Employer Branding
& Recruiting:
Next Level Recruiting:
Reaching Passive Job Seekers

From idea to appli­ca­tion: How can you reach poten­tial candi­dates who are still unde­cid­ed when search­ing for qual­i­fied personnel?

In fact, “passive job seek­ers” repre­sent a signif­i­cant­ly larg­er pool than active appli­cants¹. In the third part of our “Recruit­ing” series, we would there­fore like to show you some, in some cases rather unusu­al, ways to address this group and keep their inter­est in your compa­ny alive until they active­ly apply.

High will­ing­ness to change jobs, low initiative

In 2024, the HR market research compa­ny Tren­dence conduct­ed a long-term study to inves­ti­gate the will­ing­ness to change jobs and the search behav­iour of German employ­ees¹:

• 85% of acad­e­mics and 80% of skilled work­ers are will­ing to change jobs, but only 14% are active­ly looking.
• Passive seek­ers who describe them­selves as approach­able form a much larg­er group: 
  • 36% of academics
  • 34% of skilled workers
• Anoth­er group is less deter­mined and only search­es occasionally: 
  • 34% of academics
  • 32% of skilled workers

The reason for this is often that many employ­ees are consid­er­ing a change but are still satis­fied with their current job for the time being  – an atti­tude that we at Valdivia encounter frequent­ly.  Some­times fami­ly reasons or the desire to complete a project also stand in the way of an imme­di­ate change. Never­the­less, it is cetain­ly worth draw­ing the inter­est of passive seek­ers to your compa­ny and posi­tion­ing your­self as their prospec­tive next employer.

Reach through social media

Social media has the great­est impact on passive job seek­ers. When it comes to employ­er market­ing. LinkedIn and Xing usual­ly spring to mind. Howev­er, we are primar­i­ly refer­ring to plat­forms that are used for private purpos­es, such as Face­book, Insta­gram, YouTube and TikTok. Howev­er, the free organ­ic reach on these plat­forms is hard­ly suffi­cient today. Paid content allows you to increase your visi­bil­i­ty and also target specif­ic groups of applicants.

Social media is ideal for attract­ing atten­tion and stay­ing in people’s minds through posts and inter­ac­tion… provid­ed your concept is right. Such a concept must be thought out “from both ends”. You need content that fits your employ­er brand, but also meets the habits and pref­er­ences of users. In order to present your­self profes­sion­al­ly with employ­er market­ing, you should first estab­lish a good start­ing position:

• Devel­op a clear idea of your target groups; differ­ent target groups are best addressed with their own accounts and content.
• Draw up a varied topic and edito­r­i­al plan.
• Use moder­a­tors who can react quick­ly in an emer­gency – even outside your busi­ness hours.

Success with employ­ee-gener­at­ed content

Proven content is primar­i­ly enter­tain­ing, orig­i­nal and prac­ti­cal. Employ­ee-gener­at­ed content (EGC) is also in high demand in order to appear authen­tic and attrac­tive to future employ­ees. Younger poten­tial appli­cants in partic­u­lar are inter­est­ed in posts creat­ed by employ­ees^{1) .}Video clips (45%), career and compa­ny infor­ma­tion (26%), person­al reports (22%) and person­al support and feed­back in comments (19%) are partic­u­lar­ly popular.

Among older users, person­al reports are in the lead with 33%, followed by video clips with 28%. The popu­lar­i­ty of other EGC formats is simi­lar to that of younger users. Authen­tic­i­ty and humour are impor­tant in any case; this allows even crit­i­cal topics to be present­ed in a posi­tive light, as their complete absence is easi­ly inter­pret­ed by users as whitewashing.

