What is a talent pool?

A talent pool is a collection of all the candidates you have in your system. Talent, in this case, refers to prospective employees who have skills your company can use.

The people in your talent pool may be active or passive job candidates, and they can come from many sources. It includes people who’ve applied for your roles and those you’ve actively recruited. Other potential people in your talent pool might include former employees, past applicants, job fair attendees and people who fill out a general interest form on your company’s career page.

Benefits of building talent pools

You could wait to recruit applicants until you have a job opening, but building talent pools before you need people can streamline the process. Here are some benefits:

• Faster applications: When you already have candidate profiles on hand, you can invite those people to apply for new openings or offer them an interview right away. This can save you time during the candidate screening process.
• Shorter time to hire: With a jump start on the interview process, you can potentially get someone into the position faster.
• Cost savings: By having lots of names ready to go, you might save on hiring costs. You might not need to promote your vacancies as heavily, potentially saving on advertising costs.
• Positive candidate experience : Building a relationship with prospective employees can improve the candidate experience. They get to know the company and build excitement about working for you.

8 steps to build a talent pool

You’re ready to build your talent pool, but how do you do it? Here are some strategies to help you create a high-quality candidate pool.

1.Refine your recruiting strategy

Having a well-defined recruiting plan with specific recruiting strategies helps guide your overall efforts. Decide how your talent pool fits into the overall recruitment process. This helps you establish best practices and procedures.

2. Establish your process

Write a policy that outlines the processes and procedures for your talent pool. This might include your overall purpose for the database, what type of talent it should contain, your candidate sourcing, what information you collect, how managers can use the system and how you’ll engage candidates. Include maintenance processes, such as when profiles will expire and when you’ll remove a candidate.

3. Choose an applicant tracking system

An applicant tracking system (ATS) holds all important data about job candidates. It’s an efficient place to maintain your talent pool. This software lets you maintain profiles for candidates, communicate with them and maintain records of all interactions. Using an ATS makes it easier to share data across teams and helps you create a more consistent candidate experience.

4. Explore your needs

Knowing what type of talent you need helps you focus your recruitment efforts as you grow your candidate pool. A skills gap analysis can give you a starting point. Look at upcoming projects that might require new skills or expected growth that might expand your talent needs. You can tailor your recruiting efforts and candidate sourcing based on what you’ll need.

5. Create an easy way for people to express interest

You can increase the size of your talent pool when your career page makes it easy for people to apply. Create a streamlined online application process for your current vacancies. Adding a general interest form can help you learn about other candidates who might not be a good fit for current openings.

6. Expand your sourcing methods

Adding new sources of applicants can help broaden your pool and create a more inclusive candidate database to help improve diversity. Look at how you currently find applicants and consider new possibilities. Some options include:

• Traditional job sites
• Employee referrals
• Job fairs and recruiting events
• Social media promotion
• College campuses
• Industry events
• Networking events

7. Engage your talent pool

Once you have a group of candidates, stay in touch with them. You might not have an opening for them now, but you could at any time. Sending regular emails can keep them interested in your company and alert them to potential job openings. But don’t send too many emails to your talent pool. If they constantly get emails, it can feel like spam, and they might opt out. Establish guidelines on when and how to engage the list.

8. Recruit from the database

Using the database when you have an opening can make it easier to fill your vacancies. Establish procedures for searching the database and reaching out to people who might fit your openings. While the database could hold your next employee, using multiple methods when you’re hiring can make the process as effective as possible.

Talent pool best practices

The following best practices can help you create an effective talent pool:

• Tailor your communications: Segmenting the members of the talent pool lets you customize the communication you send to them. You might reengage candidates who’ve been in the database for a long time with a reintroduction or an update about what’s changed. Communicating with former employees might look different than your outreaches to candidates applying for the first time.
• Don’t overlook internal talent: When building a talent pool, it’s important to remember you could have prospects who are already on the payroll. Internal recruiting can help retain employees and speed up the hiring and training process.
• Ask for feedback: There’s always room for improvement as you grow and maintain your talent pool. Surveys to collect feedback from people in your database can help you improve your practices and get better results.
• Train hiring managers: If multiple managers use your talent pool, train them on how to search for and engage candidates. This can help create more consistency in hiring practices.
• Track the results: Watching the metrics for your hiring activities can help you determine how effective your talent pool is. Elements to track include the time to hire, the quality of candidates and how many hires come from the existing talent pool. Use this data to make decisions about the talent pool and make improvements.

FAQs about talent pools

What is a talent pool vs. a talent pipeline?

Talent pools and pipelines both consist of prospective employees. However, a talent pipeline is a narrower group that’s qualified for a position and could be considered for the job. A talent pool contains a wider group of people who’ve expressed an interest or have had contact with your company in some way.

What are the disadvantages of a talent pool?

While a database of prospects can streamline hiring, it takes some maintenance to keep it organized and relevant. Contacts need to be kept updated and easy to sort or filter to find a match to your current needs. You also have to find the right balance, avoiding too much or too little contact with people in your talent pool.

What is the best way to build your talent pool?

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, taking a varied approach to building your talent pool can improve the quality. A recruiting plan that includes building your talent pool can help you choose specific strategies. Include regular upkeep on the database to keep it current and relevant to the skills you need now or may need in the future.