Recruiters often distinguish two groups of candidates called Active Candidates and Passive Candidates.

Who are Active Candidates?
Active candidates are the ones who are actively looking for a job. They search the job postings, apply on job boards and agency web sites. They leave their CVs in the CV databases like Monster.

Who are Passive Candidates?
Passive candidates are not looking for a job. They are working for their current employer or lately can also be unemployed. What makes them the potential candidate is that they if approached with the right opportunity, they will consider their options. A good recruiter will find a perfect timing like when times are tough for their current employer, to convert those passive (from the recruitment perspective) people, to candidates.

Who are the Best Candidates?
There are times when the active candidates are more sought for. In what is called a ‘Full Employment’ in a country, when the unemployment rate is below 5% (for most countries), there is shortage of any candidates for majority of roles. What recruiters value to most is finding a person that would actually accept a job offer. On the other side in the recession times like today, there is plenty of candidates, majority of them unemployed who are forced to actively look for a job. Recruiters will still find hard to fill roles in this scenario for several reasons:
1. Hiring managers are aware of a huge number of unemployed people and are driving the salaries low and requirements high.
2. Passive candidates are hard to convince to change their job. Higher salary doesn’t play the major role any more. Job security becomes important.
3. The volume of applications from non-applicable (unskilled) candidates needs to be managed.

The Best Candidates are the one you manage to hire. Their behaviour changes in different economic situations and even stages of life. Depending on what type of role you have to fill, what is the economy like and what is happening with the industry will have a drastic impact on what types of candidates you will be able to get.

In the recession times like today, Passive Candidates are your best bet!

2012 could be the year the economy start coming back actually!

The early signs of uplift ARE here. It could still be seasonal, but the last couple of months have been better for a long list of companies than any single month in the last 3 years. There is an uptake in investments in the future. I see companies looking to go to the new markets, and doing it in the radical ways. Modern and new skills are in demand, and there is plenty of employers super-hungry for the staff. Such was the atmosphere on the recent careers and jobs fair in Dublin: CareerZoo.

Organised by Brian Ó hOisín and Jackie Slattery who do it really, really well the CareerZoo 2012 was a true success over the last two days. On one side there was a long cue to enter that with the great organisation worked quite well so the cue was moving really fast. On the other side there was a long list of companies looking to collect the CVs of the perspective candidates. There have also been some educational institution offering up-skilling as well.

What was different from this careers fair and the last few ones I was invited to was that CareerZoo over the weekend had more positivity than any similar event in a long time. It wasn’t one of those ‘Work in Australia’ type of the events that we keep on hearing about a bit too much lately (for my taste), but a really positive and local recruitment event. With real jobs, and PLENTY of them in all different sectors and what’s even more important different locations in Ireland.

Speaking independently with the HR and staffing managers and job seekers, but have seemed extremely positive after the event. Booth groups actually looked exhausted yesterday. Employers have been very happy with the CVs collected and job seekers all agreed that this was well worth visiting, simple because there is a job for everyone. There have been a lot of IT companies, but the jobs have been offered in a vast range of disciplines and skills required.

I even got some goodies (like it is pre DotCom!) – more about hat on my personal ‘Jobs Blog’. The goodies on the fairs are the sign,… the Doom & Gloom days might be replaced with something completely different in 2012!

Jobs Board enables recruiters to reach to job seekers that simply do not go to the job sites any more, while still making sure the others who still use job boards are reached to as well. It enables a recruiter to post to the main social media sites and all the Irish job sites