#009 How to Build Up a Healthy Talent Pipeline

Did your hiring manager ever ask you about the status of your talent pipeline for the most critical open positions, which made you stressed or tongue-tied in that moment? If this resonates, you should read this article till the end.

As I am going to share two crucial strategies to building a talent pipeline for your on-going and hard-to-fill positions. If you use them, as I do, I am pretty sure you will be able to fill your open positions much faster.

Strategy #1: Identify your talent needs

Strategy #2: Develop your sourcing strategy around those talent needs

As I mentioned, the first thing is to identify your talent needs.

Start off by having a weekly meeting with your hiring managers or department heads about the requisitions that are to be filled currently or soon.

Also, always be on the lookout for any changes that might impact your talent pipe lining, for example, change in the project’s start date or perhaps any changes in the skills required.

Not only this, ask your hiring manager all basic questions such as:

· What are the skills that a business would need on a regular basis?

· Is the business expanding or restructuring its team?

· Or are these backfilling positions due to the high turnover of employees?

Also, try to understand, what the reasons are for employees’ turnover, so that you may fix as many of those issues while forming a pipeline. These talent needs could be for volume or niche hiring.

Moving on, once you’ve identified your talent needs, it’s time to fill your talent pipeline through sourcing. It is an ongoing process that requires you to proactively searching for qualified candidates.

As there is no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to sourcing talents, I am going to share a couple of ways that I often use for sourcing.

# 1. Online Platform

#2. Candidate and Employee Referrals

#3. Networking Groups/Events

Now, let’s talk about them in detail.

So, one of the tools I use for candidate pipelining is:

Online Platform: I use LinkedIn as it is one of the most reliable sources for hiring; in addition to this I explore Github when I need to find open-source developers. I use LinkedIn often to connect with my targeted candidates. I reach out to them even if they are not currently looking for a job change.

We don’t know when a passive candidate might turn into an active candidate, so keep them on your radar all the time. For this, I usually do two activities on day-to-day basis.

First, I hand-pick the kind of candidates I need by using a specific Boolean search or company-wise search (where you can target your company’s competitors). I use a kind of trick here: instead of looking at the first two pages of results, I go to the last two pages of the results because most recruiters don’t realize that they might end up getting some relevant profiles towards the end of the list.

Second, if you have a LinkedIn recruiter, or Lite seat then save your searches under projects and set your alerts to "on”. The system automatically matches new people with your search criteria and moves them into specific projects. That way, you automate the process of talent pipelining.

And the second tool I use for filling up my talent pipelining is:

Candidate & Employee Referrals: Referrals are a great way to gain access to untapped candidates who are either not looking for a job change or might not have time to hunt for an employment. Let me share some of the tips I use often.

First, reach out to your employees and candidates and let them know about the reward that they might receive when their referral results in a hire. Have reward policy in place for candidates as well.

Sometimes candidates are reluctant to share referrals, so always assure them upfront that they're not referring competition to the job they're applying to.

Second, try to get at least two referrals from each person you interview. As you must have heard the phrase, there is no harm in asking.

When you ask for two, then the chances are you get at least one. Ask for references not only from their current, but also from their past companies. This would make them think about their old colleagues.

Finally, check with your candidates about the resources they use when they're looking for a new job so that you can make sure that you are tapping most of the resources for your talent pipelining.

Now, the third and the final tool I use for talent pipelining is:

Networking Groups and Events: You should attend networking events such as conferences, webinars, meetup, or LinkedIn groups to engage with your potential candidates.

If you are a software development company, urge your practice or technical leads to host technical events about the technology your company works on for your targeted candidates. This not only elevates your employer brand, but it also provides you a list of folks who signed up for the event.

Finally, reinforce constant communication throughout the recruiting process. Be sure applicants know where they are in the process and have regular status updates for giving them a positive candidate experience.

Seeing all this, you might feel creating a talent pipeline requires a lot of time and effort, but it’s a worthwhile investment to build up your talent pipeline no matter what the size of your company.

Happy Sourcing!