Four ways to expand your talent puddle to a talent pool
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FOUR WAYS TO EXPAND YOUR TALENT PUDDLE TO A TALENT POOL
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Many of the metaphors of talent share a link to water. We’ve had talent pools, talent pipelines, talent flow, talent leakage, and talent waves. I’d like to now add another, the talent puddle.
A global tech company's HR Director recently voiced concern about their limited talent supply. It appears that the same five names consistently receive recognition as the individuals with potential in the business. In the HR Director’s words, ‘we don’t have a talent pool, we have a talent puddle!’
It seems that lots of businesses are suffering in the same way. CEOs and HR Directors are concerned that lack of future talent in the job market will limit business growth and success.
So, if you find that you have a puddle instead of a pool, what can you do about it? In this blog, we discuss four strategies to create a talent pool that will include an abundant supply of top talent.
What is a talent pool: meaning in modern workforce management
- Former contingent workers
- Previous permanent employees
- Freelancers
- Retirees
- Previously unsuccessful applicants
What are the benefits of building and maintaining a talent pool?
- Reduce time to hire: An up-to-date talent pool can save you the time of conducting an entirely new search from scratch.
- Offer access to passive candidates: A passive candidate with desirable skills and qualifications may consider a new opportunity if you make a tempting offer.
- Improve the overall candidate experience: When you contact candidates after keeping their details, it can help emphasise your positive employer branding. This approach also helps reduce the number of rejections at the interview stage.
- Improve diversity and inclusion: Diversifying your approach to candidate engagement makes it easier to consider candidates from a wide range of backgrounds.
- Lower the cost of hiring: You can save the cost of advertising or outsourcing your recruitment strategy.
Four strategies to create a talent pool
1. Focus on the strategically important talent that is hard to find.
- What are your future plans?
- What are the strategically most important skills, knowledge and experiences that you need to deliver these plans?
- Which of these are likely to be difficult to find?
2. Try to find the root causes of the talent puddle.
- How good are you at providing what candidates are asking for?
- What can you do better?
- Can you improve the candidate experience?
- How can you communicate what you are doing to potential employees?
3. Identify the hidden gems in your internal talent pool.
4. Broaden your talent ‘ecosystem’.
- Skilled contractors
- Partnership or exchange with other companies
- Use of freelancers and platform workers
- Crowdsourcing of activities
- ‘Co-opetition’, or collaboration with the competition for mutual benefit
For more expert advice on attracting and retaining top talent, take a look at the following articles:
- How to use talent mapping for recruitment
- How to improve staff retention: identify and support valuable employees
- Implementing a Managed Service Programme: Common MSP challenges and solutions
AUTHOR
Dr Maggi Evans
Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Consultant and Coach
Maggi is an experienced consultant and coach with international experience across a wide range of sectors including professional services, financial services, retail and FMCG. She is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and combines research and practice to develop practical solutions to drive business improvement.
Maggi has been a consultant for over 20 years, specialising in talent strategy and talent development. She has a reputation as an insightful consultant, helping clients to reduce the ‘noise’ around an issue so they can focus and act on key issues which will make a difference. Maggi is on a mission to help organisations, leaders and individuals to liberate talent.