In 2022, having a diverse community of people in your talent pool is essential to maintaining an everflowing pipeline of viable candidates the moment that you need them. In fact, the demand for talent has never been this vast, as nearly 11 million positions remain unfilled in the United States. Whether you got in contact with them through career fairs, social media ads or career sites where they applied for roles in the past, each and every candidate has the potential to be a future recruit if you know how to nurture your talent community in 2022.

With just a few clicks, these candidates have provided you with vital information about their expertise, their specialities and their goals for their future employer, so you must ensure that you are making the most of the data they’ve provided to you. The next step is to use that data to create targeted communication that lasts with each individual candidate, so you can answer the question: Why should I work with you?

Your talent pipeline is filled with individuals who are either active job seekers or passive candidates looking for the right opportunity. No matter their interest level, you have the opportunity to engage with them with the exact content and communication they’re looking for. The last thing you want is to have a disengaged talent pool who loses interest after several irrelevant job postings or worse, hasn’t heard from you in months and unsubscribes from your talent pool. The talent hiring experience influences their opinion about your employer branding, and in 2022, news can spread quickly about unpleasant experiences in the talent market.

The most important part of Talent Relationship Management is, of course, building relationships with the talent. If potential candidates have reached out to you to be part of your talent pool, you must keep them engaged and show them that they are a valued part of your community. Acknowledge each individual in your pipeline, but also hone your time and resources on the high-potential talent that are most likely to be the perfect fit for a role. This segmentation and automation of prioritizing engagement is easy in a Talent Relationship Management tool like Wintrgarden.

As a candidate, there’s nothing more frustrating than receiving job alerts that aren’t relevant to your skillset. There’s a purpose behind all of the data you’ve gathered from your talent! Use information like their key interests, industries of expertise or location requirements to properly hand-pick the right job alerts for the appropriate individual candidates. 

This way, you will be constantly encouraging them to apply for roles that truly fit their needs and — when they’re ready — will feel encouraged and empowered to finally apply.

If some of your potential profiles are interested but unwilling to change jobs due to studying in school or just not finding the right role yet, you can keep those leads warm with inspirational stories or behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the company. Talent Relationship Management is all about leveraging your employer branding to your advantage. Now that you understand the potential candidate and their professional goals, you have the opportunity to target your communications to align with their graduation dates. This strategy allows you to keep in constant contact with the candidate and keep your business top-of-mind for whenever that potential hire is ready to apply.

Invest in your talent pipeline relationships on a human level by inviting talent to webinars and in-person events that cater to their interests. These personal invitations will provide interactive opportunities for them to meet your employees and ask candid questions about the role and about your business. A small get-together in-person will allow the promising candidates to develop feelings of trust and loyalty to your organization and feel connected to the business even before the formal application. For the majority of candidates in your talent pool, webinars are also a cost-effective way to develop this connection for a larger group of talent. For the select few candidates that are high-potential, in-person events could be worth the extra investment.

The information that the potential candidate receives shouldn’t solely come from HR, but from the entire organization. Your managers and directors can reach out to specific potential hires and share information and experiences that resonate with the candidate that would be working within that department. This method allows for strategic stakeholders to discover who the best matches are, and how well they interact with your existing employees.