Prioritizing talent management and investing time in building your talent pool is critical to success for your organization. Taking a proactive stance regarding talent management includes building a talent pool from which to draw for all positions within your organization. This necessitates accurate forecasting, along with strong acquisition practices to keep your talent pool stocked with highly qualified candidates. How can talent managers stay on top of current needs, forecast future needs, and effectively build their talent pool? Here are some strategies to help you get started. 1. Embrace a Talent Mindset Ivey Business Journal’s “Talent Management: A Critical Part of Every Leader’s Job” notes that better talent management is achieved when leaders and managers at all levels embrace a talent mindset. Defining that mindset, the article observes: “A talent mindset is a deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels allows your company to outperform its competitors. It’s the recognition that better talent pulls all the other performance levers. These beliefs give leaders the determination to strengthen their talent pool and the courage to take bold actions to do so.” Organizations with a strong talent mindset expect and encourage all employees to become recruiters. They create environments which foster innovation, engage in meaningful career discussions with potential candidates and internal candidates looking to advance, and have mechanisms in place to facilitate feedback and open communication. eBook: How to Attract Top Talent Using Inbound Recruiting – Download our guide to find out out how to harness the power of an inbound recruiting strategy in order to attract, hire, and retain top talent. 2. Create a Process for Continual Assessment of Current Talent Needs as well as Forecasting for Future Needs Josh Bersin, a noted expert in talent analytics, defines talent forecasting as “a process during which organizations consider different variables that affect the future supply and demand for talent, such as strategic plans (e.g., expansion into new geographical regions or new product lines) and limitations on access to qualified talent (e.g., number of engineers graduating annually). Talent forecasting is much more than a simple headcount analysis.” Leveraging available technologies by means of a robust talent management system is helpful in this area. With real-time analytic capability and a centralized database, talent management systems help you continually assess organizational needs and compare those needs with available applicants. Talent management systems also facilitate open communication and collaboration between all parties involved in recruitment and talent acquisition across your entire organization. This affords organizations a significant advantage in building and maintaining an effective talent pool. 3. Leverage the Power of Social Media to Build Your Talent Pool If you are not currently actively using social media to attract and retain top talent, you are missing out on a golden opportunity. Recruiter’s “7 Ways to Build Effective Talent Pools” notes: “Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have proven to be fantastic mediums to target candidates, engage them and inform them of opportunities. 92 percent of companies use social media networks for recruitment purposes, and the effects of social recruitment have proven to be beneficial. 42 percent of those companies say that the quality of their candidates has improved using social recruiting techniques. These outlets are also very useful in getting the brand and culture in front of candidates, piquing interest and therefore forming talent pools.” 4. Network Internally and Externally An effective talent pool includes talent from both inside and outside your organization. It is essential to develop talent internal to your organization. Here, too, having a talent mindset will enable managers at all levels to appropriately identify those employees with real potential for career growth and development. Once identified, these employees will be part of your talent pool to be maintained and nurtured for advancement. Building an effective talent pool involves networking with current applicants, past applicants, and internal candidates. To build a talent pool from external sources, it is important to network with current applicants as well as past candidates. In many cases, a candidate who did not exactly match a previous position for which he or she applied may, in fact, be a perfect match for a current or future position with your organization. Maintaining steady communication with internal and external talent will build your talent pool and ensure that, when the time comes to fill a position, you will be able to reach out to candidates with whom you have developed a relationship in the past. Maintaining such a relationship is made considerably easier by having a talent management system in place. Good talent management systems enable communication with your talent pool, even automating portions of the communication process for you. The Takeaway Talent management is an essential skill set which enables your organization to maintain a competitive edge. Building an effective talent pool is a large part of the talent management process. To build your talent pool, you must embrace a talent mindset, create a feasible forecasting process, leverage the power of social media, and network both internally and externally. Thrive’s talent management system facilitates the building and maintenance of strong talent pools. To see this powerful talent management system at work, contact us to schedule a demo today and begin building a talent pool that keeps you ahead of the competition.