What Singapore HR execs should know about passive talents

As economies in Southeast Asia expand, demand for leadership roles also continues to grow. Multinational companies in business hubs like Singapore need to leverage every effective method possible to identify and court experienced top talent. Looking both within and externally will enable them to build a solid leadership bench.

In research we conducted for the book Talented Southeast Asia, we found that today’s passive candidate market has been driving a significant shift in sourcing channels away from traditional methods and toward more proactive and relationship-based methods.

Passive talents – employed professionals who aren’t looking for new opportunities – represent over 80% of qualified candidates in the current job market. Finding and attracting them is tricky as they rarely ever participate in job searches, and are, essentially, just waiting to be found.

Sounding out a passive candidate for a leadership role may sound counter-intuitive when they didn’t indicate an interest in the available position in the first place, but the first thing to know about passive candidates is that they are not at all indifferent to change.

While they won’t jump at every available opportunity, most of them remain open to discussing new opportunities and would consider an offer of employment if it comes at the right moment, or if it is in step with their longer-term career plans.

But how do you locate them? Who you know could be important. More than two-thirds (67%) of our respondents cited employee referrals and word of mouth as one of their most effective means of sourcing. This was true for both quality and quantity of candidates, with just 8% saying this channel had low effectiveness.

If your personal network and those of your team draw a blank, search firms can help. Such firms, which are a step up from recruitment agencies and typically maintain high-quality networks with your target candidates, are pricey but also considered almost as effective as personal recommendations or word of mouth, getting the thumbs up from 61% of respondents.

Next in the hiring arsenal is to turn to social media to target, court, and recruit candidates, particularly through the LinkedIn social platform.

Source: Talented Southeast Asia

Our advice to readers is that if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, create one; and if you have one, keep it updated. More than half (54%) of respondents told us that this had become a highly effective sourcing channel in the past 12–24 months.

Seventeen percent of respondents believed social media is ineffective as a primary candidate source, and Twitter and Facebook are considered less effective channels than LinkedIn.

The use of recruitment agencies also remains strong, with 42% of the companies we interviewed regarding this channel effective. MNCs are also increasingly investing in their own internal recruitment capabilities, with in-house teams relying on powerful recruitment technologies that can fast-track proactive sourcing strategies and reduce the time and cost to recruit.

The key is having an integrated recruitment strategy that uses tools and technologies that will truly connect with candidates and make them more likely to feel that the prospective employer is genuinely interested in what they can offer. And this applies to both passive external talent as well as internal candidates.

In Singapore, multinational retailer Smiggle has successfully managed turnover at management levels and attracted and retained their target talent, predominantly Gen Y, by implementing a system that ensures capability development and career progression.

One way the company has addressed its retention challenge is by changing the progression path to management roles. By creating additional developmental steps leading from team member to leader to manager, store employees are able to build their skills and experience incrementally, rather than jumping straight into a people-focused leadership role.

In the end employers stand to benefit from innovative candidate management relationship systems that efficiently manage demand, allowing organisations to identify capabilities within their current workforce as well as engage with high-profile passive candidates and in order to cultivate a ready talent pipeline and strong leadership.