Building Your Talent Pool

Hiring managers are constantly being pressured to hire “Top” talent—talent that puts candidates in the top ten percent of their career categories; talent that produces high results over ninety percent of the time; and talent that keeps the company performing at its best. But locating top talent isn’t easy.

First, there’s the shortage of top talent. The shortage of top talent is very real and doesn’t appear to be improving any time soon. Not only is the population growth in America slowing down, but baby boomers are reaching retirement age. And with retirement comes an increased fluctuation of job openings and an urgent need to fill those positions with comparable talent.

Second, top talent takes time to cultivate. One cannot simply enter a position within a company and instantly reach top talent status. One has to work his (or her) way up the corporate ladder—proving each step of the way that he (or she) has what it takes to help the company reach its maximum potential.

Third, top talent can be difficult to obtain. With the increased openings in the job market, top talent candidates have their pick of the crop. In other words, we’re facing a “candidate driven market” and it looks as though it will remain this way for quite some time. In fact, The Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/) believes there will be a huge shortage of workers in the United States over the next several years, forecasting “a shortage of 10,033,000 workers by the year 2010”!

But a shortage in workers isn’t the only thing that makes this a “candidate driven market”. As candidates search out the best career option, they’re also inundated with lavish proposals—proposals designed to reel them in and keep them at the company, indefinitely.

So where do HR managers find top talent? For starters, HR managers should develop a game plan that helps them find top talent both in the short term and the long term. And to do that, they need to be thinking, “external candidate pool” and “internal candidate pool”.

Join us next week as we take on the task of helping you understand how to develop an external candidate pool.