Talent Pools - a recurring theme?

Hi all,

Like the proverbial 'blast from the past', Talent Pools seem to be coming back onto the agenda.  We were with a Dutch recruitment company today that actively mines and communicates with its candidate pool of over 75,000 individuals.  I recently heard about a new research report into Talent Pool activity in the UK. 

It is, to me at least, a 'no brainer' that companies of all shapes and sizes should be spending more time thinking about the candidates they have already attracted and who have expressed interest in a career at that company and less time (and money) being devoted to the pursuit of the 75% of candidates (using the term loosely) who may not even be looking for a job or career change.

Building a Talent Pool, then fishing in the Talent Puddle for those in your active base should be far more rewarding than fishing in the Deep.  Granted, you have to fish in the Deep Water first in order to set up the pipeline to your pool  - but even that can be more effectively done via some clever direct sourcing strategies, building out your referral networks, tapping into Alumni communities and revisiting those hundreds/thousands of CVs stored deeply away in your ATS (or even in the filing cabinets in the basement!)

And, of course, if you are being clever about attracting candidates to your career site, then you MUST deliver to them a great candidate experience.  Whether or not you hire the individual, this initial contact with your company sets the groundwork for the long term communications and relationship that can be extended throughout that person's network as well.

The more that the dreaded phrase "the War for Talent" comes back into vogue, the more work you should put into your own Talent Pool.

Alan

Comments

[Alan Whitford]

Thanks Romuald

I think that you are right in that the 'ease of use' of technologies may have finally caught up to the vision that we have been talking about for years. Now, if we can get the alignment between hiring manager, HR, and recruitment to agree those competencies........

Alan

[Romuald Restout]

Hi Alan,
On this side of the pond we are also seeing more and more Talent Pool discussions both at Staffing companies and corporations.
Some of the reasons that drive these renewed discussions are:
- availability of technologies such as matching engines and conceptual search engines allowing for effectively searching a pool.
- widespread use of electronic profiles driven among other things by resume extraction that has allowed companies to transform their stack of paper resumes into valuable fielded data
- increased use of competencies both to define positions and describe candidates allowing for a common attribute to match on
We'll see if this time, Talent Pools fill their promises, but it is sure that it is the first time that the conditions are met to see a widespread use.
Cheers

Romuald Restout

[Romuald Restout]

Hi Alan,
On this side of the pond we are also seeing more and more Talent Pool discussions both at Staffing companies and corporations.
Some of the reasons that drive these renewed discussions are:
- availability of technologies such as matching engines and conceptual search engines allowing for effectively searching a pool.
- widespread use of electronic profiles driven among other things by resume extraction that has allowed companies to transform their stack of paper resumes into valuable fielded data
- increased use of competencies both to define positions and describe candidates allowing for a common attribute to match on
We'll see if this time, Talent Pools fill their promises, but it is sure that it is the first time that the conditions are met to see a widespread use.
Cheers

Romuald Restout