How to Build a Talent Pool Using 5 Effective Steps

Talent pools are valuable for all organizations no matter the industry. 

It offers a lot of flexibility and makes the hiring process more predictable. 

When looking at the short-term and long-term effects, HR management improves and finding high-quality candidates becomes a lot easier. 

To put it another way, it promotes a smarter recruiting approach. 

Aside from the competitive advantages it brings to the table, we’ll be going through how to build a talent pool in 5 simple steps.

What it Means to Build a Talent Pool

A talent pool is a list of candidates with the potential to become employees for current or future job openings in your organization. 

These people may include:

• Former employees
• Previous candidates
• Current job applicants

When referring to building a talent pool, it means building a list of skilled candidates. You may also have multiple talent pools for different job positions, e.g. tech-based roles. 

By categorizing professionals into specific groups based on their corporate profile, you’re able to filter them based on certain criteria. For instance, their strengths and skillsets. Therefore, it can speed up the recruitment process and improve decision-making.

How to Build a Talent Pool

We’ve included 5 steps you can use to get in front of your ideal group of candidates to build an effective talent pool. As a general rule of thumb, it’s good practice to personalize your approach with each applicant.

1. Start With Candidate Sourcing

Candidate sourcing means proactively finding job seekers who meet the minimum requirements.

Essentially, the candidates you invest time in are at least qualified for the role. 

It’s effective for making sure all skilled workers reach the interview stage and are moving forward in the recruiting process. Plus, you’re appealing to both active and passive job seekers so that you’re not limiting the search for ideal talent.  

Here are a few examples of where you can start:

• Create a compelling job description 
• Advertise on job boards 
• Promote on social media, e.g. LinkedIn
• Use an applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Participate or host (virtual) recruiting events

2. Focus on Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing helps you foster a community of followers that resonate with your cultural values. 

Focus on creating content that showcases the human side of your brand and what the work environment looks like behind the scenes. This is what develops an emotional connection with prospective candidates. 

It also endorses an inclusive and diverse workplace, which can encourage more people to make an application.

Naturally, you’re building a positive reputation and developing employer branding. At face value and through word of mouth, it can increase the chances of attracting your ideal talent.

3. Stay in Touch with Applicants and Previous Employees

All applicants have a degree of potential. 

That doesn’t just include those in the current pipeline. It includes previous applicants that didn’t get past the candidate assessment or interview stage. More importantly, this also includes former employees. 

If they lack a particular skill, it doesn’t mean they’re not worth investing in. 

Sometimes, there are gaps that can be bridged, which can lead to long-term advantages.

In another case where they’re not the best fit for one job opening, they could be a stronger fit for another similar role. When the time comes where that position becomes vacant, you’re able to fill the need faster since you’ll have a list of contacts to reach out to.

4. Use Candidate Assessments to Bridge the Skills Gap

It’s vital to take a data-driven approach. For instance, using AI and modern technology removes unconscious bias and subjectivity when making a hiring decision. 

This is applicable to not only your list of candidates. 

But, you can also provide short assessments to current employees to identify the skills gap in your workplace. As a result, you’re able to trace back to how you can improve the team’s chemistry and performance by hiring the right talent with certain capabilities.

If you have a plan prepared for how you could bridge those gaps, it opens up more talent acquisition opportunities.

5. Focus on Hiring Graduates

Some students and graduates could be looking for an internship, placement year, or a new job opportunity. 

Even if they don’t have all the experience and attributes of your ideal candidate, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not skilled enough for the job. 

In fact, hiring a graduate comes with competitive advantages such as:

• Gain a different perspective
• Lower salary costs
• Strong cultural fit 

Since graduates have limited experience in the corporate environment, it also means they don’t have many workplace habits. In other words, you can mold them into your own so that they become the ideal employee you’ve been looking for.

3 Advantages of Building an Effective Talent Pool

The CEO of Testlify, Abhishek Shah, shares that:

“You have to hire the best talent before you can get the biggest customers” 

To put it simply, your team comes first before your customers do. 

Having the right talent operating at maximum efficiency means that they’ll be able to take care of the growth of your organization. Acquiring big customers after that is a natural consequence of building a strong talent pool.

Minimize Recruitment Costs 

Operating with an established workflow along with automated processes allows you to maximize productivity. 

With better efficiency, it can significantly decrease recruitment costs.

Over a period of time as you continue to build your talent pool, you’re also connecting with more people and growing your network. This makes it easier to find more candidates or to get referrals from the people you know as opposed to paying for external sources.

Improve Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

By following the steps in this article, you’re targeting a range of professionals who are at different levels in their careers. For example, using candidate assessments to collect data can diversify your work environment since you’re removing bias from your recruitment process and hiring purely based on job performance. 

Another instance is when you’re showcasing the company culture. This improves the sense of inclusion which could appeal to groups of different people that resonate with your brand values.

Hire Faster and Better 

Having an established recruiting strategy alongside a list of connections means it’s easier to find candidates faster. At the same time, it improves the quality of hiring because you’re able to put all of your focus on the most important areas.

Do you want to see the same results as the benefits that have been listed?

Testlify helps startup companies and small businesses hire the best of the best without spending several hours a day screening candidates. 

Sign up for free to start building your talent pool today!

Final Thoughts

One of the main purposes of building a talent pool is to fill job positions faster with quality candidates. 

However, it’s not always easy to identify the ideal candidate at face value. That’s why it’s important to step out of the traditional recruiting approach and to include new innovative solutions into your framework.

Missing out on skilled candidates is expensive.

Start implementing the steps we’ve covered and you’ll be on your way to building a talent pool while reducing the likelihood of mis-hire.