Insights

Creating a proactive recruitment strategy with talent pipelining

Recruitment is typically seen as being reactive. A vacancy arises, and it’s all hands on deck to fill it. Some of this can’t be helped. However, it’s important to take a proactive approach where you can by considering the future talent needs of the business, as this will better support the business’s growth.

A talent pipeline is the way to create a long-term strategy surrounding the company’s talent needs. It takes concerted effort, and support from a recruitment specialist, but it pays off in the long term.

How does talent pipelining work?

A skilled specialist at talent pipelining will take a thorough look at your business’s human capital, whilst also researching your industry niche, and look to understand your business in the wider context. This provides you with the knowledge you need about the talent on the horizon that may become potential employees, and how to attract them to your business.

Talent pipelining helps those responsible for executive and talent search in your business to understand the landscape and what candidates are currently looking for, and begins to position them for future opportunities with you.

In turn, this groundwork shortens the time to hire in the long run. Tasks such as identifying suitable talent will have already been done. You’ll also know about likely roles which will emerge sooner than you would without this approach. It’s a case of already having your ducks in a row. For example, you will already have formulated an ideal candidate profile.

Instead of scrabbling around to reactively respond to a situation from scratch, the bedrock is in place, and everyone is ready to go.

Understanding potential

With reactive recruitment, as long as you use a specialist, you will likely find a suitable candidate. However, it may take longer, and it may cost more. Additionally, time will be wasted sifting through candidates.

With talent pipelining, the screening element of the process is largely done in advance. No time is wasted on initial interviews which quickly reveal a mismatch between the candidate and organisational culture. Instead, relationships are already being formed with those who show true potential. Those responsible for talent acquisition already have a good understanding of the likely fit between the individual and the organisation.

This is particularly important with regards to passive talent. For executive search, passive talent is of greatest interest. Successful businesses need candidates that are already proving their worth elsewhere. These candidates aren’t firing off CVs and applications. With pipelining, we can identify this passive talent within your industry.

It is even possible, with passive candidates, to discuss future, rather than current, possibilities, so that they too can begin to plan for a clearer future. This positions both parties for when it’s time to actually make the recruitment move.

Are you interested in talent pipelining?

Talent pipelining sits closely with succession planning and it an extremely powerful tool for preparing for business growth and change. If you’re ready to take the proactive approach, get in touch with us today. We’ll identify what’s going on in your business and industry, and begin to get the right talent into your pipeline, helping you prepare for the future.