What does it mean to be in a candidate pool?

Bill Wednieski is a professional recruiter and Managing Director of The Headhunters, a corporate recruiting agency. He told Hire Success® about the difficulty of managing and making a decision with a large, highly qualified shortlist.

"I might find six or seven or eight different candidates that are all different and unique to make a really difficult decision for the employer,” Wednieski said. “Ideally, you want to get it down to the best three or four."

Wednieski also talked about how timing plays a role. Sometimes employers need to fill a position immediately to avoid losing business, and it can be a real challenge to successfully fill a position in a hurry. However, long time frames may present a problem as well.

“I had another [hiring situation] where a long-time employee is retiring at the end of May,” Wednieski said, “If I meet a candidate on March 2 and the company is not ready to hire until May 1, how do I keep the candidate excited about this role?”. The answer to this question will depend on a number of things, such as who the particular candidate is, what position they're applying for, and how the rest of your onboarding process is structured.

Managing large applicant pools can be a challenging and time-consuming process. Fortunately, there are tools to narrow down a shortlist of candidates with the best qualifications, experience, skills, and personality traits to fill the open position.

Shortlisting takes place after the hiring campaign produces results and before interviews begin. Some of the most efficient recruitment tools you can use are part of Hire Success®’ pre-employment testing system. You can find out what potential employees can do, discover hidden potential, and gain insight into questionable personality traits.

Using baselines established by regularly testing top employees, you can compare applicant answers to success profiles for the specific open position. It’s like knowing who is most likely to succeed in the job and fit into your team before you meet them for the first time.

Applicant pools are the people who have applied for open positions with an organization. The employer utilizes the applicant pool for the selection process by reducing the number of candidates to a short list. If there is a large number of individuals in an applicant pool, a long list may need to precede the short list. Applicant pools may be enormous for some jobs, with thousands of qualified candidates. This produces difficulties for hiring managers who need to distinguish between candidates to create a short list. Determining relevant selection criteria that meet the job requirements are essential to decreasing an applicant pool to candidates suitable for the position.

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• Candidate means the person Introduced by the Agency to the Client for an Engagement including any officer, employee or other representative of the Candidate if the Candidate is a corporate body, and members of the Agency’s own staff;

• Phase III Trial means a clinical trial of a Licensed Product in human patients, which is designated as a Phase III Trial or a pivotal trial and is designed (a) to establish that the Licensed Product is safe and efficacious for its intended use; (b) to define warnings, precautions and adverse reactions that are associated with the Licensed Product in the dosage range to be prescribed; and (c) to be, either by itself or together with one or more other clinical trials having a comparable design and size, the final human clinical trial in support of Regulatory Approval of the Licensed Product, and (d) consistent with 21 CFR § 312.21(c) (as hereafter modified or amended) and any of its foreign equivalents.

• Election campaign means any campaign in support of or in

Candidate pool does not guarantee selection to a KLP and does not require a tenure agreement.","All Candidates scoring a zero due to no interview being conducted must be included by entering a “No - <Enter Reason from above shown in parentheses>” in the Candidate Selected Column.If an Agency determines that they are unable to meet their needs using the interviewed Candidate pool, they may choose to take one of the following actions:• Cancel the Task Order• Reach out to Candidates who were previously released as not selected for an Interview.","The Nominations and Elections Committee shall consider geographic distribution and representation of the full technical scope and professional function of the Institute when evaluating the Candidate pool.","In the third or “open” year of the cycle, the Nominees shall be selected from the Candidate pool of all State Bar members, without regard for the county of their principal office.","INDICATORS Candidate pool is increasingly more diverse and referred from a variety of sources.","Include multiple ways to apply to a position.Inclusive and varied job descriptions Director of Recruitment, HRJob descriptions display consistent and inclusive language Candidate pool is increasingly more diverseOngoing• MQs for 8124 and 8126 are written to allow a very wide range of qualifying experience.","The Agency must make every effort to interview the top scoring candidates in accordance with the chart below: Number of Positionsrequested on Form 1 If an Agency determines that they are unable to meet their needs with the Candidate pool provided, they may choose to cancel the Task Order at this stage.","Note that being identified for the KLP Candidate pool does not require a tenure agreement.","Candidate pool represented diversity across socio-economic status.","Include multiple ways to apply to a position.Staff timeJob descriptions display consistent and inclusive language Candidate pool is increasingly more diverseOngoingWe have been making changes in this area for the past two years."],"id":"candidate-pool","title":"Candidate pool"},"groups":[{"size":1,"snippet":"has the meaning set forth in Section 4.1.1.","snippetLinks":[{"key":"meaning","type":"clause","offset":[8,15]},{"key":"set-forth","type":"definition","offset":[16,25]},{"key":"section-411","type":"clause","offset":[29,42]}],"samples":[{"uri":"/contracts/kw4pbGlknFt#candidate-pool","label":"License Agreement (Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc)","score":21}],"hash":"1c4ef76efa07ae15122fa504c9b6dc0d","id":1},{"size":1,"snippet":"means qualified persons considered for a position.","snippetLinks":[{"key":"qualified-persons","type":"clause","offset":[6,23]},{"key":"considered","type":"definition","offset":[24,34]},{"key":"position","type":"clause","offset":[41,49]}],"samples":[{"uri":"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdcs/SPDOC_10-06a_320653_7.pdf","label":"www.michigan.gov","score":6},{"uri":"https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/mdcs/SPDOC/2010/Reg304SPDOC_1006a.pdf?rev=5901612f5cf84c019d41999339f58491","label":"www.michigan.gov","score":6}],"hash":"b6b5725b7b5eb9f964af4583e046929f","id":2}],"nextCurs":""}} id=pagination-first-page>

