The Ultimate Guide to Successfully Recruiting Dynamics ERP & CRM Talent (Part IV: Understanding the Different Kinds of Candidates)

Understanding the Different Kinds of Candidates

The Passive Candidate:

A passive candidate is simply one who didn’t ask to be found, at least so far as you can tell. They aren’t actively seeking new employment, but they may be open to the right opportunity. Passive candidates come from personal databases, profiles on LinkedIn, professional networks, associations, bios found on company websites, or other reference-style sources of information.

These are obviously the most difficult kinds of candidates to win over and sell on moving to a new position. However, in a high-demand market for talent like the one for Microsoft Dynamics, nearly all candidates are passive. Other kinds of talent searches might save this resource for a later stage in their process, but a successful search strategy for ERP/CRM professionals must include efforts to reach out to this category right away.

Advantages:

There’s a case to be made that these are arguably better candidates. They are successful and gainfully employed. Also, by reaching out to your lists of passive candidates, you often identify those who are actually searching for a new role and might have been missed.

Disadvantages:  

In most cases they aren’t looking for employment. Worse yet, many who respond are simply keeping a casual eye open for a better opportunity, and a lot of time can be lost working with candidates who are simply testing the waters.

The Active Candidate:

Active candidates are identified because they are actively present in the job market searching for work. For instance, they are active on a job board, or they respond to a job posting with interest.

Advantages:

They are available and openly looking for a new position.

Disadvantages:

There might be an undesirable reason why they have found themselves without work. Also, active candidates in the ERP/CRM industry are often being courted by multiple recruiters if not a legion of them. In some ways, your task becomes even harder to sell them on a job as they are hearing attractive offers from many directions. Valuable time can be lost as they leverage one opportunity against another.

The Referral:

This is often where the rubber meets the road in a search. Most people are relatively comfortable calling active candidates who express interest; most are even comfortable in reaching out to passive candidates who post their resumes on databases; far fewer are comfortable with aggressively asking for referrals.

Here’s a rule: If you locate someone in the right domain and you don’t aggressively ask them for referrals, you need to turn in your “recruiter card.” Doing this right is one of the single most important steps both for finding candidates to meet your immediate needs as well as building your network of contacts.

Always ask the question, “Do you know anyone who is looking?” At DyNexus, we also offer a reward for referrals if they lead to a successful placement.

Advantages:

Who doesn’t love a great lead?

Disadvantages:

There’s a temptation with referrals, especially in a tough search, to put too much stock in a lucky find and overestimate its value. There’s a good chance that the referral is being courted by multiple recruiters. It’s also easy to assume that a referral is more qualified than they may actually be. A referral needs every bit as much scrutiny as a stranger does.