Tazio Trends: Why Today's Jobs Market Needs Talent Pools Not Dead Ends
Earlier this week we were at the ISE Student Recruitment Conference in Brighton. Despite weekly headlines declaring the imminent death of most jobs, there was lots of optimism.
The market isn’t evaporating it’s evolving, very quickly.
Yes, traditional career ladders are wobbling and workplaces are being reshaped on a daily basis. But employers still need people. Their challenge is identifying people with the right skills and potential amid a deluge of applicants. In a LinkedIn survey earlier this year 79% of recruiters said finding the right candidates was becoming harder.
On the other side of the recruitment fence candidates are struggling to be seen in the crowd, often ghosted by recruiters (sometimes hundreds of times) and left to feel like employment is an unattainable dream.
In short, there’s a disconnect between talent and employers. One way to rebuild that connection is talent pools.
Why talent pools matter for candidates
By talent pools we don’t mean a collection of CVs you stash in a digital filing cabinet to possibly flick through at a later date. We mean carefully segmented groups of people who are regularly engaged with and first in line for genuine opportunities.
Good talent pooling is based on a very human instinct to be part of an ongoing conversation.
Rather than treating recruitment as a one-off transaction – thanks for applying, goodbye forever – talent pools allow organisations to build relationships with candidates over time. Applicants who may not secure a particular role can stay connected, receive updates and be encouraged to apply for other openings.
This matters, particularly for candidates at the start of their careers. The modern labour market can be a lonely place with applications disappearing into a black hole or, at best, resulting in an automated rejection email with all the warmth of a parking ticket.
Effective talent pooling turns that story around.
A talent pool recognises that potential is not fixed at a single point in time. A candidate who narrowly misses out today may have the potential to succeed in a different role or develop new skills, confidence or ambitions six months down the line. For candidates, that recognition creates a significantly better experience.
Nurturing talent is good for businesses
The benefits for organisations are equally compelling.
Rebuilding candidate pipelines from scratch every time a vacancy appears is costly and inefficient. Talent pools create a ready-made community of people who have already shown interest in the organisation, reducing time-to-hire and lowering recruitment costs.
Importantly, they also lead to better hires as organisations become more adept at spotting future potential. Hiring decisions and outcomes can be fed back into the system, redefining the attributes that predict strong performance for a certain role and re-ranking candidates accordingly. In short, it becomes a strategic workforce tool.
Talent pools are good for your brand too, reinforcing a strong reputation that helps attract the best talent. You don’t have to search too far on sites such as Glassdoor for candidates calling out organisations they’ve had a bad recruitment experience with.
Talent pooling in practice
A utilities company recently used our platform to sift, assess and engage candidates, which included developing talent pools. Of 3,764 initial applicants, 1,400 were filtered into relevant pools. They now receive regular content from our Engage tool and will hear when new positions become available.
The process shifted the organisation away from a traditional CV-led model towards a values-based approach designed to understand candidates more fully.
One early careers candidate said: “Being put into a talent pool made me feel like I still have a future here. I’ve already been contacted about another role.”
And that shows in the candidate experience scores which were 4.7 out of 5 across our work with the company.
Chelsea Francis, our Head of Customer Success, says: “Talent pooling isn’t about putting names on a list, you’re creating a community where you can keep the conversation going. If someone has shown potential throughout our assessment process but isn’t ultimately successful, there’s an opportunity to nurture that talent for the benefit of everyone.”
Careers are journeys, talent pools enable your recruitment process to be part of that journey, rather than a dead end.
As always, our mission is to empower you to make smarter, faster hiring decisions and create exceptional experiences for your candidates. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn for the latest news and resources.
If you have any thoughts on this edition of Tazio Trends or want to find out more about our platform, it would be great to hear from you.