In simplest terms, a talent pool is a database of potential job candidates. The workers included in the database are typically both highly qualified and have previously expressed interest, in some form, of joining your organization. Talent pools allow organizations to cultivate relationships with workers whose skills and expertise align with company competencies and values. A proper talent pool database contains information about each candidate, including their skills, potential roles they could fill, how well they fit within the corporate culture, and so forth. This way, you do not have the start the recruiting process from scratch for each opening. Instead, whenever a position opens in your organization, you already have a pool of highly-qualified candidates who are already familiar with and interested in your organization, to recruit from. Talent pools differ from talent pipelines. a talent pipeline consists of candidates that have already been deemed qualified for particular positions. A talent pool is a broader group of candidates that have not gone through the full vetting process required to enter the talent pipeline. Ultimately, talent pools are the most effective method for recruiting. Building, maintaining and nurturing a high-quality talent pool is a vital long-term strategy for ensuring your organization is able to satisfy both its short and long-term employment needs. Now that you understand what a talent pool is and how it works, you may be tempted to jump right into building your own. However, if you’re truly after an effective talent pool, one that will consistently provide your organization with high-quality candidates for an extended period, you need to ensure that the construction of your pool aligns with your organization’s values and employment needs. You also need to put in place feedback mechanisms that will enable you to measure the quality and effectiveness of your pool. Therefore, building a talent pool actually begins with planning. Here are four steps on how to do so. Review organizational strategies: you should already have detailed your organizational strategies as part of regular business. It is important to review it and make sure everyone involved with building the talent pool understands those strategies. Once everyone is on the same page, you should identify the competencies and skills required in potential candidates to enact those strategies and accomplish related goals. Strategies will surely change as your business grows. When that happens, you need to reassess your desired skills and competencies. The goal, in the end, is to always fill your pool with candidates that meet the needs of your organization. Assess your in-house talent to identify needs: once your team is aligned along the lines of organizational strategy, review how adequately your current employees meet those strategies. The gaps between in house competencies and organizational strategy equal key areas to target growing your talent pool. The employees who best align with long-term organizational goals are persons to cultivate for future leadership positions and promotion. Create strategies to close the gaps in-house: in addition to looking externally for competencies that address the needs of your organizational strategy, you should also implement strategies--management training, peer-to-peer feedback, formal mentoring-- to help close the gap internally. A combination of internal training and external recruiting is a good habit for a healthy talent pool. Monitor progress, track results with recruiting metrics, and adjust as needed: talent pools must be constantly monitored. The utility of talent pools relies entirely on how well the pool satisfies organizational needs. You need constant coordination between the two. As your organizational needs and strategy change, your talent pool must adapt with it. Therefore, you need reliable mechanisms to measure the “health” of your talent pool. Once you’ve aligned your talent pool team with broader organizational needs and strategies, you’re ready to start building your pool. Sourcing varies widely across organization and industry and includes internal and external. For example, organizations might source directly from specific universities that specialize in relevant degrees or are located near their offices. Additionally, when Fortune 500 companies need to find top-tier talent for a c-suite job opening, they might outsource the formation of a talent pool to an executive search firm to conduct the executive recruiting. Sourcing also includes keeping track of strong applicants who performed well in previous interviews but ultimately were not hired. Those applicants might prove to be desirable candidates in future searches. It is important to note, however, that for this method of sourcing to prove fruitful in the long run, organizations must ensure that all interviewees and applicants have positive experiences interviewing with your company. If not, those applicants are far less likely to respond to inquiries about future positions. Other external sourcing locations include alumni associations, LinkedIn contacts, prior employees, employee referrals and contingent workers. Internal talent pools should identify existing employees who show potential for advancement in an organization. They might also include employees who are in the process of acquiring additional skills or degrees that will qualify them for more senior positions. Furthermore, social media campaigns and your own company career website are important sites of building your talent pool. Your social media campaigns should consistently advertise your organization, build your employee, and showcase your organizational culture. In addition, the landing page on your career site should include an invitation for workers to upload their resumes and join your talent pool.