Two kinds of candidates
There are those who are looking for a job: they type “forklift driver jobs Rennes”, compare, apply to several. They are valuable, and easy to find: everyone publishes where they are looking.
And there are the others: those who have a job but not necessarily one they love, those who think they will change “one day”, those who do not even know that your trade is hiring near them. They are often called passive candidates. They are not looking, but that does not mean they are closed: a good ad at the right moment can be enough.
| Active job seeker | Passive candidate | |
|---|---|---|
| Where they are | on job sites, in search results | on their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok feed |
| Their state of mind | they compare offers | they had not asked for anything |
| What makes up their mind | the job, the pay, the distance | an ad that speaks to them, and an effortless way to apply |
This table is my reading of the field, not a measurement: I have no figure on the share of passive candidates among my clients.
Advertising goes looking for them
A recruitment ad on Facebook or Instagram is not aimed at people who are searching: it slips in between two holiday photos and a recipe video. That is what explains its figures.
On my ads from 2023 to 2025, one person in 125 who sees the ad clicks on the link, and 94.4% of visitors leave without applying. These figures are frightening until you understand what they say: advertising reaches many people who are not ready, in order to find those who are.
At the median, each person reached sees the ad 3.4 times during ad delivery. A passive candidate rarely makes up their mind the first time: they notice it, think about it again, then click. That is a plausible reading of this figure, not proof.
What this changes in the way you recruit
A passive candidate will not make an effort. That is the basic rule, with three consequences:
- The ad must stop them. They scroll through their feed at full speed: in one second, they need to recognise the job, the place and what is in it for them.
- Applying must be easy. With the form built into Facebook, a few fields. On a page, a page that opens fast and a short form: two in three people who start applying give up along the way.
- You have to call them back fast. They did not apply to ten offers: they applied to yours, on an impulse. That impulse does not last a week.
What I have seen in the field
In Épernay, for Burger King, Meta counted 14 conversions on the first day for €6.65 of ad spend: nobody had gone looking for the offer, it came to them in their feed.
For Servagroupe, a training programme for abattoir technicians, a job few people consider of their own accord, received 90 applications in 49 days. I cannot know how many of these people were actively looking for this kind of training. My reading: few people type “abattoir training” into a search engine, and the ad showed them an option they had not considered. That is a reading, not a measurement.
So what about job sites?
They remain useful: for rare profiles, for people who have already decided, for jobs where candidates actively search. It is simply that if you only publish there, you only see part of the market: the part that is searching, and that everyone is fighting over. I have not compared the cost of an application on a job site with mine: I do not have those figures.
In short
- Many good candidates are not actively looking: they have a job, or do not know your trade.
- They scroll through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok: advertising goes looking for them there.
- One person in 125 clicks; each person reached sees the ad 3.4 times at the median.
- To win them over: a clear ad, an easy application, a fast callback.
