What is Talent Pipeline? A peek at it’s Definition, Benefits, and Strategy

How companies hire candidates or candidates apply to companies for jobs has transformed over the years. You cannot rely on the best talents applying to your company anymore. The best candidates get hired within ten days of entering the job market, which means if you are not proactive in your search for candidates, you will miss out on top candidates.

Open positions can cost you a lot, but a wrong hire will cost you even more. To make sure you hire the right candidates efficiently, you need to be proactive and implement a talent pipeline strategy. Building talent pipelines should be an essential part of your recruitment and candidate sourcing strategy.

What is a Talent Pipeline?

A talent pipeline is a pool of candidates that can be contacted and hired when a role is vacant. This is relationship-centric recruiting at its best. Instead of searching for a candidate when a position is empty, this strategy focuses on building steady relationships with passive candidates for future opportunities.

Developing a talent pipeline requires a proactive recruitment strategy instead of a reactive one. When you are proactive, you are no longer thinking about only hiring for the vacant positions. You are thinking of what your clients might need in the future and preparing yourself for the requirement.

Talent pooling and talent pipeline rank high on the recruitment plan, and the majority of the recruiters see it as a significant priority. The talent pipeline is a long-term strategy, and it takes time and patience. However, investing time, money, and effort in the process is worth every bit.

Talent pipeline and talent pools are relative terms that are often used interchangeably.

However, a talent pool is a database where talents are grouped under segments, and when required, companies reach out to the candidates. 

While in a talent pipeline, recruiters nurture a candidate and actively build a relationship with the candidate. In a talent pipeline, it is never stagnant. It would be best if you moved your candidates through a journey, moving them closer to you.

QX Recruitment Services, serving as a talent sourcing agency, helps staffing firms build quality talent pool with a team of passive candidate sourcing experts.

Top 5 Benefits of Talent Pipeline

All kinds of companies can benefit from a talent pipeline. Be it a large company or small and medium-sized businesses, anyone can hire relevant candidates using a talent pipeline. With a talent pipeline in place, organizations do not need to start searching for candidates from scratch. It will also reduce the time and cost per hire.

Companies that constantly hire candidates in a competitive market can leverage the talent pipeline and have ready-to-hire candidates for their needs. The talent pipeline is not another recruiting buzzword, and companies that hire candidates constantly using this method can vouch for it. Here are a few of the benefits you can get by having a talent pipeline.

1. Better Candidates

You can hire better candidates using a talent pipeline majorly because it reduces the rush and allows the recruiters to stay in touch with the candidates even before they are hired. With a talent pipeline in place, recruiters don’t need to find immediate candidates to hire. They get the time to focus on the best-suited candidate instead of submitting the first candidate they found.

It is often rare that the perfect candidate is available right when you have an open role for the candidate. This can be frustrating even to the most patient recruiter. Often, recruiters find the best-suited candidate, but there are no available roles for the candidate.

Talent pipelines are a perfect method to deal with both these issues. You can nurture passive candidates who are ready to move when you need, or you can open “evergreen job” roles that are open always to hire the candidate whenever they are available.

2. Engaging Passive Candidates

A top candidate is hired within ten days of entering the market. Meaning, either you need to be proactive, or you will have to pursue passive candidates. Passive candidates are not actively looking for jobs, meaning they are not active on job platforms and probably won’t engage with a job post.

70% of the candidates are passive candidates, and only 30% of the candidates are active. If you are looking for the best candidate, chances are you need to hire a passive candidate. If you want to hire passive candidates, you must engage them effectively.

The talent pipeline allows recruiters to engage with these candidates without pushing for a job opening. With time, you can discuss open job roles that you think suits them the best and take your shot, a far more effective way of recruiting passive candidates.

3. Less Brand Dependency

Many companies do not have a very high brand value or work in unfavorable locations. This can create a problem during hiring. Many companies don’t have the resources or image to sell candidates on the brand value; recruiters need to move fast and fill up roles.

By creating a talent pipeline, recruiters help the candidate visualize working with them and convince them. Since the process happens over time, it is easier to overcome limitations.

4. Increased Diversity

Talent pooling and pipelining are the top methods to increase diversity in the workplace. Most companies struggle to find candidates that can match their diversity requirements. Talent pipelining allows recruiters to find and identify diverse prospects and build a relationship with them. Instead of hoping that various candidates will come across your job posting, this is a method that works better and faster.

5. Better Candidate Experience

Candidate experience is now valued by almost every organization, and in the competitive job market, it can be your USP. Talent pipelining is a candidate-centric process in which recruiters nurture the candidates and build a strong relationship.

