Paul, an individual has their resume on Monster, and they don’t get the calls then the Resume Sucks.. No doubt.. as I mentioned before

If the person wants to ACTIVELY get calls from recruiters, and they have an ACTIVE resume on a Job board then indeed they are Actively willing to hear and consider new opportunities and positions, outside of their current. which means that they are indeed NOT passive employees, who Are in no way considering new opportunities.

They are Emotionally and Mentally Unemployed.. they aren’t really feeling the “love” of their current job.

Paul these distinctions have been as old as the hills. Before the internet, we used to apply them to the individuals who Responded to ads in the newspaper.

It doesn’t matter in the how they are looking.. maybe they contacted you directly, or maybe they are being anonymous.. maybe they are networking with their friends — the fact that they are Looking, even if it just testing the water.. still means that they are looking, adn they are NOT Passive Candidates.

SJD, I think it depends on which side of the fence you are on.. indeed, there may not be a ROI if you are an internal recruiter.. but as a TPR, there definitely is a complete Return on the investment, as I mentioned in the article.

There are many people who have been 10 – 15 -20 plus years with the same employer.. they won’t consider leaving because they are happy, or think they are.. for Many of these people, it isn’t about the money, it isn’t about fear, and it isn’t about anything else but loyalty, appreciation, or just plain contentment.

Yes there are still companies (small especially) who are still promoting loyalty to their employees.. rare, but they do exist…

These Passive candidates, are very difficult to recruit, and many recruiters unfortunately focus on money with these candidates instead of really “hearing” about what keeps them there..

These candidates, when they do move.. they tend to also stay another 10 Years or more with the new employer.. that is indeed worth a Huge ROI

Karen

If you are not executing at all times some phase of a job search plan complete with updated resume and select Third party Recruiters (TPRs)keeping you aware of the current market, then in fact you are “passive”, independently wealthy, or living in a delusional state of security (or fear).

How nice of you to quote me about the people on Monster being Passive. It came from a long discussion on Sourcers unleashed. But you knew that anyway, didn’t you.

You missed a few of the threads apparently. One was about the person who is passively active and has a resume on Monster. He/she does not want to hear from every recruiter who has access to Monster but is always willing to talk to recruiters who actually know what they do. They don’t load up their resume with all sorts of goop, they just explain what they do and if you don’t know what skills they need to do it, they really don’t want to talk to that recruiter anyway.

A resume simply stating “Build scalable websites” may be all that person needs to say to be connected to the right recruiters. Without the J2EE and soap, yada yada, the Boolean buzz word searcher is never going to find this person. So, is this person a passive candidate or active. To the smart recruiter, probably active. To the buzz word searcher probably passive because they can’t find him/her.

And then there is the flip side. The person with thier resume on the boards, but with no contact info. They craft their online resumes especially for the recruiter. They have listened to me and you and Jim and know what we do to find candidates. They craft thier resumes to be found. Are they passive or active?

PAul