5 Mistakes to Avoid When Talent Pool Fishing
While for many ‘talent pooling’ is still a buzz word – In reality, it no longer is. What is often a pool of forgotten people is in fact a group who are already bought into your organisation – they’ve either taken the time to subscribe to your content or they’ve previously shown interest in you and applied. Leading organisations investing in their long-term strategy are seeing the benefit of nurturing high-quality talent in overcoming recruitment challenges.
Talent pooling done right can save you time, reduce ongoing recruitment expenses, and deliver you high quality candidates. When it’s done poorly however, it can negatively affect your recruitment results, your reputation as an employer and your wider organisational brand. Remember, candidates are often your customers too.
Read on as Holly Taylor, Employer Branding Specialist at Employment Office, shares how to articulate your Employer Brand and nurture your talent pools through ongoing content. Here she shares the top 5 mistakes Talent Managers commonly make
- Mass production of depersonalised content
Let’s imagine your talent pool has a Sales Account Manager and a Graphic Designer – both positions you employ for. These candidates are motivated by unique factors, interested in specific benefits and ultimately seeking different things. Should these people receive the same content? No!
A good rule to follow: always segment and always send content that is relevant. Think employee videos, project highlights, infographics related to your industry or published by your company, employee blogs or profile stories.
- Enough said.
No one likes opening their inbox to see the same email at the same time, every day! Especially when their previous application experience with you might have been not too long ago. Ultimately, how often you choose to engage your talent pool will depend on your frequency of hires and volume of positions. Invest in working with experts in talent nurturing to strike the right balance between exciting and inundating.
- Where do I hit unsubscribe?
Not giving people an unsubscribe button is not only annoying for them, but also illegal. They need to be able to opt out, particularly if they are a previous candidate automatically added to the pool, having not actively opted in. If people don’t want to receive your content – that’s okay! It will do a lot more for your reputation to give people this option. Transparency really is the key to successful recruitment… plus, you want people who want you too!
- Don’t get lost – map it out.
If you don’t plan, you plan to fail – and this will definitely be clear to your potential talent! Providing candidates with an engaging and seamless recruitment journey will not only improve their perception of you as an employer, it will also help streamline your operations. As a start, put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and consider what experience you would like to have. Map out all the possible ‘routes’ a candidate could take once they join your pool – whether they join, apply for a role and are acceptable, or maybe they leave your pool after a year. No matter their journey, it’s a chance for you to make an impression as a great workplace and employer.
It’s also important to think about your internal teams and who needs to be involved at what stage. For example, do your hiring managers need to be in control of their own pool or, will HR Managers take complete responsibility? Ensure you regularly update your hiring manager with who’s swimming in your pool so when they’re ready to hire, they know where to look first before going out to market on mass. This will save time, resources and money – what’s not to like about that?
- No Employer Brand? No Idea!
What underpins all communication with potential candidates is your Employer Brand. Simply, it is the way you differentiate and market yourself as an employer, and ideally, as an employer of choice. This is articulated through images, stories and videos, but most importantly your Employee Value Proposition – this is the ‘why work for us?’ that should engage candidates. This should be embedded within all your talent communication and is fundamental to ensuring your brand is perceived accurately and honestly to what the experience as an employee is! Most importantly your Employer Brand gives you a voice and that voice is integral in sharing the organisation’s feel. Authenticity is key!
Editor’s note: Employment Office’s Employer Branding Specialists are experts at understanding and articulating your Employer Brand. Contact our Specialists to learn how we can craft your Employee Value Proposition and amplify this to target segments of your talent pool with our technology Scout Talent: Engage. We will nurture your high-quality potential candidates so they are ready, right when you need them.
