Talent Pools or Resume Databases

I have used the term talent pool several times in my previous posts. It occurred to me after talking to some prospects last week that many staffing teams don't really *get* the difference between a talent pool and a resume database. While surfing around on Dave Lefkow's blog (it's amazing how I keep finding new blogs!) I found this comment from Gerry Crispin. "The next generation of "tracking" systems will also differentiate between current and prospective candidates and, with the latter, help to manage and automate multiple levels of relationships along the 'pipeline'."

Gerry's comment iterates what I've been driving home in On Talent--talenteering is about relationships. And it is mostly about relationships with prospective candidates. And to my point earlier about the resume database vs the talent pool? A lot of great talent are not actively looking for jobs--hence they don't have a current resume stored on a job board or resume bank, and they probably aren't going to update one to stick in your resume database. Most of the resumes in your database are from active candidates who have been applicants to jobs previously. Not that they shouldn't also be part of your relationship efforts, but the resume data gets stale and shouldn't be relied on to source new positions or as the only source for sourcing ahead of demand (the real talenteering approach!).

A talent pool on the other hand is your marketing list. Your source for relationship development. This list contains enough information to allow you slice and dice the pool by job interest, geography, and other valuable marketing information. It gives the candidate an opportunity to participate in the relationship by doing real-time updates to their data--job interest, experience, geographic preference, and availability. It gives you an opportunity to develop a relationship (as Gerry so aptly pointed out) on multiple levels--not just send new job postings. This is the essence of relationship building. Send stuff that is interesting, relevant, and  timely to the candidate. Give the candidates a portal to obtain information about the company, what it's like to work there, and more specifically about the kind or work they might get engaged in their speak (engineerese for engineers, salesese for sales pros, accountingese for accountants). Keep these relationships interesting and engaging--all ahead of the real demand. Read The Talenteering Manifesto principles 2, 3, and 4.

Then when the position opens, interested candidates will apply--then you can ask for their resume and store it the resume database for tracking purposes. At that point they become a current candidate, or applicant, depending on your definition and tracking and process efficiency are invoked.

Comments

[Alan Whitford]

Talent Pool
Hi, just found your blog via Sumser article.

One of the key differntiators that I have talked about over here (Europe) is that eveyone has a talent pool if they have ANY type of candidate filing system - most just don't have any way of accessing it. Meanwhile, the accepted terminology that Hank started has a talent pool as an interactive, candidate communication environment.

My take is that what recruiters really really want is a 'talent puddle'- in other words the tradtional shortlist of truly qualified candidates.

In a sense, that is what Hire, Taleo, BrassRing and others are all really trying to achieve. Whereas the job boards area actually creating Talent Oceans.

Looking forward to further musings.

Alan

[Doug]

Alan--you are right on. That is why Hire has always promoted bringing job board candidates back to the corporate site to start a private relationship. That pool is based on interest profiles (not resumes) and the size is somewhat irrelevant--in fact the larger the better invoking the law of large numbers for tapping top talent. At the time a position is promoted, using a candidate self-service pre-screening filter narrows the pool to the *puddle* you describe. The posting on Plantronics from last Friday describes this well--in fact if you click on the hot link technology it will play a movie of Layne Buckley describing this filtering process.

[Alan Whitford]

Just read the plantronics article. Excellent and Layne sounds amazing. BTW, say hi to Hank and Bucky for me - you and I never met (I think), during my 2 year stint on the Advisory Board - but I like your thinking of setting up the blog.

Along those lines, you have inspired me to try it out

http://e-recruitmentstrategy.blogspot.com/

Still in formative stages - and I need to figure out links to yours and others - if you would be interestd.

Best regards

Alan