Narrowing the Talent Pool as a Talent Puddle

Alan Whitford
Founder
Recruitment Community Europe LLP
alan@RCEuro.com
+44 797 186 4620
http://www.RCEuro.com

Why Me?

• Over 25 years experience in recruitment and in the start-up and expansion of
high technology businesses in Europe
• Provide strategic and practical insights to the automation and web-
enablement of Human Resource and Recruitment Process activities
throughout Europe
• Clients include Times 500 companies and software and services vendors in
the Human Resources and e-commerce arenas
• Co-Founder of Recruitment Community Europe LLP
• Founding board member of HR-XML Consortium European Chapter
• Founding member of ORMC (UK on-line recruitment marketing council)
• Published in a number of on-line and off-line media covering technical and
strategic HR and Recruitment issues
• Author: Personnel Today - Guide to Online Recruitment

www.RCEURO.com © Recruitment Community Europe 2009

What Is Our Purpose In Life?

“The ability to find and hire the right people can make or break
your business. It is as plain as that. No matter where you are in
the life cycle of your business, bringing in great talent should
always be a top priority. It is also the hardest objective to meet.”

Michael Dell, Dell Inc.


Workforce Inventory Management

• Introduction of longer term (5 year horizon) lifecycle thinking
into recruiting
• Building and maintaining talent pools which can be drawn on
over time
• ‘Just in Time’ delivery of candidates in advance of
requirement, not 60 days after
• Data mining techniques to evaluate availability and suitability
of ‘old candidates’
• Integration into HRIS systems - employee records, training
needs


Talent Lake


Talent Pool

• Talent pools are groups of people with whom an employer
maintains a direct individual relationship for the purpose of
future employment – both permanent and temporary - while not
currently employing them
• Internal definition of a Talent Pool may be indistinguishable
from CV Database" or "Candidate Relationship Management"
tools
• External Talent Pool is about maintaining a relationship with
talented people outside your organisation, so that when needed
there is a pool of skilled people willing to work with or for you
• CIPD: Talent pool tends to be the name given to a collective of
talented employees once they’ve joined the organisation


Busy Talent Pool


Candidate Perception of a Talent Pool


Talent Collection

Why collect talent?
• Repetitive candidate search is time-consuming &
costly
• Saves and builds upon the value of your candidate
contacts
• Gives you a readily available talent network to tap
and use for referrals


Benefits of the Talent Pool

• Save time and money while improving candidate relationship
management
• Move the company towards ‘just in time’ hiring practices
• Maximise the candidate resources already developed
• People development and career progression for internal
employees
• Success factors for the business – without employees to do
critical jobs, a company cannot move forward


Examples of Talent Pools

• Alumni (Boomerang Hires)
• Recently retired employees
• Contractors
• Functional specialists and experts
• Senior executives and top talent
• Geographically-defined groups - e.g., by regions or countries
• Demographically-defined groups – e.g., people in different life/career
phases such as retirees, students and parents taking leave
• Internal candidate databases compiled over time
• External/commercially available candidate databases
• Internal candidates – specifically for internal mobility


Where Do Our Candidates Come From?

Sources for Hires USA

Source: CareerXRoads, Sources of Hire 2009


Sources for External Hires USA



Sources of Hire Australia

Source: Source of Talent ‘09, Talentsource.com.au


Sources to Find Candidates UK

Source: Jobsite Online Recruitment Quarterly Tracker


Hiring Candidates UK

Q7. Now, looking at 2009, approximately what percentage of your hires will you source through the following services?

Source: LinkedIn 2009 Trends in Recruiting & Recruiting Smarter


Talent Pool, No. 1 Objective

Have done/
plan to do
Build and nurture strong talent pool 49%
Prioritize positions to focus on first 41
Train existing team members 38
Prepare hiring managers 37
Learn to use social networking/social media 36
more effectively
Invest in employment brand 34
Improve referral program 34
Q27. What have you done or plan on doing to be able to ramp up hiring and be ready for the recovery?

Source: LinkedIn 2009 Trends in Recruiting & Recruiting Smarter


What is Direct Sourcing?



Why Don’t We Use the Pool?

• 67% of companies do not have a Talent Pool
• 38% may develop one
• Of those with a TP, only 22% communicate at all with
the candidates in the pool
• Only 11% communicate on a monthly basis

Source: Talent Pen Survey, 2006


You Have Already Done the Hard Work

Companies of all shapes and sizes should be spending
more time thinking about the candidates they have
already attracted and who have expressed interest in a
career at that company and less time (and money)
being devoted to the pursuit of the 75% of candidates
(using the term loosely) who may not even be looking
for a job or career change


The Talent Puddle: Narrowing the Talent Pool

• To place a further emphasis on targeted use of the
broader talent pool
• Many recruiters are too pressed for time to search
beneath the surface to get the best candidates who
are lurking in the deeper water
• Use a very shallow pool of candidates that can be
easily found and easily captured


Shallow Puddle


Who Is In The Puddle?

• Puddles are much more shallow and scarce than pools so
there is less room to hang out
• Not everyone can get into the puddle. Getting in takes effort
because there is competition to get there
• Talented high performers are rare. They are the top 20% of
their field and will be more easily found if you look in the talent
puddle not the talent pool
• They will stand out amongst the throngs of suspects, prospects
and candidates recruiters run into every day because the are in
the puddle or at the part of the pool where the water is shallow


Three Reasons

• Winners hang out with winners and losers hang out
with losers
• You can't have relationships with all suspects,
prospects and/or candidates
• Smart recruiters hang out in the Talent Puddle For
Better ROI


Private Talent Community

• Special private relationships
• Source of happy, working
skilled candidates
• Less competitive pressure
• All the elements of
headhunting without the cost
• Catch ‘your’ perfect
candidates


The Ripple and Splash Effect


The Dynamic Talent Splash

• Talent Pools segment a market to best meet the needs of that
market
• Does it mean a static puddle of the same people?
• You have different puddles for different needs
• Use clever information management to match candidates to
jobs immediately upon requirement
• Make your puddle selection on the fly
• The Dynamic Talent Splash


Catch The Perfect Candidates


What is RCEURO?

• RCEURO, The Recruitment Community for Europe, is the first Pan European
community site where recruiters and HR professionals can seek information,
share knowledge and network together across boundaries, cultures and
languages, all at no charge
• We are passionate about recruitment
• Regularly updated website content is provided by independent journalists,
RCEURO staff, RCEURO members, news feeds from HR/recruitment
communications agencies, technology and services vendors
• Content is published in multiple languages, A language translation module
enables visitors across the EMEA region to read selected content in their own
language
• Audio and Video clips are regular features, ranging from ‘online radio’ feeds to
video interviews with industry thought leaders and direct feeds from selected
industry events
• Approximately 2/3 of our members have responsibility for corporate
recruitment/HR and 1/3 are in the recruitment industry


THANK YOU!!

Any Questions?


Contact

Contact Information:
Site: www.RCEuro.com
Founder: Alan Whitford
alan@RCEuro.com
Tel: +44 (0)7971 864620


Narrowing the Talent Pool as a Talent Puddle

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