Shelf life of candidates

I’ve recently been talking to Recruiting professionals who seem to be holding onto a antiquated misconception:

“I own my candidates”.

In the past, when you sourced a highly valuable candidate, it was common practice to hold onto them with white knuckles, never knowing if you’d see them again or if they might get “discovered” by one of your rival companies.

It’s 2008 and there are no secrets in recruiting anymore. If YOU know a candidate, so does your competition, in fact, that candidate may have already interviewed with your competition! So this “open source” idea of recruiting begs the question:

“What is the shelf life of a candidate?”

We all use some form of the acronym “QIA” (Qualified, Interested and Attractable) so we’ll use that industry term to answer the question.

Qualified: Chances are, if you find them qualified today, they will be qualified tomorrow – for the role you have today! What you don’t know is what new qualifications they may have in 6 months or what new competencies you would want to leverage for a different role.

Interested: Hopefully, if you’ve created interest in a candidate today, that interest will last. But how long? Today we all have a bit of ADHD due to the bombardment of stimulus from our electronic addictions and therefore our interests wax and wane. Here is where we start to lose “shelf life”. If you’ve brought someone to the table, passive candidate or active candidate, chances are that person is ready for a meal! This means, if you don’t hire them they will probably not go right back to being the heads down passive candidate they were when you first called. Don’t kid yourself, once someone has crossed the line and committed to interview with your company, they are ripe for someone else too!

Attractable: I use this term to denote your ability to actually ATTRACT someone to your role. You can have someone who is Q and I but wants too much money or has knowledge of your hiring manager and won’t work for them etc. Once you’ve chosen someone else for the role, a declined candidate’s ability to be attracted AGAIN goes down. Think of dating, if you date someone a few times and then are told “I just want to be friends” – you are less likely to answer the phone 6 months from now when he/she calls!

In short; the shelf life of a candidate (even in today’s economy) is about 30-45 days, even less if they possess competencies that are in high demand. Act today, act swiftly, and stay in touch with relationships you have but don’t think for a moment that Silver Medalists are loyal to you because you called first!