TALENT POOLINGA faster, cheaper and smarter approach to recruitment

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In today’s pressure-charged business environment, being able to scale up quickly to grasp business opportunities is a major competitive advantage. But finding the right talent at short notice is a challenge for the most veteran HR executives, not to mention filling unexpected vacancies that arise in business critical roles.

What if every key role had several qualified, engaged and motivated candidates lined up to fill it? This is what the practice of talent pooling provides – an approach to hiring that can empower your organization to hire better people, in less time and at less expense, while enhancing your employer brand.

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After a temporary lull, the competition for talent is ratcheting up again across Asia-Pacific. Net hiring intentions are at a four-year high in Australia and on the rise in China.1 And our research consistently finds the majority of professionals throughout APAC are open to new opportunities in 2016.

But while the talent market is more ‘liquid’ than ever, quality candidates with important skill sets are in short supply. Hudson’s Forward Focus report for the first half of 2016 showed, for example, a significant competency gap in ‘driving and managing change’ across the entire region.

Adding to the challenge organizations face in filling talent gaps is the fact that only a minority of those who say they are open to new opportunities are actively looking for new work. Advertising new positions via the usual channels will only canvass a small portion of the talent market.

The bulk of the talent market are passive job seekers. This latent cohort is often populated by people with highly sought after skills who are performing well and are highly engaged in their workplace. But they cannot be reached by traditional ‘reactive’ sourcing which simply advertises and fills roles as they appear.

Solutions-driven and ambitious, they want to work with you, not for you. They study an employer’s brand on a range of channels like LinkedIn and other social media. Winning them over involves engaging them over time in a positive way, building an employer brand that sets you apart, and ultimately being on the top of their list when the time is ripe.

Doing this means identifying key roles and new areas of focus for the business, mapping headcount requirements now and in the foreseeable future and making plans for how those roles will be filled. Then the long road of relationship building begins.

It takes time and dedication, but the payoff makes it worthwhile. Research shows highly productive workers can deliver 400% more productivity than average performers.2 As the relentless forces of technology and globalization open up new business models and markets while disrupting others, only your talent will keep you ahead of the curve.

With the talent market highly mobile and businesses putting forward ambitious growth plans, those who approach hiring in a forward-looking and strategic manner will pull ahead of the crowd. In the current market, the ability to quickly scale up as needed to capitalize on business opportunities will prove a strong competitive advantage, particularly in emerging markets.

But many organizations, especially those that are medium-sized, lack this capability. They are also vulnerable to losing key roles to unplanned attrition without the ability to fill vacancies in a timely fashion.

Forward thinking organizations stay on the front foot: they seek out the candidates that their organization needs most, build a talent pool and start the process of winning their hearts – early, and continuously.

NEW LANDSCAPE, NEW APPROACH

1 The Hudson Report: Forward Focus 20162 Ernest O’Boyle Jr and Herman Aguinis, ‘The best and the rest: Revisiting the norm of normality of individual performance’. Personnel Psychology 65(1), pp79-119. 2012.

A key way to manage talent pools effectively is to ensure that candidates are asked what they would prefer the frequency of contact to be and what content is important to them. You can also ask if they mind being sent information about future opportunities as they arise. By getting this buy-in at the start you can mitigate any angry replies in future for over-communication.

CAMERON DAVIDSON DIRECTOR – STRATEGIC SOURCING, ASIA PACIFIC, HUDSON

ON THE FRONT FOOT

HEALTH CHECK

Gone are the days where simply posting an advertisement online would garner high quality results. A low volume of quality candidates coupled with budget and time constraints can undermine the effective hiring of talent.

According to a recent global workforce study conducted by Towers Watson, fewer than half (46%) of participants believed their employers were doing a good job when it came to the quality of new hires.3

In a fast-changing market where candidates with in-demand skills are spoiled for choice, organizations need to take a ‘proactive’ rather than a ‘reactive’ hiring approach for business critical and hard-to-fill roles.

Take for example the highly specialized sales professionals who work in life sciences. They are hard to find, have a direct impact on revenue and without them the company literally cannot survive.

Reactively filling these kinds of roles following unplanned attrition can be a nail-biting, rushed and expensive process. And it often doesn’t result in hiring the best candidate – but rather only the best candidate who applies for the job.

Smart organizations are addressing this with a proactive approach to hiring. The result is faster placements at a much lower cost per hire.

3 Towers Watson 2014 Global Workforce Study

Recruitment is taking too long, keeping critical roles vacant for extended periods of time.

The majority of hires for key positions come from the active job seeker market, rather than the entire talent market.

Cost of recruitment is too high due to over-reliance on search firms to find the jobs or agencies to fill them.

Your competitors have better known ‘brands’ as employers, and the best candidates are choosing them instead of you.

