5 Strategies for Building and Maintaining Your Talent Pool

It’s no secret that hiring is one of the most challenging aspects of growing a school. In fact, 86% of hiring managers say finding the talent they need is difficult.

By prioritizing the development of a strong talent pool, you can simplify the hiring process, leading to more successful new hires and less stress on current employees. A talent pool is a collection or database of qualified candidates who can be potential new employees for your organization.

This guide explores five effective strategies for building your school’s talent pool. These strategies will make it easier to develop a pipeline of qualified prospective employees to fill open positions.

1. Develop a strategic plan

Start by assessing your current talent acquisition strategy—which is a holistic approach to developing a candidate pipeline that takes both immediate hiring needs and longer-term business goals into account.

Use these strategies to start generating a pool of qualified applicants who have the potential to become dedicated, effective employees:

• Put yourself in candidates’ shoes. Understanding what candidates seek from the job-hunting process will allow you to develop a better hiring experience that yields successful outcomes. Studies show that candidates pay close attention to the hiring process, and 76% of candidates said a positive hiring process influenced their decision to accept an offer. Furthermore, 74% of candidates look for opportunities to present their knowledge, experience, and skills during the hiring process.
• Create a positive hiring environment. Cultivate a positive candidate experience by providing clear expectations for the hiring process, including required resources, phases, and a timeline. Always communicate clearly with candidates—including when you won’t be moving forward with their applications.
• Leverage formal and informal recruitment channels. Talent-sourcing networks, job fairs, and job boards have an important place in the hiring process. But it’s effective to also use informal recruitment channels, such as social media, online forums for your industry, and online blogging opportunities. This can help you connect with a wider audience of potential candidates to incorporate into your talent pool.

You should also set goals as part of your strategic planning process. Ensure your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. For instance, you could set a goal of growing your talent pool by 50% over the next six months. Or, you may set a target of hiring three new employees over the next month and retaining them for at least a year. Goals like this give your hiring manager or team specific targets to work toward and track progress against.

2. Implement advanced recruitment technology

Many organizations still rely on spreadsheets to manage their hiring process, but if you want to modernize your strategy, consider investing in recruitment software. This technology creates a more convenient, stress-free experience for your hiring team and talent pool.

JazzHR’s recruiting tools roundup recommends using tools such as:

• An applicant tracking system (ATS) to keep track of essential candidate information, such as job applications, resumes, and demographics
• Candidate relationship management (CRM) software and communication tools, which can help you stay in touch with applicants and track every interaction you have with them
• Workflow management software to help keep the hiring process organized with a central tool all team members can access
• A candidate sourcing/talent pool creation tool to help you find potential candidates and add them to your hiring pipeline
• A candidate feedback collection tool to track applicants’ satisfaction with the hiring process via surveys and other feedback mechanisms
• A skills assessment tool to measure a candidate’s skill level in different areas that are most relevant to your open position

Search for recruiting solutions that integrate with other platforms you’re already using. For example, let’s say you’re hiring for an elementary school. In that case, you may seek recruitment tools that work alongside your school management software, payroll platform, background check tool, and calendar platform.

Ensuring all your recruitment tools can share data seamlessly facilitates a streamlined experience, from recruiting and interviewing to hiring and onboarding.

3. Track talent acquisition metrics

Letting data drive your recruiting offers several benefits for your talent acquisition efforts. You can increase efficiency in the hiring process, boost your recruiting ROI, and establish a foundation for long-term hiring success.

Use your recruitment tools like your CRM, ATS, and workflow management software to track recruitment metrics like:

• Nurture engagement levels: The rate at which candidates open and engage with your candidate nurture outreach
• Funnel conversion rates: The measurement of how far candidates make it through the application process and what your most common drop-off points are
• Application completion rate: How many candidates complete your application process out of all who start it
• Sourcing channel effectiveness: The platforms or recruitment channels that yield the highest number of successful new hires
• Offer acceptance rate: How often candidates accept your new hire offers

These metrics will help you determine the effectiveness of your current recruitment process and any weak points that you can work on to create a better experience.

4. Develop your employer brand

How you market yourself to potential new hires plays a huge part in their decision of whether to pursue employment with your organization. In fact, 75% of candidates assess an employer’s brand before applying for a position.

Your employer brand encompasses much more than the design and word choices you use to describe your workplace. To build your brand, you’ll need to get at the heart of what it means to be an employee at your organization.

Specifically, focus on defining these aspects of your employer brand:

• Values. Common employer brand values include integrity, inclusiveness, accountability, passion, and collaboration.
• Hiring culture. Write down your organization’s hiring philosophy to give your hiring team a set of principles to follow. For example, you should specify your approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). You may also create a culture of viewing candidates holistically, taking transferable skills into account if an applicant’s experience doesn’t completely match your job description.
• Employment marketing approach. How will you market your open positions and employer culture? For instance, let’s say you’re hiring new faculty for your higher education institution. You can use social media to showcase what it’s like to work at your school through day-in-the-life content. You can also use your university’s website to provide information about your work culture, hiring process details, and current faculty and staff testimonials.

Get feedback from current employees and new hires about your employer brand and how much it influenced their decision to join your organization.

5. Create a robust referral program

Referrals are candidates recommended by current employees to join your talent pool. Referrals are a particularly effective way to grow your talent pool because they result in a 25% lower turnover rate than other hiring methods.

Follow these steps to build a sustainable, effective referral program:

• Provide clear instructions for how referrals work. What kind of candidates are you looking for? How should employees bring referrals to your hiring team? Offer clear instructions for the process in your employee handbook.
• Use a simple, convenient platform or process to gather referral information. For example, create an entry in candidates’ profiles within your CRM to store referral information. This could include who referred them and any additional information the referrer provided about their capabilities and qualifications.
• Incentivize referrals. This can either be monetary incentives, like a one-time bonus, or non-monetary benefits, such as a free lunch or prize basket.
• Acknowledge employees who refer candidates. Thank employees personally and provide positive feedback during one-on-one meetings. You can also thank them publicly using a platform like your company’s quarterly newsletter.

In addition, keep employees informed about how the program is going. Follow up with staff members who refer candidates by letting them know if you’re moving forward with the applicants they recommended.

When you implement these strategies, you can make your talent acquisition process more self-sustaining and effective for your hiring needs. The next time you have open positions to fill, you can find new hires from a more robust, qualified talent pool of candidates who have the potential to become loyal employees.