passive candidate

Definition

Someone currently employed and not actively job hunting, but potentially open to the right opportunity. Recruiters love them because they're harder to get and therefore must be better, like that restaurant with no reservations.

Example Usage

The recruiter spent three months courting a passive candidate who wanted 40% more salary and full remote, when we had five qualified active applicants.

Origin

Distinguished from active candidates in recruitment literature of the 1990s-2000s

Fun Fact

Research shows passive candidates aren't actually better performers than active job seekers, but the bias persists because scarcity implies value.

Source: Recruiting and sourcing terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

equitable

Fair and impartial in a way that considers everyone's circumstances, not just treating everyone identically like some kind of corporate robot. It's the difference between giving everyone the same size ladder and giving everyone what they need to reach the same height. In legal contexts, it refers to principles of fairness that supplement rigid law with actual justice.

👥 Human Resources

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psychometric testing

Standardized assessments measuring candidates' cognitive abilities, personality traits, and behavioral tendencies for hiring or development purposes. It's astrology for HR, but with more statistics and legal defensibility.

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change agent

An individual tasked with driving organizational transformation and getting people to embrace new processes. Usually the most hated person in the department until the change actually works.

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monitoring

The systematic observation and tracking of employees' activities, performance, or communications, ostensibly for productivity and security purposes. Modern monitoring ranges from benign time-tracking to dystopian keystroke logging and AI-powered webcam analysis. It's either "accountability" or "Big Brother" depending on which side of the surveillance you're on.

👥 Human Resources

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protected class

Groups of people protected from discrimination under federal and state laws based on characteristics like race, gender, age, disability, and religion. Being in a protected class doesn't guarantee a job, but it does guarantee you can't be rejected because of that characteristic.

👥 Human Resources

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Boomerang Employee

Someone who quits dramatically, realizes the grass was just astroturf on the other side, and comes crawling back pretending the whole thing was a growth experience. Companies love them because re-hiring is cheaper than admitting the job posting was up for eight months.

👥 Human Resources

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