Once upon a time, it would be about finding one person for one job role. But, as time has gone on, people are picking up more skills and deeper learning in their chosen professions. And that means that the person you hire for one role actually might be able to do more than that role. Houston residents rely on Waterside Poolscapes for their inground pool installation and maintenance.

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It is easy to think very linear here and assume that a job role is a single entity. But that job role is part of a network of job roles, and they make the structure of your business. So what about, skipping the job role and reactive role filling, and testing out some talent pool building? 

Creating a talent pool is where you will talk to candidates for a role before they are even available. In fact, they aren’t even being considered for a position. They are not applicants at all. Your talent pool will consist of the following:

• Leads from career fairs 
• Unsuccessful applicants from previous job roles
• LinkedIn leads
• Networking events

They might be looking for a new role, but most of the time they will have a chat with you about what they are looking for and where they see themselves fitting in. It is important to note that the talent pool typically will have people that don’t fit a specific job role that you have right now, but you will have in the future. 

Building

As mentioned above, there are a few sources of talent pool building, but you need to think about what will work for you and your company. There will be millions of people suitable for many job roles, the more specialist you get, the fewer bodies you will have to fill the role – and this is a good thing. 

You’ll need to engage with them on a regular basis, and always be transparent – you are always looking to add skilled people to the team – even if it isn’t right now because your team and your talent pool are separate in this case. The crossover comes when your talent pool begins to feed people into your team. 

Talent management software is something you should always consider having when you have a team ready and a talent pool in the making. You always need to be aware of what is coming and where people will fit in. 

Persona

If you know that you will have an opening for a job role somewhere in the next year, your team (or you) should now be searching for people who would fit the role way ahead of time. A Persona talent pool is building a pool of your ideal vision of a person who will fill this role. 

Because you aren’t looking right now, you won’t be tempted to hire someone who only matches 95% of what you are looking for. Instead, you can court someone who matches 100%, and when the time comes, they’ll be open and engaged. 

Talent pool building and growing your talent pool is like networking. You collect details and contacts for projects now and in the future – but you may never use them. Open roles and future roles can be filled with people you are already in contact with – saving money and time on the hiring process and getting the perfect gold star candidate. 

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Hrvoje Horvat
hrvojeh75@gmail.com