Is your organization struggling to build a talent pipeline? A pool of qualified potential applicants who are open to a change in employment and ready to step instantly into open positions can be critical for business continuity.

A talent pipeline can include internal candidates who show promise and are ripe for advancement, as well as external candidates from a variety of sources. Active and passive talent can combine to create a powerful pool of candidates ready to fill relevant jobs inside your organization, but only if they have the right skill sets, experience, and readiness to make that move.

How do you develop and maintain a talent pipeline full of not just job candidates, but the highly-skilled options your organization desperately needs? Recruitment can be an enormous drain on company resources. Consider these talent acquisition statistics:

• The average cost per hire is $4,425.
• It takes 36 to 42 days to fill an average position in the United States.
• 15% of HR expenses are allocated towards recruitment efforts.

If you hire the wrong candidate, costs go up even more. In addition to the cost of repeating the recruitment process, each bad hire costs companies an average of $14,900.   

With a carefully curated and cultivated talent pipeline of exactly the right talent needed by your organization on tap, cost per hire and time to hire can both be significantly diminished. You'll be able to fill vacant roles more quickly, with better candidates who are more likely to remain beyond their first six months as employees. That’s what Crosschq Recruit was designed to do.

Why You Need a High-Value Talent Pipeline

When deciding how to build your talent pipeline, it’s critical to look at your company’s skill needs and potential gaps from top to bottom. Good organizational planning involves not just working to fill empty existing positions but preparing for positions that may emerge over the next few years. Here are four reasons a strong talent pipeline is critical.

Filling empty roles

The loss of any employee can hurt your bottom line. The loss of a higher-level employee can cripple productivity and stall progress on critical projects. Being able to promptly fill empty slots in your organization is key to maintaining momentum.

Scaling your existing workforce

If your company is growing swiftly, you may need to scale your existing departments to include more workers with similar skill sets to the ones already employed. In this case, you already know what skill sets are needed, and can build out job descriptions based on known factors.

Building new teams

If you’re expanding into new areas or planning to take functions in-house that had formerly been outsourced, you may be ready to hire people to fill completely new roles. This can mean a need to hire both entry-level and managerial talent with specialized experience and skills. Workforce planning can help you predict and prepare to hire for these positions before the need becomes urgent.

Adding remote employees

If following distributed or hybrid workforce trends seem like the best way to meet your staffing needs, it’s important to find employees who thrive in a non-traditional setting. You’ll need workers who are motivated to excel working with minimal supervision and for whom a remote position is a highly desirable one.

Benefits of a Refined Talent Pipeline

You may already be using some form of automation tools or artificial intelligence to filter candidates from available talent pools pulled from job boards and other platforms. However, these methods can only go so far in sourcing in-demand talent with the skills your company needs to thrive and grow. 

Depending on these sources is like tapping into a pipeline full of crude oil; you’re going to have to do a lot of work to make it usable. A refined talent pipeline, on the other hand, gives you the precise fuel your company requires to run smoothly and get you where you want to go. 

How do you recognize a talent pipeline that is refining the pool of candidates you have access to and making sure you get exactly what you need? Consider how Crosschq Recruit meets these challenges:

Top talent is front and center

Our talent pipeline easily surfaces candidates with the best potential, making them easy to find and approach before they get taken off the market.

Candidates are ready to go

Suitable candidates don’t just have the right skills; they are ready to move fast when the opportunity presents itself. Our pipeline can slash your time-to-recruit by sourcing a group of suitable candidates immediately. 

Completing verifications is easier

The Recruit opt-in talent pool is made up of candidates who have already done the groundwork required to make themselves hireable. Getting reference information, employment, and education verification, and even background checks can be accomplished quickly.

You’ll encounter fewer low-quality candidates

Our talent pipeline can walk you past unfit or unsuitable candidates and straight into the room where the magic happens. You’ll be able to match highly-qualified candidates to available positions swiftly, without wasting time interviewing those who look good on the surface but don’t have substance.   

Talent Pipeline Automation with Crosschq Recruit

Creating your own talent pipeline can be a time-consuming and costly process. While you’ll recoup much of those costs by shortening the time to hire, you’ll still be investing a lot of resources into developing and nurturing a talent pool as well as updating it regularly.

In contrast, using a pre-built opt-in network to automate your talent pipeline can save you even more time and money. By automating such time-consuming tasks, you’re free to now spend more time selling and focusing on the candidate experience. 

Crosschq Recruit helps you source qualified, active candidates who are motivated via an opt-in network. In fact,

• 80% of our talent pool actively seek a new role within 90 days
• 70% of Crosschq Recruit candidates accept new roles in just 30 days 
• 85% of our customers make a hire during their first 90 days 

Time-saving enhanced search capabilities let you get a head-start on filling a critical position, and real-time alerts via email or Slack for instant notification keep you in the loop. You’ll have better insights into every candidate you review, making it easy to hire with confidence and enrich your workforce with highly-skilled employees.

Interested in automating your talent pipeline? To learn more about Crosschq Recruit, request a free demo today.