Taking up the slack during long vacancies, existing employees experience burnout or disengagement.

Symptoms of reactive recruiting:

Time to hire Cost to hire The rest, not the best

Limited gene pool Low morale

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Talent pooling refers to building a group of desirable and qualified candidates who have been proactively selected to be ready for vacancies when they arrive, particularly for roles that are crucial to the business and hard to fill.

It involves engaging long-term with a selected group of active and passive candidates, building up a relationship and inviting them to apply for key roles. It serves up an engaged and ready pool of candidates and negates the need to go out to the market each time your organization has a vacancy.

When done well, talent pools enable organizations to quickly grow their employee numbers without having to sacrifice the quality of talent coming through their doors. It is also a way of onboarding people prior to starting with the organization and can help them ramp up to their full potential more quickly.

But to make it a viable option, businesses need to thoroughly understand the many layers that encompass a successful talent pool and the problems that can arise when it is done haphazardly.

Talent pooling is inextricably linked to the strategy and growth areas of a business, but agile enough to be adapted to ever-changing business requirements. It involves forecasting what skills will be needed to meet business goals, where and when they will be needed, and how many people that will entail.

It is a continuous process, not a stagnant bucket of talent. It demands long-term commitment to an employment marketing program that nurtures and grows candidate engagement.

Superior candidate relationship management is required to truly connect with top candidates whose decision will depend on the experience, interactions and communications they experience over time with your organization.

At its core sits a coherent and compelling employee value proposition that lays out why your organization is the best workplace in the industry.

A NEW APPROACH: TALENT POOLING

TALENT POOL – NOT THE SOLUTION FOR ALL ROLESTalent pooling is highly advantageous for roles that are regularly recruited and hard to fill. But it isn’t suitable for all roles.

Critical roles that are only filled rarely – for example a one-off head of research and development role – don’t have the volume to justify the resources that go into building and communicating with a talent pool. Roles like this, which are critical but unique, are more likely to benefit from a targeted search when they are being replaced.

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KIMBERLEY HUBBLE GLOBAL RPO LEADER, HUDSON

We do talent pooling for a great client in the life sciences field. Despite being a fantastic employer and offering a range of great benefits, this company is not widely known outside its home country – but with our talent pool solution we’ve been able to tell their story and sell their value proposition as an employer. Over time I’ve seen highly desirable professionals who weren’t even looking to leave their current jobs warm to the opportunity this company offers and ultimately become active candidates.

STEPS FOR BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL TALENT POOL

1. Get your team on board Ensure you have full buy-in from management. This is a long-term project that requires time, consistency and commitment. It will not deliver instant results, but the investment that it requires will be justified and validated over time through reporting and hiring managers experiencing better quality candidate shortlists and quicker turnaround times from your recruitment team.

2. Map your needs Consult with department managers and hiring managers about what roles are key and what will be needed over the next one or two years. Look at previous patterns of recruitment and agree on which roles would benefit from talent pools. Establish the qualitative criteria candidates need to meet to be added to the talent pool.

3. Develop your sourcing strategy List the channels you will use to source candidates, what messages you will convey and how you will position the roles. For rare skill sets you will need to be proactive in finding where those populations live, what media they consume (and therefore how and where to target them), and where they exchange ideas. If you have current employees who move in those circles, ask them.

4. Get the technology Ensure you have a good Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system (see breakout on CRM). The ATS will house the talent pool and give you data that will help you refine your approach – such as how many candidates are in the talent pool, how quickly it is growing, how many candidates have been shortlisted and how many candidates from the talent pool were ultimately placed. The ATS will also track how long it takes to fill vacancies across different role families and levels and where the placements came from, which helps inform where to look in the future.

5. Separate sourcing from recruiting In our RPO solutions we recommend having a candidate-facing sourcing specialist who is out every day talking to candidates and building and maintaining the talent pool, and a client-facing recruiter who interviews and hires under the direction of the hiring manager. If both roles are combined there is a risk this function will be too preoccupied with filling roles and lack the capacity to be forward-looking.

6. Source potential candidates Build a list of potential candidates. Seek out active candidates among online job applicants or those who have narrowly missed out on previously advertised positions. Draw on your networks, social media and referrals for passive candidates who may not have considered working for your company.

7. Make the approach Ensure you are able to articulate your value proposition as an employer and then make the approach. Most candidates expect approaches from recruiters to be tailored to them and their situation. Generic, group messages via LinkedIn regarding employment opportunities typically have a low success rate. So set yourself apart by tailoring your message and making it personal. Once you establish contact, articulate the value proposition and convince them to continue engaging with you, but don’t apply too much pressure or you will scare them off. Ask talent pool candidates how they would like to be kept in the loop and tailor your approach to communicating with them accordingly. Assure them their privacy will be protected.

