Building a Talent Pipeline
It’s sad to say and hard to see, but there have been millions of people let go from their job over the past few weeks due to COIVD-19 (myself included). Right before I was released early from my contract with a digital marketing agency, we had started talking about helping teams in other regions build talent pipelines for high need roles that typically opened multiple times a year.
With a slowdown in hiring currently affecting several companies, along with those layoffs, recruiters and sourcers should be preparing to ramp up once everyone is able to return to work again. In this time you should focus on building a pipeline of candidates for roles you know will most likely be opening up. There are a number of ways to build your talent pool that are low cost and will allow you to help teams rebuild quickly.
Some great resources going around right now are lists and websites that feature available candidates who have been affected by COVID-19 layoffs, one of these is The Avail List. You can even find lists of people who were a part of major layoffs, like this one of ex-Uber Marketing folks.
Your current applicant tracking system (ATS), is also a great resource because you already have past applicants and candidates who have gone through the interview process that you know would be interested. Now is the time to go through and do a little clean up to make sure candidates are tagged properly and all info is up to date.
There’s always the ol’ standby: Linkedin Recruiter. You can run boolean or filtered searches for candidates who have listed themselves as open to new opportunities and create projects around the roles you want to create a pipeline for.
You’ll have to check with your HR team for this one, but it can be helpful to stay in touch with any of your employees who were affected by layoffs to see how they’re doing and keep them in consideration for future roles if they haven’t found something new already.
You don’t need to start reaching out to candidates right away, but it can’t hurt check-in with the ones at the top of your list and let them know you’re still thinking about them and would like to connect when hiring opens back up again.
Hope you’re all staying safe and healthy out there. Feel free to reach out to Rain or Shine for any staffing help you may need and we can set up some time to chat virtually.