What Is A Talent Pool? Benefits, Process & Examples

A talent pool is a database of potential candidates who have, in some way, shown an interest in working for your organization. Sounds simple enough, right? You probably have their contacts somewhere in your email or recruitment software.

Sure. Maybe. Careful, though — a great talent pool isn’t just a list of names and phone numbers. A properly curated talent pool provides rich information on each potential candidate, including but not limited to their experience, skills, career goals, and cultural fit.

Those job candidates are primed and ready to be contacted if a role needs filling. While it’s unlikely they’ll already have been fully interviewed, they will at least be partially vetted to ensure they meet the core standards of your organization.

What is a talent pool, and how is it different from a talent pipeline?

A talent pool is a curated group of great candidates who likely have the skills to help your company grow and have, at some point, expressed interest in making that happen.

Talent pools vs. talent pipelines

Talent pools and talent pipelines are two different but complementary tools for recruiting and hiring top-notch talent.

Talent pipelines are filled with candidate profiles who are considered qualified for specific roles. These could be past applicants who aced the interviews but were not hired, candidates referred by your employees, or sourced talent that engaged with your recruiters in the past.

On the flip side, talent pools are more like your secret stash of future candidates. It’s a database of passive talent who have shown some interest in working for your organization.

These candidates might not have gone through the full interview process yet, but they’ve at least been partially qualified to make sure they meet your company’s standards.

How do talent pools work?

Say you’re looking for a Director of Marketing, and you’re down to the wire with two stellar candidates. You finally make your choice and send out the job offer.

What happens to the other candidate? They’re qualified, passionate, and promising.

Along the way, you also interviewed a handful of promising rising stars who weren’t the right fit for this specific position but might shine in other areas of your organization when the need arises.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep them engaged in some way with your company? So when you expand the team, you go to them first instead of starting from square one?

That’s exactly the idea of a talent pool.

How do talent pools impact your talent pipeline?

Below are the three main roles talent pools play in talent acquisition.

Access to passive candidates

Passive candidates are people who are already employed and are not actively looking for a job but might be interested if the right opportunity presents itself. Talent pools are a great way to tap into these folks, who are usually high-quality candidates (and maybe even former employees).

Hiring isn’t just a question of right person, but also right time. How do you increase your chances of getting the best talent at a good time? You keep trying them, even if they aren’t looking.

By building and maintaining a database of skilled individuals, you can stay top of mind for them. Try sharing tailored content — think industry insights, company updates, and career growth opportunities. Newsletters are a great format for this. Play the long game, and all that relationship-building is bound to pay off.

Increased employer branding

90% of workers — irrespective of age or salary — would trade a percentage of lifetime earnings in exchange for more meaningful work. 82% say it is important for their company to have a purpose.

This is especially true for Gen Z, who has been called the “most purpose-driven generation” and will make up a quarter of the global workforce by 2025.

There has literally never been a better time to shout about your vision and mission to your talent pool. Brag about your company culture, values, and lofty aspirations.

Get creative with formats, too. Video interviews with current employees, for example, can feel way more personable than a standard landing page. Share the BTS of your company headshot photoshoots. Is there an unusual story behind your branding? Tell it!

Strategic workforce planning

Talent pools are full of vetted, qualified candidates. This means when you have a role to fill, you don’t have to shout into the void and hope for the best. You can strategically dip into your pool, find the best matches, and invite them to interview.

90% of hiring managers find it hard to source skilled candidates. Building a talent pool is literally a shortcut that immediately puts you in the top 10% of companies.

Companies with talent pools also report 30% lower hiring costs and a shorter time-to-hire. It pays to have a pipeline.

Benefits of using talent pools in recruitment

Having a list of pre-qualified, enthusiastic, and aligned candidates ready to go is a recruiter’s dream. While high-quality talent pools are by no means a walk in the park to set up, they offer a range of benefits, including the following.

