Developing a high-caliber talent pool is essential for a smooth recruitment process. Talent pools help recruitment teams find relevant job candidates quicker, with much less effort.
Before starting the next job application process, develop an understanding of how you can incorporate talent pools to maximize your hiring efficiencies.
In this article, we will discuss seven essential strategies for sourcing and managing a talent pool for your business.
What Is A Talent Pool?
A talent pool is a database that an organization keeps of possible future candidates. Talent pools are made up of candidates who applied for jobs previously and were unsuccessful. Or, former employees, and passive candidates (people who might be open to work but aren’t actively looking for a new job).
Having a large, updated talent pool available can make a hiring team’s life a lot easier. A talent pool gives you readily available access to potential candidates. This cuts down your sourcing and screening time. This will help to make the recruitment process faster while reducing the cost per hire.
A talent pool is also important for a long-term hiring strategy. Building and managing a talent pool can help you gain access to qualified candidates that your organization might be interested in working with in the future.
7 Ways to Source & Manage Candidates in Your Talent Pool
How do you create talent pools and keep them up to date? Here are a few of the best strategies for companies to follow.
1. Add Sourced Candidates to Your Talent Pool
The most straightforward way for organizations and recruiters to build talent pools is to add interesting candidates from previous sourcing processes into your database.
In many cases, you will come across candidates who have unique backgrounds and valuable skill sets. Add them to your talent pool, so that you have access to them for future availabilities.
2. Create A Talent Community Landing Page
You can ask candidates to sign up for your talent pool if they’re interested in your company but can’t find a suitable vacancy. Create a landing page with a form that users can fill out to capture their contact details. You could also add a form to your career site.
It’s important that you offer value to people that sign up. Provide them with immediate updates on any employment openings.
An effective strategy is to encourage people to select their job categories so that you can manage your database more efficiently. This means that you will send them relevant updates.
3. Keep Talent Pool Members Engaged
Once you have developed a talent pool, you’ll want to keep members to stay engaged with your organization. This will increase their chances of pursuing a new position when one opens up.
The best strategy is to regularly send out updates and news about your organization. Keep talent pool members informed about what latest developments that have taken place. You could also invite them to events you’re hosting.
4. Use Your Employee’s Networks
You can increase the size of your talent pool by tapping into the networks of your current employees. Your existing employees might have plenty of qualified friends and contacts.
A great way to utilize this is to offer referral bonuses to your employees. This will result in more of your employees actively sharing job openings and reaching out to their networks. This will also allow you to develop a more diverse talent pool.
5. Focus on Students & Graduates
One of the key parts of developing a talent pool is to prepare your organization for future hires. Getting students and fresh graduates involved is an excellent strategy.
Focus on your student and graduate offering and try to attract as many fresh graduates to your company as possible. This can be done through offering programs like summer internships, and graduate programs, organizing student events, job shadow sessions, etc.
Fill your talent pool with interested students and keep them engaged. This could offer plenty of potential for future hires.
6. Maintain Relationships With Former Employees
Don’t forget about the employees who left your organization. There’s still a chance they might return, which could be valuable for your organization.
Rehiring old employees can be a lot faster and easier than taking on new candidates. In many cases, former employees will also come back with new skills and experience. That is why it is essential that your relationship is in good standing.
When an employee leaves your organization on favorable terms, add them to your talent pool database and ensure to keep in contact.
7. Organize And Personalize Your Talent Pool
A talent pool shouldn’t just be one long list of potential future candidates. Instead, it should be an organized database, categorized by candidates’ skills, departments, and areas of expertise.
The more diversity you have in talent pools, the more skills and positions you will be able to cover. This will make it a lot easier to source the right applicants during recruiting.
At the same time, you should personalize your communications and content strategy for each segment in your database. This means sending relevant information to each talent pool segment.
For example, you could separate your talent pool into passive candidates, current employees, and former employees. In each case, they will be interested in different types of industry news or company updates.
Conclusion
A well-managed talent pool can assist in finding candidates for a vacancy with minimal effort. When recruiting for roles, ensure to add promising talent to your database for later consideration.
You can also attract new members through your career site, or add past applications into your talent pools.
Follow the strategies above, and finding top applicants for your next open position will be easier than you think.
