There is always talk about passive and active candidates… “active candidates” being those who are responding to ads, getting their resumes in front of as many recruiters and potential employers as possible and “passive candidates” being those who have registered an interest usually with one recruiter only and usually with the open brief of “let me know if something comes along”, these candidates are usually already working and as a result can be more discerning.

It is true that the quality of passive candidates is generally far better than the quality of active candidates… there are certainly cases of high quality active candidates particularly in environments we experienced during some of the stages of the Global Financial Crisis, when companies were closing down. But this is the exception rather than the norm. Then there are high quality re-entrants to the work force (e.g.: mothers, returning travellers and graduates)…

So we should all acknowledge that there are great active candidates out there. The downside of the active candidate pool is that, if they are conducting a “full blown” job search, they are visible in the candidate market. So therefore, the competition for the candidate can be relatively high among companies which means that companies have to act with speed if they want to secure these candidates.

Of course there are low quality active candidates… particularly now when companies have shed their poorer performers (pre GFC these people had flown under the radar for a long time) The effect now is these people flood the active candidate market making it harder to find the high quality needle in the haystack… so to speak…

From an employers point of view accessing the passive candidate market will depend almost entirely on their ability to network… more specifically it will depend on the ability of their line managers and HR teams to internally promote and encourage their staff to refer high quality professional and social acquaintances to their business. Any company not doing this is wasting a great internal resource.

There is no doubt the economy has turned at Frontline - across all our industry sectors we are seeing a rapid increase in job listings and a general upswing in hiring confidence. The problem we face right now in late 2009 is that the active candidate market is still flooded with marginal quality candidates making it hard to find the good quality… and passive candidates are still scared… they have not yet decided to put their career in forward motion and are in most cases still sticking like limpets to their current roles, regardless of levels of dissatisfaction…

End result: we are in a period right now of an exaggerated shortage of “quality candidates”… and as long as the economy continues to improve the current state of affairs will last another three to six months…

So in terms of recruitment what is it that we can we do right now… two things

Firstly recognise that when good quality “active candidates” come into the market they will not last very long at all and we need to act quickly… and

Secondly do not assume that “passive candidates” are desperate… they are not… which means that any job proposition needs to be compelling.

So if you are in a position where you are staffing up again act quickly…activate your internal networking resources… and be aware that the candidate market right now is very tight.