Talent Pools – to pool or not too pool
I’ve recently had two debates on the topic of talent pools. One was a company that fervently believed in talent pools and had over 25,000 people in their pool, yet were struggling to fill their roles fast enough. The other was a company that was fervently against the concept, believing that they are a mystical silver bullet.
The concept of talent pools was created as a counterfoil for both hard to fill and fast to fill roles and are considered a pretty core tool for proactive recruiting solutions. I used them when I was a headhunter in capital markets in London – albeit before technology it was just ‘the black book’ (showing my age, I know!)
But today we seem to have talent pools for everything from contact centres to CEOs and everything in between.
So what is the definition of a talent pool?
• What’s the difference between a pool and a community?
• Which job families are pools appropriate for and which ones are not?
• What size should a pool be and how do you manage them?
• When they fail, why is that?
Where do you sit on this?
What are the pros and cons of talent pooling today?
