Corporate Recruiters’ jobs have become more challenging. That’s right. With the economic downturn, one would think that with all the available talent, it should be easier to fill open positions. Unfortunately, all the resumes flowing in from job ads are turning into piles of under-qualified, mismatched candidates that take more time to screen, leaving less time to speak with highly qualified candidates that organizations want to hire.

In this market, many companies with hiring needs conclude that one way to reduce spending is to eliminate over priced placement agencies. One may think that with a single ad there would be many more applicants making it easier to find talent on your own. But is this the top talent you seek? In some cases, yes. But can internal Recruiters spend the time required to identify that “diamond in the rough”? Not all active candidates are poor quality. There are some top talent individuals that have been affected by company closures and market changes. But on average, organizations are finding a way to retain their best and brightest people in hopes that the economy will soon turn. And it already has started. Most of those displaced top talent professionals that were actively looking for their next career have been snatched up and have once again become the passive candidates companies desperately seek.

More applicants does not translate into “easier to fill open positions”. If anything, it means higher volume resumes and more time to sift through them. It often also means longer time-to-fill cycles and higher stress for internal Recruiters. It can even mean lower quality hires and in the end, higher recruitment costs.

The best recruiting strategy is to ensure a comprehensive approach: keep an eye on active candidates but purposefully hunt within the passive candidate pool.