Flexibility and agility

Imagine you’re halfway through hiring for a graphic designer, and suddenly, your head of design quits. Your priorities have suddenly shifted — you need to replace the head before you continue hiring the graphic designer.

With a talent pool, you’ll be able to manage this in a much more flexible and agile way than with conventional hiring. Chances are you’ll already have a qualified, willing candidate under your nose, ready to fill those shoes.

This is a recognized issue in talent acquisition — in fact, there’s been a 30% increase in skill similarity across recruiting roles in the last five years. 91% of recruiting experts say they’re focused on being agile to adapt to hiring needs. As LinkedIn’s 2024 The Future of Hiring Report states, “Recruiting teams want to do a better job helping organizations anticipate labor market ups and downs and ensure that they’re able to pivot quickly.”

Doing so will be vital to future-proofing recruiting teams. Erin Scruggs, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Linkedin, shares her experience.

“Every recruiter needs to be able to be flexible and deploy into hotspots versus specializing in specific domains. We didn’t do that a year ago, two years ago, or three years ago. But it’s critical for staying agile.”

Having a vetted group of candidates ready to step into roles as they arise — as you would with a talent pool — minimizes downtime and maximizes efficiency. Now that’s a real advantage that’ll make recruiter’s lives easier coming into 2025.

Reduced time to hire

Talent pools are incredibly efficient. If you think about it, they’re kind of like having a line of people in front of your door waiting to interview for the positions before they even arise. They help streamline the recruitment process by lowering time-to-hire and, therefore, make the whole process less resource-intensive.

For example, Toggl Hire’s talent pool feature helps you fill unexpected vacancies and hard-to-fill roles with a reservoir of pre-qualified talent at your fingertips. This helps you avoid those business slow-downs from unforeseen circumstances or highly specialized open positions.

While time to hire remains a core recruitment metric, companies are increasingly also looking at the quality of hire. As Amy Schultz, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Canva, explains, “For years, Talent Acquisition has been focused on metrics like time-to-fill and acceptance rates. But today, leadership is asking us about the quality of our hires and how we are measuring that.”

Cost-effective hiring

Talent pools don’t just save time — they save money, too. You don’t need to spend so much on advertising when you already have a line of candidates out the door.

Companies with great talent pools don’t need to invest so much in sourcing or posting on external job boards, job openings, or recruitment agencies.

It also optimizes recruitment budgets over time, as you don’t experience so much variability in your spending as when you’re hiring from scratch every time. Costs kind of even out, making finances more predictable and stable.

Improved candidate experience

Keeping the old candidate data from your ATS can improve the candidate experience once they’re part of the talent pool. Use the information gathered during the recruitment process to personalize the communications you send these previously “unsuccessful” candidates.

It can be tempting to outsource this kind of work to AI — indeed, 73% of HR professionals already use AI in some capacity to help with recruitment and hiring. But as John Vlastelica, CEO of Recruiting Toolbox highlights, maintaining a human touch is key.

“The best recruiters must be great at building relationships and creating high-touch candidate experiences that will help them rise above the bots,” he says.

Setting up these communications will help your organization stand out as a company that values people and puts effort into nurturing relationships. This can lighten the blow of rejection for candidates while boosting satisfaction and loyalty among potential hires.

Strong loyalty can help your bottom line, too — companies with a strong employer brand experience a 50% decrease in cost per hire.

Enhanced diversity and inclusion

If used intentionally, talent pools can help diversity and inclusion bloom. By actively sourcing talent from diverse communities, underrepresented groups, and varied backgrounds, you can build a more representative candidate pipeline.

According to a 2024 report from Hunt Scanlon Media, over 55% of recruitment leaders surveyed listed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as their focus, only second in priority to AI.

In the same report, Saul Gomez, director of IDEA at TI Verbatim Consulting, makes it clear — getting diverse talent through the door is only the first step. Active measures have to be taken to build an environment of psychological safety where everyone trusts it is safe for them to be heard.

