How to Build a Talent Pipeline? 5 Steps to Manage Your Hiring Process

Prudent HR representatives turn to their talent pipeline when positions need to be filled with the best-fit talent. A robust talent pipeline, however, requires time and effort to build.

In this week's newsletter, you will find some tips worth keeping in mind whether you are building your first pipeline or looking to expand your toolkit.

The benefits of having a talent pipeline

Better hires

Talent pipelining enables companies to build relationships with top talent and get to know them better. Naturally, this leads to identifying the right candidates for positions even before they open.

Candidates in the pipeline are already selected based on multiple criteria and have the qualifications needed for the job. It gives organizations consistent access to these professionals, allowing #HR to nurture and prepare them once the position opens and it’s time to hire. Because of these reasons, the newly hired candidate will most likely be the best available option.

Reduced time to hire

Once a key position in an organization becomes vacant, it is, in a way, already too late to start hiring. Critical positions are critical precisely because leaving them open even for a short period of time is costly to the business.

A candidate pipeline is filled with the right talent for the job that can step in as soon as needed. Hiring a replacement even before the previous employee has left is the best-case scenario all companies aim for.

Improved candidate experience

An unpleasant hiring process will, among other things, decrease the likelihood of candidates recommending the company to other prospects.

Conversely, constant engagement with the candidate in the pipeline as well as reduced time to fill an open position will lead to positive candidate feedback. This can also lead to more candidates getting referred to your company by top employees.

Building strong relationships with the best talent

When we are good at something, we want to connect with other people in our field, to network and share our knowledge. An effective talent pipeline allows your company to become the center of its own talent community filled with high-quality candidates for future roles.

Even when some candidates end up working elsewhere, staying connected often proves worthwhile. After all, long-term relationships lead to beneficial business partnerships.

How to create a talent pipeline?

There is no one recipe for building talent pipelines. The 5 steps below, however, provide a framework for creating a talent pipeline on which any dedicated HR executive can put their personal spin.?

1. Consider your company’s future plans

Finding better candidates starts with knowing your company’s needs and future goals. The extent of your pipeline and your candidate sourcing strategy will depend on whether your company is planning to grow in the next few years or expand specific departments.

2. Identify your target audience

Once you know yourself, you are ready to define what you are looking for. Create candidate personas for the key positions that you will need to fill in the near future. An informative candidate persona for your ideal candidate should define both their skills and expertise. Don’t forget to evaluate soft skills and current availability.

Thus, demographic data should be combined with data on their skills, interests, and previous experience. When you have a clear image of your ideal candidate, you can think of how it is best to contact them, which leads us to candidate sourcing.

3. Create a sourcing strategy

Decide on how you would want to start pipelining the #talent. There are many ways to source active and passive candidates. Firstly, it is important not to forget the current employees who might wish to switch jobs or go for a higher position. Providing diverse future opportunities is crucial to reducing turnover rates among the existing employees.

When it comes to external candidates, portfolio sites and career-oriented social media platforms could be the backbone of your talent acquisition strategy. Keep in mind that many candidates today, however, are passive candidates who do not actively look for a new job.?

4. Enact well-balanced engagement strategies

Maintaining the talent pipeline requires constant and appropriate engagement. It requires a delicate balance to, on the one hand, communicate enough to keep the potential job candidates interested and, on the other, not to be overwhelming.

Thus, it is better to ask the candidate what media they wish to use to stay in contact. Communicate with them clearly and honestly in order to avoid creating false expectations. Show interest in the candidate’s career aspirations and the challenges that they face.

5. Re-evaluate as often as possible

Nothing stays the same for long and your talent pipeline should reflect that. Keep reassessing the candidates in light of their own changing qualities as well as your business goals.?

The resumes of your candidates might have changed since the last time you extracted data from them; thus, it’s important to keep adding fresh data to your candidate database.

Data for talent pipelining

The most important data, such as skills data, can be found in employee data.

Additionally, it is worth looking at company employee review data. Insights about what employees say about their working conditions will help with nurturing the talent in the pipeline and set the course for creating a good candidate experience.

Various public web sources consist of #data that can be useful for talent pipelining. For example, online job posting platforms or networking platforms for professionals. Professionally collected data from these sources organized into extensive datasets is what you need for transforming your recruitment efforts and creating a successful talent pipeline.

Want to learn more about a #talentpipeline and how to manage it? Read our blog post. ??

Coresignal is a leading public business data provider in the web data sphere with an extensive focus on firmographic data and public employee profiles. Leveraging data of 660M professional profiles and 98M company records enables companies to build data-driven products and generate actionable insights. Coresignal is exceptional in terms of data freshness, with 284M records updated monthly for unprecedented accuracy and relevance.