Instead of driving talents to job postings and hoping they will apply, companies focus on building a solid relationship with candidates and engage with them on their terms. Nowadays, hiring success is directly affected by candidate experience. Thus companies should not ignore this.

How to Build Talent Pipeline

No matter how good your strategies are, execution is the key to success. If you want to create a talent pipeline that will be consistently effective and beneficial, here are a three-step method that you can use.

1. Identify Your Targets

Any effective recruiting strategy begins with identifying what is most needed. When you know who you want to hire, it is a lot easier to find the candidate. The point of building a talent pipeline is to engage the right talents, not just anyone who applies.

To identify your target, you need to create a candidate persona. A candidate persona is a fictional representation of the candidate you are looking for. Candidate personas are formed by defining the characteristics, skills, and personality traits you are looking for. Building this persona helps recruiters to identify the best-suited candidate quicker. Persona creation is an essential part of the recruitment strategy.

Candidate personas are often based on employees who are already working in the company. Personas should not be built on assumptions and require real-life data. However, it would help if you did not look for a clone of your present successful employees.

Gathering information on the interests, views, and educational qualifications is an excellent way to start. However, always keep in mind that diversity is essential and so, refrain from making a clone. Focusing on the background of present employees may help as well. You might find out you have often been hiring from certain companies or industries and mark them as a good source of best-suited candidates.

Once you have decided on the qualifications, skills, and background, you can now focus on the experience. Was the experience a consistent requirement for your company? If so, you might want to set a bar regarding expertise. However, this might depend on the role and also explains why multiple personas often help.

Once you have everything you need, you can focus on the goals and sourcing method. Remember, the dreams of the candidates and employees might differ or even go spate ways. Talk to the new hires, and try to know what bothered or excited them about working at your place. This will give you a general understanding of the candidate mindset.

Once you have gathered all the data, you need to know how the new hires found your company. Did they saw your branding on social media, or did a colleague told them about your company?

Once you have gathered the last needed information, you can pull them all together and create multiple candidate personas. When you have your candidate persona in front of you, it is easier to write job posts and identify the best-suited candidates.

2. Fill Your Pipeline

Once you have articulated the candidate persona, it is time to identify the candidates who match the persona. It is not a one-time task and should be running in the background at all times. There are three core tactics expert recruiters use to fill talent pipelines.

a. Re-engaging rejected candidates – A survey by ERE shows that more than 250 candidates apply for a role in the corporate. However, only one is hired, and 249 candidates are rejected. The candidates who applied for the job role have shown significant interest in your company, and these are the perfect candidates for a talent pipeline.

As you have already assessed these candidates, you have an idea about their competency. You have already invested a significant amount of time in them, and they can make great future hires. The issue is, in most companies, these talents are lost and locked away in the ATS. Make sure that doesn’t happen.

b. Talent attraction – When you have your candidate personas, it is easier to attract talents. In a traditional method, advertisements and the brand-image building is the way of attracting talents. However, in a talent pipeline method, events and campaigns work way better.

The events allow you to talk and meet with the candidates. This is more engaging and helps to maintain a stable relationship with the candidate.

c. Sourcing – Sourcing will never go out of fashion. Leverage social media, job platforms, and work-related social media such as Github, Stack Overflow, or DeviantArt to engage with candidates. Always keep sourcing candidates to your pipeline and keep the process alive. Slowing down is not an option.

3. Engage Your Pipeline

The key to candidate nurturing is identifying how to encourage candidates in a time-effective way. While you should not forget about them, you should not be spammy or annoying either. Value their time as well as yours, and engage them in productive conversations.

Over time, you can share problems with them that might interest them. This works nicely with developers. Tell them about opportunities on your farm, and discuss the growth of your company with them. Please make sure they are aware of all the changes and boost your company is going through.

When they show interest, give them more information without overwhelming them. Maintain the delicate balance, and strike when you think the time is right.

Talent Pipelining is a long process. While you need to map your engagement process, you also need to make sure you are moving the candidates through a journey, and you are moving them closer to you, not away from you.

Building a rich talent pool and talent pipeline requires a team of best active and passive candidate sourcing experts. QX Recruitment Services offers candidate sourcing services to staffing agencies, aiding their talent database regeneration, talent pooling and talent pipelining efforts. Click the button below to send us a message and request a callback from our RPO expert.

Originally published Jun 10, 2021 02:06:41, updated Jun 26 2024

Topics: Candidate Sourcing, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management