“If we’re not being inclusive of diversity, then how are we leveraging it? How are you capitalizing on it? It’s worth asking, ‘Are we maximizing what our talent pool has to offer?’ At the end of the day, people want to feel included…and in order to leverage the diversity that organizations have, you need individuals to feel they are valued for themselves,” he says.

Another key trend driving increasing diversity is the shift to skills, rather than degrees, when evaluating candidates for positions. In a recent survey conducted by Intelligent.com, 70% of companies reported already having eliminated bachelor’s degree requirements to create a more diverse workforce.

A shift towards judging candidates based on their skills rather than higher education can increase your talent pool 10x while also addressing critical skills gaps and boosting diversity.

How to build a talent pool

There are four parts to building a talent pool: source, segment, engage, and recruit.

Keeping those parts in mind, below are some effective strategies and best practices for creating and maintaining a robust talent pool filled with qualified and engaged job candidates.

Step 1: Source candidates for your talent pool

• Social media: Use social media to create content showing why your business is a great place to work, and include a call to action that drives candidates to your career site. LinkedIn is an excellent platform for this, but don’t ignore “non-professional” social platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Instagram, if you want to target a particular demographic.
• Careers pages and job boards: Don’t miss the opportunity to capture the details of candidates actively searching on your career site or interacting with your job boards. Drive them to sign up for your talent pool by submitting a free application, so you can stay in touch with them and notify them when a good fit role becomes available. Many job boards also allow you to capture information from candidates who have viewed your vacancies.
• Previous applicants and employees: Ask unsuccessful candidates and previous employees if they want to be added to your talent pool. This is a great way to keep in touch with job seekers and consider them for future roles.
• Referrals: Employee referrals are a great way to source top talent. Incentivize your staff to refer the best people in their network to get more submissions.
• Recruitment agencies: Work with recruitment agencies to source candidates for specific roles. This can be a great way to reach a wider pool of candidates and find top talent you may not be able to find on your own.

Step 2: Segment your talent pool by organizing candidates

By segmenting your talent pools, you can tailor your messages and job opportunities to specific groups of candidates. But how do you segment your talent pools in the most efficient way to speed up the hiring process?

Consider attributes like:

• Job function
• Skills
• Experience level
• Location
• Interests

Sorting candidates by these factors will help you send targeted messages that resonate with each group. Don’t be one of the companies that send unsuitable openings to candidates due to poor segmentation (seriously, 3 in 10 candidates report this happening).

But segmentation isn’t just about who they are; it’s also about where they are in your recruitment process.

For example, you can keep track of people who completed skills assessments but weren’t selected for the next stage or have been engaging with your social media posts but haven’t applied yet. This way, you can make sure you’re reaching out to the right people at the right time with the right message, keeping everything organized and efficient.

Step 3: Nurture and engage your talent pools

Building talent pools is like tending to a garden: nurturing and engaging them is where the real magic happens.

Simply collecting candidate details and storing them in a database won’t help you build strong relationships and keep candidates excited about the possibility of working with you. To stay connected with candidates in your talent pools, consider the following strategies:

• Provide value by sharing high-quality content, such as commentary on the latest industry news, research insights, and professional resources.
• Create networking opportunities by hosting free events and workshops for qualified candidates. These events will allow candidates to meet and engage with your employees, learn from peer-to-peer feedback, and enjoy free pizza (which is great but should never be all you offer actual employees).
• Organize career days to give qualified candidates a glimpse into your company culture and career opportunities.

Don’t forget the power of personalization, either:

• Reach out to candidates with tailored messages acknowledging their unique skill sets and interests.
• Use their preferred communication channels, whether it’s email, social media, or even a good old-fashioned phone call.
• Let them know they’re more than just another name on a list — they’re valued members of your talent community.

Step 4: Recruit from your talent pools when a position opens

When it’s time to fill open roles, recruiting from your talent pools can feel like finding the perfect puzzle piece from a collection you’ve been carefully curating.

This is why it’s important not to burn any bridges with unsuccessful candidates — 49.5% of them would happily join your talent pool if offered!

