Having many quality applicants for any given position is very useful for filling it efficiently. Creating a talent pool is a great long-term recruitment strategy that offers you this opportunity. You can even create one for remote candidates so that you have a group of people ready to work even if they live in many different locations.

What Is A Talent Pool?

A talent pool is a group of people who are either potential or current job candidates for your company. Talent pools don’t only include people who have already applied for jobs with you. They can also comprise of people who have registered interest in working for you or people sourced from LinkedIn, and candidates referred from other employees. It can also include those who were unsuccessful in a job application but who may be suitable for another role in your company.

Why Create a Talent Pool?

Building a talent pool is an excellent idea for many reasons. If you already have a group of high-quality candidates at your disposal, this can significantly reduce the time to hire. Save yourself time and money on lengthy recruitment processes by accessing your talent pool to find the right candidate.

You have already started building relationships with these people, so it can take less time for them to settle in as well. This communication is especially essential with remote candidates, as they can often feel disconnected from their employer.

• It allows you to avoid a lot of extra work:

• No need to create an engaging job ad

• No need to launch a recruitment marketing campaign for the position

• No need to update your career websites to increase applications

• No need to spend your budget on promoting an available job

• No need to waste time on unqualified candidates

It’s fair to say that talent pools are the ideal way to hire. All you need to do to is work on building one to hire more qualified candidates faster and cheaper than ever before.

Talent Pool vs Talent Pipeline – What’s the Difference?

You may have heard of talent pipelines before. Many people aren’t sure of the difference between a talent pipeline and a talent pool. So, what defines each?

A talent pool is a group of people who are generally interested in working for you. People in this talent community are not necessarily qualified or suitable for positions at your firm, however. They may be, but as you have not screened them yet, you will not be sure of who the potential job candidates are.

A talent pipeline is a group of top talent that you have deemed qualified to work at your company. These could be people who have already applied for positions and therefore, you have previously screened them. You can turn your talent pool into a talent pipeline by analyzing their qualifications and experience to see who you may want to work with in the future.

How to Create A Talent Pool with Remote Working Candidates

You can use all of the below methods for creating a talent pool with remote working candidates. The benefit of many of these is that you would usually do them online anyway, so it’s not difficult to use them to source remote talent.

Proactive Sourcing

Most of us don’t get as many suitable candidates applying for roles as we would like. So, it’s time to get proactive. Seek out suitably qualified candidates on sites such as LinkedIn and ask them to become part of your talent pool. This way, you can get them to enter their details, and you can contact them when a relevant position becomes available. Turn passive candidates into active ones using this method.

Using online social media platforms to contact candidates is ideal for finding remote workers. Their profiles will often denote whether they are interested in remote positions.

Employee Referrals

Who knows more about working for your company than your current employees? Ask your internal talent to reach out to their networks and refer potential job candidates to you. They will naturally screen these people for you by only selecting those they think would excel in the business. They don’t want to refer someone who turns out to be unproductive or not a good part of the team.

Using employee referral programs can save you time and money, as well as increase the quality of your candidates.  Make sure you let your staff know that you’re seeking remote talent. Otherwise, they may limit themselves to only recommending people who live close to the company.

Marketing Campaigns

Marketing your company isn’t only about selling your services. You can also market yourself as an employer. By showcasing your employer brand, you can entice people to join your talent pool. Once word gets around that you are an excellent company to work for, people will be clamoring for your open job roles. You can use pay-per-click or social media advertising to invite potential applicants to enter their details for your talent pool.

The great thing about a marketing campaign is that you can set your target demographics – including geographical location. As a remote talent recruiter, you may be open to hiring workers from anywhere – whether they are in the US or not. Get seen by people all over the world with one of these campaigns.

Content Marketing

Did you know that creating engaging content on your company website is a great way to attract candidates? That’s right, even if it’s nothing to do with the role in question, it’s still part of the recruiting process. Writing interesting blogs and social media posts and creating infographics can be a great way to attract people to your website. From there, these people may decide to become part of your talent pool because they enjoy your employer brand.

With a bit of proactiveness, building a talent pool doesn’t have to be time-consuming or difficult. When you broaden your location criteria, you may find that you have far more suitable people come up. Focus on finding fantastic candidates rather than just ones who live in your area, and you can come up with a far more extensive and better talent pool