People are the capital of any organisation. They are crucial to business growth and success, but many corporates have a responsive (reactive) approach to hiring talent and hold back for an employee to quit before looking for a replacement. The absence of a preventive hiring process can trade off companies’ growth and success. It is pivotal to create a talent pipeline model to bring in top talents to the business to stand out in the competitive market and for its success.

Talent pipeline is the nurturing of a set of people that businesses may want to engage with immediately for an existing available role or for a role that may open up in the future. Building a pipeline means developing a long-term relationship proactively with potential candidates. Companies need to re-organise their recruitment model and adopt a more pro-active model. Building a healthy pipeline can help organisation to recruit qualified candidates as well as candidate with great potential. In addition to it, also supports in broadening the talent pool, witness the candidate experience and enhance the overall employer brand. Listed below are the processes through which a strong pipeline can be created:

 

Understand the current talent requirements in your organization

The first step in building a reliable talent pipeline is to assess existing skills and identify skill gaps and talent needs in the organisation. Communicate with department heads to get a picture of the current and future project and expansion plans so as to anticipate all the candidate requirements that will surface in the organization.

 

Create a list of talent sources available

Once we are sure of what roles to be hiring for, the next step is to identify the various candidates available through different channels like social media, job portals, niche job portals, employee Referral program, internal and external databases and internal job moves – promotions, transfers, recruiting on networking sites.

 

Source the right candidate

This step is very crucial that involves writing clear job descriptions, putting up creative advertisements on different platforms and showcasing the job culture and benefits of working with you. At this point it is very important to attract the right candidates from a large pool so that you can clearly communicate expectation of job roles, expected skills, experience, certifications and so on. This helps in attracting the right candidates to apply for the open positions that you want to fill.

 

Shortlist prospective candidates

Once sourcing is done, then the next step is to start shortlisting the prospective candidates. Finding out if they have required skills, experience, and values for your organisation.

 

Screen, interview, and hire

Conduct an initial screening of these filtered candidates, post which, the next step would be to start scheduling interviews, and finally hiring the best from the lot. This process can only produce good results if there is an internal support system in place that aids the whole sourcing process. This involves training interviewers, collecting feedback, and ensuring candidates have a friction- free experience.

 

Train, engage and develop

Ongoing employees make up the strongest part of the talent pipeline and hence engaging them and creating an environment with a great work culture where they can learn, grow, and realize their full potential is an essential part of building a strong pipeline. Training and development not only retain but also enhances productivity and innovation.

 

Once you have all these steps outlined, determined and executed, your pipeline now has a strong foundation. In addition to this, adopting certain strategies can help further refine and create a healthy pipeline of strong candidates in your organization:

 

Boost Sourcing

As the business grows, so do the hiring needs. This demands an increase of candidate sourcing efforts through various new channels. It is essential at this point to expand recruitment marketing efforts and set new goals for the recruitment team. One challenge at this stage is to efficiently handle multiple channels.

 

Employee referrals

One of the fastest ways to build a talent pipeline is through employee referrals.

We all know referrals are faster to hire, perform well and stay longer with the company.

• Allow the employees to promote jobs. Inform employees of Job openings and encourage them to share the open positions with friends or family.
• Create or adopt tools that make it easy for employees to refer and track the status of the referrals.
• Create a fast track hiring process for referrals.
• Put a reward system in place for employees who can produce quality referrals.

 

Invest in the right tools:

Organisational efficiency, growth and success in a competitive world cannot happen without the right hiring tools. Recruiters have to juggle thousands of job boards, follow-up with candidates and schedule interviews, all in a limited time period which can get exhausting and ultimately brings down efficiency. They always have a variety of tasks to perform. Smart handling tools helps recruiters structure the process and execute it effortlessly. These tools help them in saving time and resources which can lead to efficiency in the hiring process and help strengthen the health of the pipeline.

 

Proactive recruiting:

Always be recruiting. Proactive recruiting helps build a strong talent pipeline. It is the best way of identifying and nurturing passive top candidates.

In reactive recruiting, you are actively identifying and completely relying on the response of the candidates, whereas proactive recruiting gives you the flexibility of exploring new channels and finding out the top candidates who may not be looking for a job at the moment. The victory of passive recruiting relies on nurturing a candidate’s journey. Adding them to the talent pool and building a relationship with them and when the right roles open up you can invite them to pursue a career.

 

Employer branding:

Candidates are always more willing and enthusiastic about companies that have a good brand reputation. Without employer branding, it will be difficult to get qualified candidates. While a good job description may peak an initial interest from candidates, that alone won’t carry them further down the pipeline. You must share your values and vision and invite them to be a part of that vision. You have to sell your employer brand.

 

Creative and persuasive follow-ups:

Creative follow-ups can help you open into new flow of potential candidate, greeting on social networking platforms like LinkedIn and social networking platforms could be used as an opportunity to wish on their special occasions or achievement to connect with them.

 

Contact us at Tecnita if you want to learn more. We have a wide pool of strong and qualified candidates who maybe a right fit for your organization and for your particular requirements.