Technology is a core need for every organization today, and explosive growth in the tech arena has led to a shortage of IT talent. More companies are diversifying their talent acquisition strategies in order to fill IT staffing gaps, and one of the most effective methods for ensuring a smoother flow of talent is proactive pipelining.
What is talent pipelining?
Proactive pipelining is the process of building professional relationships with passive candidates — those who are already employed or may not be looking for a position at this time, yet would make a good fit with your organization.
Typical recruitment strategies are initiated when there are open positions that must be filled. With talent pipelining, the main goal is to be proactive and anticipate your hiring needs for the future — and then pre-qualify candidates who could fill those future roles, even if they’re not looking for an immediate career change.
The benefits of proactive pipelining
Talent pipelining is a long-term strategy that benefits your organization in many ways, including:
- Stronger industry knowledge: The pipelining process requires a deeper understanding of your company’s long-term goals, the current talent landscape, and potential talent gaps within your organization. Engaging in talent pipelining helps you increase awareness and make smarter hiring decisions.
- Shorter time-to-fill: With proactive pipelining, you can pull ahead of the game for recruiting and hiring, giving your organization the ability to fill open positions quickly and confidently from a pre-qualified pool of talent.
- Reduce or eliminate cold candidates: When implemented effectively, proactive pipelining not only supplies you with candidates who already have a relationship with your organization, but also gives you access to a broader network of industry professionals who are familiar with your company — leading to more referrals and warm talent leads.
- Ensure cultural fit: Finding candidates who fit your organizational culture is one of the most challenging aspects of hiring. Proactive pipelining allows you to gauge the cultural fit of candidates long before you reach the interview stage.
Talent pipelining best practices
The typical IT candidate search takes 45 days from initiation to the candidate’s start date. If you wait until your organization has a critical need for talent, you risk losing significant time on project starts, missing deadlines, and suffering from poor organizational performance when there’s a staff shortage.
Proactive talent pipelining can reduce or eliminate these costly delays. You can ensure that your talent needs are met by reviewing upcoming projects, and anticipating your hiring plans ahead of time with detailed information on the number of people and specific skills you’ll need for successful project completion.
For each position you’ll need to fill, develop a profile for the type of candidate you’re looking for that includes:
- Project description and background
- Projected start and end dates, and anticipated project duration
- Talent budget for the project
- Estimated work hours (full time, part time, or flexible)
- Skill areas and domains required
- Software tools and packages required
- Desired candidate soft skills, behavioral, and personality traits
Once you’ve anticipated your IT talent needs, you can begin building a proactive pipeline that will save your organization time, money, and stress for future projects.
The Armada Group can help you develop plans for your future talent acquisition needs, and proactively recruit highly qualified candidates to fill your talent pipeline in anticipation of your hiring requirements. Contact us to learn more about proactive pipelining strategies that help you secure top talent quickly and effectively.
