Founder Insights: #3 Building Your Talent Pool
Jul 5, 2024
Welcome back to our series on leveraging the power of your internal talent pool(Direct Sourcing).
Today, I am going to take you through my learnings of building my own talent pool of 300 vetted experts,
which I have capsulated into 3 core elements to building your talent pool.
In our last conversation, we chatted about the potential savings: Company A pocketing a whopping $1.28 million by hiring just 15% of their contingent workforce from their internal talent pool instead of third-party vendors.
But the journey to direct sourcing is not all sunshine and rainbows.
This gap exists despite the massive potential savings and improved hiring times.
The key to transforming this perception?
Change your strategy from conventional recruitment to talent pool management.
Think of your talent pool as an asset, not a task.
This mindset shift sets the stage for a new, more impactful talent-sourcing era.
Here's the deal - populating your own pool is not as hard as it seems,
and today,
I'm going to walk you through it.
Let’s dive in:
1. Leveraging Your Immediate Network
One of my earliest lessons was realizing the value of my immediate network.
Building an effective talent pool starts at home,
with the resources already at your disposal. Here's where I found great talent:
Current and Former Workers: I noticed that those familiar with my company's culture quickly adapted to new roles.
Silver Medalists: Candidates who came close to getting a job in previous recruitment rounds often turned out to be excellent future hires.
Employee Lists / Referrals: I discovered that existing employees often had their own personal list of high-quality recommendations from their professional networks.
Previous Applicants: Reaching out to candidates who had shown interest in my company before often yielded positive responses.
Interns or Trainees: Those who had already had a taste of our company culture often turned out to be great potential employees.
Leveraging my immediate network was the crucial first step in building my talent pool.
This approach tapped into trusted relationships and an already familiar pool of talent.
But to truly diversify and enrich the pool, I had to venture beyond familiar shores.
2. Expanding Beyond Your Network
Beyond the immediate network, I realized the importance of attracting new blood.
Here are some of the most effective strategies:
Career Page CTA: Adding a 'Join Our Talent Pool' button on our careers page worked like a charm. It is a super simple and easy passive quick win.
Dedicated Landing Page: You can even go one step further and create a landing page solely for your talent pool, complete with success stories and insights about the company,
I have seen this strategy be used by companies like Spotify and Unilever:
LinkedIn and Marketing Campaigns using Employer Branding: Another very powerful way to attract talent was leveraging LinkedIn and running targeted campaigns to attract a broader range of talent. Utilizing our own brand was very important here. This is a great example:
Self-serving sign up: Nothing feels as good as your people just growing on itself. We integrated the option for talent to join our talent pool themselves, by signing up to a specific link and building their own profile. And surprisingly they did.
However, as you might imagine,
without proper management, things can quickly get chaotic.
That's where technology becomes a game-changer.
3. Harnessing Technology to Boost Your Talent Pool
Technology emerged as a critical game-changer in my talent pool strategy.
A dedicated platform was essential not only for managing and engaging with my talent pool,
but it also offered invaluable insights into the effectiveness of my direct sourcing efforts.
This was particularly evident in relation to the 'Self-serving sign up' I mentioned in Chapter Two.
Creating a space where talent could independently sign up, allowing me to vet and approve them into our talent pool,
was a critical factor in our success.
Visualize if a company like Nike, Inc. employed technology to streamline their talent sign-ups. It might look something like this: (Note* this only an example)
Deploying technology is a vital element for successfully populating your talent pool.
Ensure you select a platform specifically designed for this process, as it can significantly enhance your talent acquisition strategy.
And while I might be a bit biased, this is exactly why we built Bubty—to be that precise technology for companies seeking to achieve amazing results with their talent pools.
Wrapping Up
My journey in building a successful talent pool was not a walk in the park; it took consistent efforts, strategic planning, and, most importantly, learning from my mistakes.
My experience boiled down to three core elements:
leveraging my existing network,
strategically expanding beyond my immediate circles,
and harnessing the power of technology.
In our forthcoming newsletters, I'll be breaking down more of these elements,
providing actionable tips and strategies from my journey to help you navigate this changing hiring landscape.
Until then, keep this conversation alive!
If you have any questions or would like to discuss specific topics, feel free to hit reply and let me know.
Cheers,
Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:🚀
1. If you want learn more about how technology can help you lay the foundation for your direct sourcing, go here: https://bubty.com/
2. If you want to talk to me one-on-one, feel free to book a call here: https://calendly.com/bubty/dis...
See you next week for another deep dive into the world of talent pools!
if you want to dive deeper into any of these topics, you can always catch me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-willoughby-997899182/
