How does your candidate pool look like? Are they filled with exceptional people you could tap on anytime you like? Some staffing firms focus so much on acquiring clients that they tend to forget to retain exemplary-quality candidates.
And in an industry growing rich and versatile, high-quality candidates come and go. For staffing firms, maintaining a healthy pool of candidates is as important as maintaining clients. So, in this post, we’ll give you a refresher on how you can not only maintain quality candidates, but source, nurture, and grow with them as well.
Wrapping Our Heads Around the Importance of Candidate Pools
For staffing agencies, building a candidate pool is like having a business plan, it’ll be the first thing you’ll have to look at whenever a client needs a candidate. In addition, these also help with in-house recruitment, in case an organization needs internal restructuring.
Better Hire Quality
Candidate pools can improve the quality of your hires because you can categorize candidates based on their strengths and weaknesses. It’s an easy way to see and compare potential employees based on their experience, skillset, and possible contribution.
Faster and More Efficient Hiring
In addition to better hire quality, candidate pools also enable the recruitment process, making it faster, more efficient, and less tedious. Hiring takes a lot of time and effort, and having pre-vetted and pre-assessed candidates you can contact any time can run things faster and at a lower cost.
Lower Hire Cost
Lastly, candidate pools can help in reducing and lowering recruitment costs, since you wouldn’t need to tap into hundreds of applicants. Think about it: you’ll review less resumes and interview less candidates.
Planning Before Building
Most firms and agencies go all out when finding topnotch candidates. The only problem is, they do it without a plan. Having a plan in place makes everything easier. After all, you can’t talk about cooking without preparing all the kitchenware and ingredients!
Before deep diving into building a pool, staffing firms must consider crafting a solid plan with a contingency on the side. Here’s a quick, 4-step strategy in planning your candidate pool build!
1. Reread Your Organization’s Strategy
Most staffing firms would have different plans in place, especially when it comes to candidates. So, before doing anything else, it’s important to review the strategy and to check if it’s aligned with the organization’s goals and metrics.
The first step in planning is to review and reorganize the strategy. Ensure that you can enable everyone needed to build the candidate pool you’ll need. All the people needed must be on the same page for processes to work flawlessly.
2. Evaluate the Candidates You Already Have
When everyone you need is aware and aligned, the next step would be to peek at the current pool you’ve already built. Ask yourself these questions. Have I assessed the candidates properly? Do I have everyone I need in case we or a client need one?
Having the right employees in the right positions within the organization is directly aligned in growing your candidate pool. It’s one less problem to think of, which will allow you to go all in on what your clients need.
3. Solve Internal Candidate Problems
You give your clients what you know, so solving problems in-house is letting your clients know you can handle theirs! Close the gaps within your organization and streamline the process. No problem should come by your table about your organization’s employee acquisition.
You wouldn’t be able to solve your clients’ problems if you haven’t solved yours! Check up on your employees and see if you have everything you need!
4. Adjust the Pool as Needed
Now that you have everything in front of you, you can start focusing on the future. Track and monitor the influx of candidates you have and adjust accordingly. Maintaining and building a candidate pool is like chess – your moves must depend on the previous occurrences to be one step ahead.
Coordination between the pool and the body that organizes it is key. Awareness of the situation and being able to adapt swiftly by enabling your organization are the top strategies to build, maintain, and nurture a candidate pool.
The Art of Building Candidate Pools
No matter how much you try, candidate pools can dry up especially if they aren’t managed correctly. What seems to be a daunting task is easy and manageable enough if you know the direction to head in.
Now that the planning’s been ironed out, let’s go through how you can build your firm’s candidate pool so that you never see it dry up!
Consider Technology
Finding people is already challenging. And, maintaining them is another problem you want to make sure you can solve. Doing it manually is possible, but there are tons of tools and programs that can help you with it.
In fact, 85 percent of small business owners said that technology was one way they found success in several aspects of their business.¹ So go ahead and leverage technology. You know what they say, work smarter, not harder.
Communication is Key
Always communicate with the candidates in your pool regardless of your plans for them. Most firms would say that a previous candidate is already counted out, but no, that shouldn’t be the case.
Send newsletters out, write them via social media, make social media posts, do whatever you can to engage your candidates and to give them updates about what’s happening. The last thing you want is for your best and top candidates to ghost you during the times you need them most.
Market Wisely
Most firms today forget that getting candidates is as challenging as getting clients. That being said, diving into recruitment marketing is a thing they’ll have to consider, too.
Candidates don’t just spawn from random locations. They need to find you. But how can they if you don’t advertise or market your brand?
The answer? Use social media, do blogs, attend career fairs. Do whatever you can to spread your brand’s voice to as much people as you can.
Keep Tabs on Unsuccessful Candidates
Just because they didn’t make the cut, doesn’t mean you cut ties with them forever. Some candidates are comfortable in various settings, you can’t force all eggs in a single basket.
Moreover, even if they are unsuccessful candidates, there’ll still be those who stood out among the rest. Do a brief assessment, make a list, and go back to their resumes.
Since they’ve been assessed and interviewed, you can skip that initial part and go straight to industry or niche-specific interviews by keeping tabs on candidates who weren’t able to find success before.
Referrals are a No-Brainer
Referrals have always been one of the best ways of getting candidates–even clients in your network. In fact, referrals are 4 times more likely to be hired than traditional ways of hiring employees.² So don’t overlook the power of referrals!
HAVE A BETTER, CLEARER, AND MORE EFFICIENT RECRUITMENT MARKETING STRATEGY WITH ALLIED INSIGHT
Allied Insight can be your recruitment marketing partner in building your candidate pools. For years, we’ve helped staffing firms realign their verticals through successful candidate and client management.
As a full-stack marketing agency, our goal is to help you gain better clarity and richer vision by enabling your marketing strategies to the best of their ability. From aligning your workforce and your talent pools to optimizing strategy and development, together, we’ll establish your digital trustworthiness! Contact us now!
References
1 U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “New Study Shows Technology Platforms Critical to Small Business Growth”. 02 Aug. 2022. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/new-study-shows-technology-platforms-critical-to-small-business-growth#:~:text=The%20analysis%2C%20conducted%20by%20Teneo,outcompeting%20their%20peers%20and%20are.
2 Stafiej, Mike. ”Employee Referral Statistics You Need to Know for 2020 (Infographic)”. LinkedIn. 13 Jan. 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-referral-statistics-you-need-know-2020-mike-stafiej.
