Passive jobs and building a hiring pipeline

A hiring pipeline is a pool of quality candidates you've interviewed but haven't hired. These are the applicants who made it to the final stages of your hiring process, but who you ultimately chose not to hire.

Your CareerPlug account includes a Pipeline tab on the Applicants page to make it easy to build and maintain your hiring pipeline so you can hire faster in the future.

What is a passive job?

A passive job posting is only advertised on your careers page as a "Future Opening." It tells candidates that you're passively recruiting for a position and you'll reach out when an opening becomes available.

Want to pause a job? There is no way to pause a job posting in CareerPlug. However, if you need to slow applicant flow to a job temporarily so you have time to evaluate your current applicants before accepting any more, we recommend setting the job post status to passive.

What are the benefits of maintaining a hiring pipeline?

It's important to maintain a relationship with candidates in your hiring pipeline because you never know when you're going to lose your next A-player. Successful hiring managers don’t assume they’re in the clear after they hire a new employee.

When you're ready to hire again, contact candidates in your pipeline to see if they're still looking for a new opportunity. If one of the quality applicants you previously interviewed is interested and available, you could save yourself an entire hiring process. Even if one candidate is no longer available, a healthy hiring pipeline means you're not starting your recruiting from scratch.

As job boards continue to shift visibility toward sponsored (paid) job postings, maintaining a healthy hiring pipeline is a great strategy to hire consistently without being dependent on job boards.

How do I move candidates to my hiring pipeline?

If you have any candidates you really like but who aren't the best fit for the current opening (or you simply had a better candidate), consider moving them to your hiring pipeline.

1. Navigate to your Applicants page.

2. Click the three-dots icon to the right of the applicant's name, and select Move to Pipeline from the drop-down menu.

Consider creating a message template to let candidates know you're not hiring them now, but would like to leave the door open for a future position.

How do I view my hiring pipeline?

1. Navigate to your Applicants page.

2. Click the Pipeline tab.

Note: When you're ready to move forward with a candidate in your hiring pipeline, click the three-dots icon to the right of their name and select Remove from Pipeline from the drop-down menu.

How do I make a passive job posting?

To make a new passive job posting:

1. Navigate to your Jobs page.

2. Click the + New Job button in the top-right corner of the page.

3. Choose whether to use a Job from Template or create a Job from Scratch from the drop-down menu.

4. Configure your job posting as you would for any new job.

5. When you reach the Select posting status pop-up, select Careers Pages Only as the job post status.

6. Click the Post Job button.

To make an existing job posting passive:

1. Navigate to your Jobs page.

2. Click the Edit (pencil) icon to the right of the job you want to make passive.

3. Navigate to the Posting Status tab.

4. Select Careers Pages Only as the job post status.

5. Click the Update Job Post button.

Your passive job will appear as a "Future Opening" on your careers page.