For a business to grow and succeed, people are critical but businesses seem to have a reactive approach to recruitment. This can compromise your business and limit your growth so it’s important to have a talent pipeline to be able to recruit the right talent to your business.
What is a pipeline of talent?
A talent pipeline is a set of people that’s constantly evolving that your business might be interested in hiring at some point, either for a new position that might be created or to replace current existing positions. Creating a talent pipeline means that your company proactively seeks out potential candidates and fosters strong lasting relationships with them. Your HR plan needs to be active in seeking new talent instead of being a passive, reactive force.
Creating a strong employer brand
The average length it takes to hire new talent from the moment of the application is on average one month. If you have a strong talent pipeline, however, that time can be reduced and the best way to do this is to have a strong employer brand. You should be showcasing on social media and other channels what your mission and values are as well as the company goals and what you look for in employees. The majority of potential employees can be reached via these channels even if they’re not looking they could be tempted to switch down the road for the right offer. Showing people your brand is essential to accomplish this.
Targeting the right candidates
This strategy works hand in hand with the above strategy because you want to make sure the right people are learning about your employer brand. What potential employees are you targeting, from age to education to location. Create employee personas and target your messages to reach those people specifically, and make sure this persona matches a candidate that will meet your requirements. This also means that you should be finding out where to advertise as well because different types of professionals rely on different platforms.
Making it easy for candidates to apply
The career portion of your website should be mobile friendly and it should be optimized for the top talent that you want to recruit. In the past, companies would create lengthy, complicated application processes to eliminate the candidates they didn’t want. Now, the roles have switched and high-quality talent will look for employers that make it easy and accessible to apply.
Defining your needs
One of the top strategies for building a talent pipeline is determining your needs moving forward to what type of employees you want. Use that information to tailor your messages even more to really be sure to attract the right candidates for your business. Any talent pipeline that wants to be strong and successful must adopt this strategy.
Developing your talent as a priority
Creating a talent pipeline is about more than just identifying and reaching out to the right people. It’s also about developing your existing teams to maximize their chances for success in the organization. Once you’ve built the assessment criteria for your hiring program, you can create a process that will look for the right skill set, identify where there could be any gaps, and set up regular training options for developing the talent. This covers everything from coaching, internal training and external sessions, cross-department shadowing, and internal assignments nationally and internationally if possible within your business.
Your business may be running with multiple branches like regional and global development programs for leaders or executive training sessions. There should be an overall brand for the training program, like with your company, and make sure it’s transparent and shared with all employees so all can be aware and benefit. This training program should also be a major attractive selling point to bring in top talent.
Tracking your process
The last strategy seems straightforward, but many businesses fail to do this in their hiring process. It’s important to track everything and analyze that information so that you can modify your future strategies when you’re developing your talent pipeline and hiring top talent. It’s impossible to know what is working and what can be improved without collecting and analyzing the data.
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