Reach out to the candidates in your talent pools who have the skills and qualifications you’re seeking. Strong segmentation and AI tools can help streamline this task and ensure your passive candidates are always in the loop about upcoming opportunities.

Make it personal and craft messages that show genuine interest in their career goals and how they could contribute to your company. It’s about making them feel special and excited about the opportunity. And don’t forget to highlight any new developments or perks that might pique their interest. After all, you want them to be as enthusiastic about the job as you are.

Timing is everything, too. Monitor the ebb and flow of your talent pools. When a position opens up, strike while the iron is hot.

7 tips for keeping your talent pool full of high-quality candidates

Now that you know what a talent pool is and how to build one, it’s time to focus on the quality. A database is only as good as the quality of the candidates within it. Don’t fall into the trap of having a poor-quality talent pool by following these tips. 

1. Focus on niche job boards

If you’re attracting talent pool applicants through job boards, it’s time to take a more targeted approach. Given building your talent pool isn’t based on volume but rather quality, the mainstream job boards such as Indeed and Monster may create too much noise. 

Instead, focus your efforts on niche job sites targeted to the type of talent you are looking for. This isn’t just about skills either — ensure you also consider ways of working. While there are specific job boards for developers, salespeople, or legal professionals, job boards also exist for full-time remote workers and freelancers.

2. Test candidates during the initial application process

According to the SHRM 2024 Talent Trends Report, 54% of companies are now using some form of pre-employment assessment to gauge candidates’ skills, abilities, and knowledge. What’s more, 76% of hiring professionals see these test results as just as important, if not more important, than education level or years of experience.

One of the easiest ways to keep the quality of your talent pool high is to create a standard of entry. Why let anyone join when you can test candidates’ abilities and filter out the best?

Skills testing tools allow you to create bespoke tests, which can be used as the perfect benchmark for your talent pool. Tests are quick and easy to set up with a range of pre-set templates for popular job roles such as Account Executives, Data Scientists, Product Managers, and many more. 

Almost 4 in 5 recruiters say that using pre-employment assessments has improved their quality of hire, but careful, some have reported experiencing longer time-to-fill as a result.

With one-click candidate screening, Toggl Hire is designed to give you the best of both worlds — higher quality and faster hires.

3. Regularly engage with candidates

You’ve filled the auditorium seats — now you gotta grab the mic and hop on stage! What are you going to say?

The trick is to engage with your candidates little and often. This is not the time to shy away or play the humility card. Your goal should be to authentically showcase why your company is a great place to work, the things you’re achieving, and your vision for the future.

Approach it a bit like you would approach posting on social media. You want to be consistent, authentic, relatable, and as organic as possible. Here are some ideas of what you could share:

• Targeted job offers based on the individual’s skills
• Offer happy birthday greetings if you have that info
• Send exclusive invites to trade fairs, events, or webinars
• Ask for feedback on your own recruitment process — make the candidates feel like their voice matters
• Highlight any recent big wins, product updates, and what you’re working toward next
• Share pictures of company meet-ups if you’re a remote company!

4. Regularly cleanse your talent pool

Like all databases (or actual pools!), you should regularly cleanse data that are out of date. This should be a priority for every recruiting team.

If someone applied to your talent pool a long time ago, their situation may have changed, and their initial interest may no longer be valid. 

If you can automate your processes, try a pre-cleanse email. That way, you also allow the future candidate to re-submit their interest or update their profile to reflect their most up-to-date information. 

Ultimately, whether you remove candidates or get more up-to-date information, you know your talent pool is more current, and, by default, the quality is much higher! 

5. Polish your employer branding

Boosting your employer brand efforts will go a long way with external recruiting. It’s not just about attracting candidates to the job itself but also creating an enticing company culture.

In today’s competitive job market, candidates are looking for more than just a paycheck. They want to be a part of a company that aligns with their values and offers opportunities for growth and development. By showcasing your unique company culture, values, and employee benefits, you can attract top talent who are not only highly skilled but also excited to work with you.

