company performance, etc. to predictively score the candidate’s likelihood to engage in a career change discussion.

Establishing these three things is the key to proving to a candidate that you have their best interest at heart, and therefore, build trust. We all know the If you build it, they will come principle. Building trust is the “missing ingredient” to most passive candidate recruiting recipes. Approaching each candidate in this fashion will increase your response rates as well as the overall success of your efforts.