New ways to increase visibility

• Becom­ing more attrac­tive to women
  Women are often still under­rep­re­sent­ed in the construc­tion and real estate indus­tries. How can you tap into this poten­tial? A glob­al field study by HR consul­tan­cy MOWOMIND indi­cates that 67% more female appli­cants respond when employ­er commu­ni­ca­tions explic­it­ly address and include women – for exam­ple, in images, language style and exam­ple stories.
• Become more inno­v­a­tive thanks to “cultur­al add” 
  Focus your search not only on cultur­al fit, but also on “cultur­al add“³. Colleagues from differ­ent back­grounds create an atmos­phere in which new perspec­tives, expe­ri­ences and skills are welcome; your compa­ny becomes more inno­v­a­tive and resilient at the same time.
• Attract young talent with ease
  We already point­ed out the impor­tance of games and e‑sports as an adver­tis­ing envi­ron­ment in the last instal­ment of our recruit­ing series. In addi­tion to in-game adver­tis­ing, you can also expand your reach via Twitch – for exam­ple, through spon­sor­ship or employ­ees who are active gamers. Many games also allow team partic­i­pa­tion, to which you can invite passive job seekers.
• Reddit, “the other” social media platform
  The forum plat­form is grow­ing – even here in the UK: approx­i­mate­ly 16 million British users are current­ly active there⁴, and often those who tend to avoid other social media. In addi­tion to afford­able adver­tis­ing prices, Reddit offers a very precise selec­tion of target groups with its topic forums. For your own posts, you should famil­iarise your­self with the plat­for­m’s conven­tions. But then it’s easy to score points with your content – for exam­ple, through substan­tial discus­sion contri­bu­tions or popu­lar memes.

The exam­ples show that passive searchers in partic­u­lar can also be addressed outside the usual chan­nels. To do this, it is advis­able to adopt a strat­e­gy that suits the target group and envi­ron­ment and also takes into account the further process up to active contact.

The next steps in the funnel

The most strik­ing differ­ence between active and passive seek­ers is the time span between the first contact and the deci­sion to apply for a specif­ic posi­tion. With passive seek­ers, it is there­fore impor­tant not only to arouse their curios­i­ty, but also to grad­u­al­ly strength­en their inter­est and keep it alive over a longer peri­od of time. In addi­tion to contin­u­ous posts on social media, two tools are impor­tant in this phase:

• Confir­ma­tion through social proof
  This primar­i­ly refers to employ­er reviews on plat­forms such as kununu and Glass­door, as well as impres­sions from the EGC. To counter nega­tive reviews, you should be open with employ­ers, admit mistakes and refer to posi­tive comments with­out self-praise, so that the over­all impres­sion is more balanced.
• Engage in conver­sa­tion with a career newsletter
  The content can be struc­tured simi­lar­ly to that on social media, possi­bly with some exclu­sive topics or previ­ous publi­ca­tions. In addi­tion, a newslet­ter can be person­alised accord­ing to profes­sion­al inter­ests and level of expe­ri­ence, and it allows for feed­back. Accord­ing to a job appli­ca­tion study, surveys on topics such as percep­tion of the compa­ny or concepts for job tailor­ing are one of the most success­ful meth­ods of retain­ing inter­est in a compa­ny⁵.

Tradi­tion­al job media as a contact opportunity

Job boards, job offers on your website or job events  are primar­i­ly intend­ed to reach active­ly inter­est­ed appli­cants. But don’t forget about passive job seek­ers who may come across you by chance or out of curios­i­ty. Offer such inter­est­ed parties addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties via links or QR codes to find out more about work­ing for you with­out oblig­a­tion, subscribe to a career newslet­ter or follow specif­ic employ­er infor­ma­tion on social media.

Prepare for the future with sustain­able recruiting

Demo­graph­ic change teach­es us that even a compa­ny that is current­ly well posi­tioned can quick­ly find itself in trou­ble if key employ­ees leave and cannot be replaced. Strate­gic employ­er brand­ing and address­ing passive job seek­ers are there­fore impor­tant build­ing blocks for secur­ing a sustain­able future. In line with poly­math­ic lead­er­ship, sustain­able recruit­ing fulfils more than just an HR task – a topic we intend to focus on more close­ly in the Valdivia News­room in the coming year.

Sources

1) “Tren­dence HR Moni­tor 2024”, Tren­dence (Funke Medi­en­gruppe), Janu­ary 2025

2) Propor­tion of women in the construc­tion indus­try: 14% – Hauptver­band der Deutschen Bauin­dus­trie e.V., March 2025; Women in the real estate indus­try: 11% and 13% in the 1st and 2nd manage­ment levels, 36% to 45% at lower levels – Frauen in der Immo­bilien­wirtschaft e.V., March 2022

3) “Future Work in Recruit­ing: How Compa­nies World­wide Attract and Retain Talent,” published in “New Work Hacks – 50 Inspi­ra­tions for Modern and Inno­v­a­tive Work,” MOWOMIND Modern Work Enabling, 2024

4) “Reddit: Secret­ly to Success,” absatzwirtschaft, Octo­ber 2024

5) “Mystery Appli­ca­tion Project”, inves­ti­ga­tion of appli­ca­tion process­es at 120 compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switzer­land, study by Talent Centric et. al., Janu­ary 2024

(Image source: dreamstime.com)