What is a passive candidate and why it’s a great time to be one

It’s the end of another long day in the office. You’re on the train home or reclined on the sofa in front of the TV. You are zonked. Wiped. Exhausted. You’re scrolling through your phone. Perhaps you’re on LinkedIn. Perhaps you’re looking at the exciting career achievements of your friends and former classmates, while you waste away in a job that’s grown stale.

But then you see it. An advert for a job that would excite you. It’s with a fancy, higher-paying firm. Their clients are bigger and offer more exciting work. Maybe the commute is shorter too.

But applying for a job is such hard work right? Wrong!

The CV is the first stumbling block, and if you’ve been in the same role for a while, this can seem like a huge ordeal. You’ve got to find that old Word document on a dusty hard drive somewhere, reformat it, and worry about what new information you need to add.

You can find tips in a number of our blogs that make updating your CV easy, but you may be pleased to learn that, more and more often, you don’t even need a CV to start the process. If your LinkedIn profile and your profile on your firm’s website are up to date, we can often send these to a prospective employer as a CV stand-in. While you may eventually need to commit a more formal summary of your experience to paper, letting us send your online profiles as a first step can be a great way of gauging if a firm is interested before you put the work in.

Even if you can avoid the effort of the CV, the interview is still the scary part. You can feel your mouth getting dry and your hands shaking already!

Informal chat

While an interview is still the norm, many firms recognise the need to be accommodating to passive candidates. The ‘informal coffee’ is on the rise! It’s a great opportunity to meet with a representative of a firm in a less pressured setting, on a more equal footing. Rather than making you feel scrutinised and under the microscope, this is a chance to have a friendly ‘get-to-know-you’ conversation. It’s also a great opportunity to turn the tables and learn all you can about this prospective future firm. It’s a chance to make sure they’re right for you, before you commit to a more extensive interview process.

There are no promises that these options will be available for every job. However, if you’re a passive job seeker and your interest has been piqued by a job we’re advertising, it doesn’t hurt to give us a ring and ask! Harvey John will provide you with support and guidance throughout the entire process from setting up that ‘informal coffee’ to helping reformat your CV and interview prep. We’re here for every step along the way so make sure to reach out.

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