So the term Passive Candidate is thrown around the recruitment sector quite a bit, and it is a Marmite term for some in that some love it and some hate it.

Here I don't aim to judge the term Passive Candidate; I shamelessly use it to tell you how to get people who may not be looking for work just now but will in the future if they find the right motivation or the stars align at the right time.

Using the right content, you can take a candidate that finds your content by happy accident and convert them into a potential active job seeker.

Please note this is complimentary work you need to do to get inbound passive job seeker enquires and is not a substitute for the traditional headhunting or networking approaches to generate passive candidates, which as an ex-headhunter, I fully endorse you still do. So just add this into the mix if you can.

Google

Google tells us that some 30% of searches made in its search engine are employment-related, with Google getting 150 billion searches per quarter at the time of writing this, that is 45 billion employment-related searches or if you are not good at maths, 'a lot'.

Jobs and the job derivatives typically top this list of employment-related searches, and they classically come in head term, should term and long-tail varieties which is SEO geek-speak for what words are used and in what combination to find what the searcher is looking for. A simplified example is below.

• Head search example: Accounting jobs
• Shoulder search example: Tax accounting jobs near me
• Long-tail search example: Contract VAT Accountant Jobs in Canary Wharf

So if we are looking for passive job seekers, why start with job searches as an example? Well, mostly just to show you how the linguistics of searches changes the more they want to make the results they get more accurate. Because all recruiters can relate to jobs and job linguistics and because 90% of the searches made that will make up these 45 billion employment-related searches are of the long-tail variety. So get your head around jobs and then translate that to other subjects.

Long-tails are the recruiter's content friend.

Often, we hear or read that recruiters are at a loss for what content to post. Long-tail liberates us from that set of handcuffs by giving us literally endless combinations of the content we can produce.

So, for example, let's look at a trending topic right now for the four-day week. Searches might be:

• How to get a four* day week.
• How to prove you can work four days as good as five days.
• Here are the basic maths on a four day week.
• Can a nurse work a four day week?
• My boss said I can't have a four day week. What do I do?

*Also consider the use of 4 versus four.

These examples took 60 seconds. I am sure with some more time; you could come up with 10, 20, 50, or 500 more ways to slice and dice this subject. 

Apply this logic to any aspect/subject you can think of that suits job seekers in your recruitment niche about their day-to-day lives, not their job-seeking lives. Now you have a base method to generate content themes you can dine out on for a career lifetime.

So what are some of the top themes you might develop passive job seekers want to know about?

1. Pay advice.
2. Upskill advise.
3. Cross skill advice.
4. Promotion/Career growth advice.
5. Career transition advice.
6. Change employment type like a perm to contract/temp move advice.
7. Gender pay gaps.
8. Racism.
9. Workforce types like Millenial etc.
10. Law and regulation.

These are just some ideas with 60 seconds of research; I am sure you can come up with a gazillion more.

Now you have your content, where does it need to be on your website for passive job seekers to find it?

1. Blogs, blogs and more, and share those blogs everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Emailshots etc.
2. Have a salary survey guide/tool backed by an email service to update them every 6-12 months.
3. Have testimonials on your site and share those pages everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
4. Have case studies on your site and share those pages everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
5. Have a Q&A feature on your website, ideally at a recruiter level on your site, and share those pages everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
6. Run vlogs with influencers to give out topical advice on your site and share those pages everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
7. Run a podcast to give out topical advice on your site and share those pages everywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
8. Write advice pieces that start out on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc., with calls to action to bring the user to a page on your website to get the full info.
9. Be consistent with your content; one post every four weeks is better than three posts and then nothing for a year.
10. Repurpose your content over time, like have an annual update to all that you can. 

Got any questions or need any more advice on how your recruitment website can help? Then connect with me here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/recruitmentwebsitedesign/