Effective Strategies for Continuous Sourcing Building Talent Pipelines for Recurring Roles
In this Whitepaper A proactive sourcing strategy pays off. Having a ready pool of qualified candidates can return vast dividends, saving an organization time and money and eliminating hasty hiring mistakes. The trouble with continuous sourcing strategies is they are often improperly executed, resulting in confusion, frustration and missed opportunities. The road to a successful talent pipeline requires clear and well-defined goals, in which effective sourcing is used to strategically find and engage with a ready bench of talent for roles looking to be filled. As the economy improves, organizations are looking to strengthen and fill their talent bench to be well prepared for a demand of quality talent for skilled roles. In this Whitepaper, we ll address the four components to proactive sourcing and building a bench of talent for recurring roles. 2
Plan To begin building a strategic bench of talent for recurring roles, the organization must first anticipate which roles are on the horizon and fully understand the position prior to engagement with candidates. The talent sourcing strategy should encompass these overall goals: Evaluate internal and external talent resources currently in place, their needs and shortcomings Determine the staffing holes between talent that is accessible and talent that is required Identify approaches for targeting, engaging with, and attaining talent to fill the gaps Many industries, particularly technology, are seeing a heightened need for continuous sourcing in order to fill a constant demand for roles. According to Oracle, the reason 46% of employers recently added to their staff was due to the launch of new products and skills needed for future business. 3
Before you begin filling your talent bench, ask these critical questions pertaining to your talent pool: From where are we most likely to find top talent that is not being found by everyone else? How can we best identify candidates that have the appropriate skills, attitude, competency and culture for these continuous roles? For this role, does it make more sense to source internally or externally? If internal, do we have the correct programs and training in place to prepare for such succession? If external, are we leveraging the proper resources to identify talent? Consider the role you are looking to continuously fill and ensure that it has a high impact on the overall business function. Have the necessary skills, attitude, competency and culture required for the role prepared and understood before the pipelining begins. Beware of an unclear position profile - this can lead to a talent pipeline full of the wrong people. This can be incredibly costly. According to the Labor Department, it costs on average one-third of a new hire s annual salary to replace them. Considering the effectiveness of those currently in such a role at the organization can be beneficial: assess their strong characteristics as well as what leads to turnover. This will help to develop the profile of the ideal employee. 4
Fill Now that you have the employee profile prepared, it s time to assess what type of sourcing and pipelining would best benefit your organization. Once you have determined your need, utilize internal and external resources that uncover the entire talent population in order to fully develop your pipeline with a diversified range of candidates. This is often a mix of developing promising employees internally paired with utilizing external pipelining resources to fill the gaps. Determining what strategy is best depends on the overall state of the organization as well as the state of the industry and labor market. Define the pool of internal candidates first so that this is put in place to be utilized and paired with an external base. The internal and external candidate pools can be mixed or kept separate this is often determined by what is best and most organized for the organization s hiring needs. According to an ILM Report, The Leadership and Management Pipeline, only 55% of managerial vacancies are actually filled internally. 5
Pair this internal pool with an external pool of candidates in order to have a fair and balanced representation of available talent. This requires a need to define and refine your overall sourcing strategy. Once referred to as post and pray, organizations are finding an increased need to wear many hats in order to utilize the best sourcing approach to find top talent. This includes leveraging a number of resources both internally and externally, including recruitment research firms that specialize in building pipelines of continuous talent, social channels, and relationship building techniques in order to build the organization s brand and become known as a trusted resource and desirable place of business for the candidate. Accurate, accessible talent intelligence is a critical component of implementing your continuous sourcing strategy. According to ICM Research, fewer than 50% of candidates can actually be found online. Even so, only about a third of social profiles are up to date and accurate. Consider leveraging a multitude of resources when sourcing for talent in order to find the full candidate pool. Measure the effectiveness of the sourcing strategies used to fill these talent pools. For your internal talent pool, this includes tracking promotions, turnover rates, and retention drivers. 6
For external pools, closely monitor the effectiveness of your sourcing strategy. If you are not finding and engaging with qualified talent through digital channels, consider refining the strategy to incorporate external talent research or organizational chart building to uncover a better base of talent. Maintain For effective continuous sourcing, frequently engage in conversation and interaction with candidates within your pipeline to avoid any drop-off of top talent resulting from disinterest. Tailor specific engagement campaigns to candidates to continually build and maintain their interest in the role and your organization. Social and professional networking can assist in this crucial relationship building. A common maintenance issue with continuous sourcing is it has varying definitions along business lines. The Hiring Manager and the Sourcer/Recruiter, for instance, often view building a bench of talent differently due to their current and future needs not aligning. The hiring manager s talent needs are often based on a need-it-now interest, and the pool of candidates is only maintained and revisited when a need arises. A proactive Recruiter/Source will identify the right talent for the role early by developing and building an ongoing relationship. This creates options for future opportunities and allows the organization to stay ahead of the demand. These candidates are assessed by their overall qualifications and assets in their field. This type of pipeline maintenance can reduce time to fill and disruption from vacancies, as well as increase quality of hire. 7
Measure In a candidate-driven market, it s become more crucial than ever to have a steady stream of talented individuals with which the organization is engaging with professionally. According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, nearly 70% of candidates are thinking about the job search as early as six months prior to actively searching. These results are clear evidence of the importance of building up candidate relationship management to keep your pipeline of talent engaged and interested in opportunities with the organization. By utilizing effective sourcing strategies that leverage a number of channels, monitoring the quality of candidates, and working to actively engage with your talent pool, your organization can successfully source and place talent for these pivotal recurring roles. 8