How to Attract Passive Candidates: 3 Strategies That Work

Struggling to find the right hires? Hard-to-fill positions keeping you up at night?

You’re not alone – with only 0.9 unemployed persons per job opening as of May 2025, the competition for qualified talent is fierce, especially in competitive industries and sectors experiencing talent shortages.

Source: BLS

Focusing your efforts on active job seekers alone won’t cut it anymore. You have to recruit passive candidates as well.

… What’s a passive candidate?

The perfect hire for your open position may already be working and content in their current role – in other words, they’re a passive job seeker who isn’t actively searching for jobs.

Learning how to attract passive candidates takes extra work, but it’s not impossible.

Here are three ways you can tap into this unique job seeker pool, build a successful passive candidate recruitment strategy, and find the right hire for your company.

1. Use Multiple Channels for Sourcing Passive Candidates

Searching a resume database is a great way to find potential hires without waiting for them to come to you. You can zero in on the exact skills, experience, education, credentials, etc. that you’re looking for and contact qualified talent as soon as you see a match. iHire360, our solution for small businesses, will automatically source matching resumes for you.

However, there’s a small catch with this channel: Not everyone opts to post a publicly available or searchable resume.

For example, a passive job seeker may not want their resume searchable for a number of reasons:

• They don’t want their current employer to stumble across their resume and assume they’re preparing to leave.
• They don’t want a barrage of calls from recruiters for positions they aren’t interested in.
• They want complete control over their job search and have their eye out for a very specific “dream job.”

However, it’s never a bad idea to proactively source talent from a resume database and cover your bases.

Next, don’t underestimate this awesome source of new hires: referrals! Referrals are known to be faster and less expensive hires and have higher retention, morale, and performance.

Let your current team members know that you’re hiring. Your employees can connect you with potential candidates that aren’t even casually searching for a job and otherwise would have no idea that you’re looking for someone like them.

And finally, turn to your talent pipeline. These are potentially qualified candidates who have applied to jobs in the past but weren’t hired (a.k.a. “silver medalists”), people you’ve met at job fairs, and contacts within your own personal and professional networks. You never know who might be ready to join your team if the right opportunity came along.

2. Write an Irresistible Job Ad for Passive Candidate Recruitment

In addition to proactively seeking out passive candidates, consider also posting your open position on an industry-focused job board. Passive job seekers may occasionally peruse their favorite job board or set up email alerts just to see what’s out there.

They can’t apply for your job if they don’t know it exists. What’s more, you must write an effective job ad that sells the position AND your company.

Convincing a passive candidate to consider leaving their current position and applying for your job will take effort. Changing jobs is a major life decision. If a passive candidate isn’t convinced that your job is their dream job and your company is their dream employer, they won’t apply.

Here are some quick tips on how to write a job ad that works for active as well as passive candidates:

• Write an ad that isn’t overwhelmingly long but also not mysteriously short.
• Ensure it’s clear what the person will be doing in the role, whom they’ll be working with, and what contributions they’ll be able to make.
• Include details about your unique company culture, mission, vision, and benefits, focusing on the perks that your competition doesn’t offer.
• Use friendly and inclusive language along with personal pronouns that speak directly to your audience – “You will manage challenging yet rewarding projects that will have lasting impact on the community” vs. “The candidate will manage projects,” for example.

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3. Use Compelling and Personalized Outreach When Contacting Passive Job Seekers

Once you have the resume of a qualified passive candidate in hand, don’t assume you’ve won the battle just yet. There’s one more thing to know about how to attract passive candidates: getting them to talk to you.

It may be difficult to successfully connect with that candidate, and more than likely you’ll be sending several emails and leaving voicemails for these individuals who are at work and/or reluctant to answer calls from unknown numbers.

Keep it brief, but just as with your job ad, be sure to effectively sell the open position and your company to the candidate. Think of your emails and voicemails as 30-second elevator pitches.

Also, be personal and make it about them: mention specific things about the job seeker’s background that interest you and would make them a great fit. (Pro Tip: Use iHire’s AI tools to instantly create personalized messages for any candidate.) Convey genuine excitement about the possibility of them joining your team!

Passive candidates can be elusive and extremely picky, but they are reachable with the right strategies. Follow the tips outlined above and you’ll be well on your way to sourcing passive candidates, building a more robust talent pipeline, and finding the perfect hire for your open position.