8. Keep them engaged Treat your talent pool like a paying audience whose reviews could make or break the success of your show. Engage them with a clever CRM strategy and warm them to your brand over time. Word of your offering will spread beyond these people alone.

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Reaching out to the best professionals in your industry is a great opportunity to build your brand as an employer. But the reality is that in-demand candidates are often in multiple talent pools. Regular, strategic, high-quality content will warm talent to your company and reduce the chances of them taking up jobs with your competitors.

We take a structured approach to CRM that varies depending on the role type. A senior executive on a high salary will have different expectations, for example, to a young but high potential sales representative.

We first ask how they would like us to communicate with them. It could be a phone call, an e-newsletter or, in the case of senior positions, direct contact from a senior executive.

For some candidates a quarterly email or half-yearly phone call is enough, plus an annual prompt to update their CV. When seniority is higher or talent is more specialized, it could be a summary of the annual report, a client win or a project update.

Content should be a mix of articles, photos and videos – particularly if you are targeting younger generations.

Clever CRM technology can monitor how engaged candidates are with the content you are sending out. This can help you gauge their level of interest in your company and the effectiveness of your content. It can also help you automatically tailor the frequency of communication to each candidate’s level of interest.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

By building relationships with talent over time and feeding them relevant company information we definitely build more engaged audiences. This translates into feeling more connected prior to starting a role with that organization because we are essentially onboarding people prior to starting. If done in an authentic way it can help the person feel a part of the organization, which helps them ramp up to their full potential more quickly.

CAMERON DAVIDSON DIRECTOR – STRATEGIC SOURCING, ASIA PACIFIC, HUDSON

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TALENT POOLING: 10 TIPS FOR GETTING IT RIGHT

A talent pool will rarely cover all roles in an organization. Keep it to key roles and sectors that are hard to fill and crucial to the organization’s day-to-day running. Don’t spread your resources too thin.Be realistic1

Set the bar high and ensure your recruiters fill the talent pool with the best. Don’t fill it with poor quality or irrelevant candidates. This can cause the data you garner to become unusable and ultimately jeopardize the whole program. Be clear on entry criteria and also exit criteria.Aim high3

Talk the talk7Sourcing specialists with deep experience in the industries they are responsible for are usually more effective at building rapport with the candidates they are seeking out, although there are exceptions here and strong generalists do exist. Remember they often provide the first interaction the candidate has with your company, so this first contact is crucial in establishing the relationship.

Shore up your EVP4 Your Employee Value Proposition is your currency in the competition for talent. Be clear on why your organization is the best workplace in your industry and how to articulate that. This will help you retain and motivate current employees as well.

Monitor its effectiveness6 Is the talent pool justifying the resources that are going into it? Have a list of clear KPIs and report on them monthly, quarterly and annually. What is the placement rate of candidates in your talent pool? Is your cost per hire and time to fill going down?

Manage candidate expectations9 Be careful with your wording when accepting candidates into the pool. Avoid stating or suggesting that it will lead to guaranteed employment.

Don’t drop off the radar10 Putting candidates into a talent pool and never contacting them again can leave a negative impression. If a candidate continues to be put up for roles without success, at some point arrange an exit from the talent pool.

Have a reasonable idea of when you will need the talent, where you will need them and how many you will need – otherwise you risk wasting time talent pooling candidates in areas where jobs will never materialize. Know what you need2

The information that you present to your audience has to be authentic or you risk people joining your organization and being immediately disillusioned by the gap between what was promised and the reality. Being authentic ensures your new hires have the right level of expectation when joining your organization. Be authentic5

Talent pooling is a significant change to how many organizations operate. Explain the business-wide cost savings and efficiency dividends to the hiring manager and make sure he or she embraces the change. If approaching candidates will involve using social media, make sure the marketing team is on board. Does your social media policy need updating?

Get everyone on board8

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NOT READY TO STRIKE OUT ON YOUR OWN?Partner with an RPO specialist experienced in talent pooling who can:

Offer a consistent, accountable and reportable approach to assessing and

acquiring talent across your organization.

Partner long term to understand your organization’s strategic hiring needs.

Find and engage active and passive candidates in your area of specialization.

Ensure candidates not only have the skills, but also the right motivational and

cultural fit to stay engaged long term.

KIMBERLEY HUBBLE GLOBAL RPO LEADER, HUDSON

For one client we built a series of very specific talent pools and filled them with candidates. Key leaders had agreed to work with us on regular newsletter content – but HR had not checked off the process with key departments in the organization. Then there were issues with marketing and legal due to social media policy and other restrictions, and a significant length of time passed before we were able to communicate with the pool of candidates we had lined up. This experience brought home the importance of ticking all the boxes and checking in with key stakeholders.

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