How to Rediscover and Re-Engage Top Candidates

Silver medalist candidates—highly qualified runners-up for previously open roles—are a golden opportunity to make quick, effective hires when relevant positions become available, but keeping them warm takes time and effort.

These “almost-made-it candidates” have demonstrated skills and qualifications, make it to the final rounds of the hiring process, and are then often forgotten.

“Silver medalists sitting in your applicant tracking system [ATS] have already been pre-vetted. They are clearly qualified. They have expressed interest in your brand,” said Shannon Pritchett, head of marketing and community at hireEZ, a talent acquisition platform in Mountain View, Calif. “But a lot of recruiting follows a reactive mindset,” Pritchett said. “It’s shiny-object syndrome. It’s instinctual to want to look for something new each time a new req is opened.”

Adam Stafford, CEO of recruitment marketing and analytics platform Recruitics, agreed that there is a natural bias in recruiting toward new applicants and new campaigns—a bias that often results in overlooking the great potential in past finalists.  

“Employers are sitting on a gold mine of talent profiles, especially when you calculate the cost of going back to the top of the hiring funnel versus searching through the database you already have,” he said.

“Think about a sales or marketing pipeline,” Pritchett said. “If I am constantly building my pipeline with new prospects, and ignoring who is already in our database, we will come up short. The best qualified leads are the ones who actually stay engaged over time—they’re the ones most likely to convert.”

Saving Cost and Time

Already having a relationship with a finalist-level candidate offers many benefits.

“The most obvious are reduced cost and time per hire,” Stafford said. “The cost and time to get advertising out, get applicants in, screen those applicants, and assess them for fit, is a big investment. But if you have talent that has already expressed interest in working with you and invested time in your recruitment process, and if you treated them well—they will respond when you reach out.”

The practice of candidate rediscovery enables recruiters to very quickly tap into a high-intent and qualified audience, Stafford said. The only unknown at that point is the past candidates’ availability.

“Talent acquisition is all about timing,” Pritchett said. “If you can better align the timing, which is informed through nurturing candidates and keeping your talent pipeline active, you can stack the cards in your favor when the timing works out.”

How to Keep Silver Medalists Engaged  

Re-engaging silver medalists will only work if your candidates felt they had a positive candidate experience the first time around, from application to rejection.

“It all starts with how you treat them during the initial journey,” Pritchett said. “But which recruiter in the moment is thinking about re-engaging with a candidate two years later? It’s not the typical mindset. That’s why we need more metrics measuring candidate experience and candidate rejection.”

Every interaction with an employer will be remembered, Stafford said, especially when candidates make it far in the process. “The most impactful message in that process is the offer or the rejection,” he said. “Rejection for a finalist candidate must be timely, and given the candidate’s level of investment, must be delivered in a very personal way, either by telephone or video. This is not the place for the automatic rejection email.”

Candidate rejection requires transparency and honesty, Pritchett said. “It’s important to be clear, respectful, and empathetic when it comes to rejections. This is an industry of rejection. Recruiters get rejected all day. But when it comes to dishing out rejection, this is where we tend to fail.”

Make silver medalist candidates feel valued by showing personalization at the rejection stage and while nurturing them afterward. That means regularly checking in with them to ensure they keep the organization top of mind as an employer of choice.

“Recruiters need more training on how to nurture and engage pipeline candidates,” Pritchett said.  “I know many recruiters who would like to become better at nurturing and engaging but don’t feel like they have the time because they are operating in a quantitative metrics environment.”

First, silver medalists need to be identified and tagged in talent pools specifically created for runners-up so they can be engaged with for months or even years to come. Build long-term relationships with your candidates by periodically reaching out and giving them ways to continue interacting with you. Set reminders for follow-up conversations or invite them to local events. Keep them updated on the company. If finalist candidates have been kept warm with personalized outreach, they’ll be primed to receive a recruiter’s approach when an opportunity arises and the time is right.

Technology Makes It Possible

Technology is essential to resurfacing past high-potential candidates and keeping them engaged. Pritchett said that the way many ATS are built, recruiters often have difficulty searching through them to effectively use candidate data.

“The biggest problem with talent profiles in your ATS is that they age,” Stafford said. “As soon as someone is six months out of your last interaction with them, it is hard to know if they are still available. The right technology can enrich and update those profiles automatically. Tech can also identify when someone is likely to be interested in a new opportunity.” 

Stafford added that if it is too challenging for recruiters to find qualified talent in their existing databases, they won’t do it. “They’ll spend money for new job advertising every time, because job seekers who respond to advertising are both high-intent and high-availability.”

Candidate relationship management (CRM) tools are the best type of technology for candidate pipeline engagement and rediscovery.

hireEZ’s rediscovery feature, for example, keeps older talent profiles actionable by enriching them with updated candidate data. In addition, the platform performs CRM functions such as targeted outreach and uses artificial intelligence to match candidates to current roles.

“To do this work well, you need a full-featured CRM configured by someone who has recruitment marketing and talent pooling experience,” Stafford said. “But CRM strategy is a long-term strategy. CRM work can get phenomenal results for an insignificant monetary investment, but it’s not easy—it takes time and dedication.”