Invest in building a compelling employer brand through your website, social media presence, and other recruitment channels. Highlight your company’s mission, values, and employee testimonials to give candidates a glimpse into what it’s like to work with you.

Case Study example: Spotify

Spotify pulled off a 3-in-1 we absolutely love.

1) Their talent pool is open for anyone to join, right there on their website.

2) The process is super on-brand, elevating their employer brand and desirability. (The call to action is ”Join the band” I mean, come on!)

3) They’re targeting students, meaning they’re getting first dibs on the newest talent entering the market.

This is genius, as Spotify will be front of mind as a place to work for any young minds interested in music and/or code. Working and communicating with so many younger folks, they’ll also get a competitive advantage in hiring and retaining the next generation (which, as we’ve mentioned, has got recruiters worried).

As Hung Lee, Curator at Recruiting Brainfood, puts it, “Gen Z isn’t interested in snazzy marketing collateral. Employer branding efforts need to go away from post-production towards revealing employees’ work and experience at the company to a wider audience.”

And that’s exactly what Spotify is doing.

6. Collect feedback to improve your processes

You don’t know what you don’t know. And there are two main ways to find out — directly, or indirectly.

Directly ask candidates about their experiences and feelings regarding your recruitment approach. This can be via email, surveys, or even gamified incentives with gift card prizes.

Another option is to indirectly collect feedback via platforms like Glassdoor. Here, you’ll be able to see exactly what candidates thought of your selection and interview processes — unfiltered.

Considering that 84% of job seekers consider a company’s reputation before applying, it’s a worthwhile investment of your time to see where candidates think you’re falling short. Set up systems to actively monitor and respond to reviews on Glassdoor and similar sites and take note of any comments that appear again and again. You might be surprised at how you’re being perceived (both in good and not-so-good ways!).

Building your employer brand in public like this is a great look — it shows transparency, ownership, and responsibility and that you care about the humans behind your candidate processes. A positive reputation not only attracts top talent but also reduces hiring costs, as candidates are more likely to apply directly rather than via an external agency or expensive recruitment marketing channels.

7. Keep engaging passive candidates

While having an active talent pipeline is important, don’t overlook the potential of passive candidates. These individuals may not be actively looking for a job, but they could be open to new opportunities if approached in the right way.

Engaging with passive candidates requires a strategic approach. Look for professionals in your industry who demonstrate potential or align with your company’s values. Reach out to them through personalized messages that highlight the specific reasons why they would be a good fit for your organization.

Use your talent pool to nurture relationships with passive candidates over time. Share valuable industry insights, relevant articles, and updates about your organization that could pique their interest. By consistently staying on their radar and building a rapport, you increase the chances of them considering a future opportunity with your organization.

Is there one key to great talent pooling?

When it comes to getting talent pooling “right,” the biggest tip we can give is:

Take the time for effective planning.

While it isn’t the one and only key point to consider, it carries a lot of weight and, by being strategic, can make your life in recruitment much easier.

Building an effective talent pool starts with aligning it with your organization’s values and employment needs. It involves reviewing big-picture strategies, assessing in-house talent, and creating strategies to build competency and bridge skills gaps.

By continuously asking for feedback both internally and from candidates, you can constantly monitor the talent pool’s effectiveness and keep it tightly tied to your company’s goals and budgets.

Use Toggl Hire’s ATS to build a talent pool

Toggl Hire’s talent pool feature is built to help you seamlessly carry over your ATS into a pool of titan candidates. We support hiring managers handle the talent management process in three key ways:

• Streamlined Candidate Management: With Toggl Hire, you have access to a centralized and organized database full of all your past test takers. You can easily add, update, or remove candidates as needed, making it simpler to manage your candidate records and streamline your recruitment process.
• Pre-Qualified Talent: Unexpected vacancies and hard-to-fill roles can slow down your business operations. With Toggl Hire’s talent pool, you have a reservoir of pre-qualified talent readily available at your fingertips, enabling faster and more efficient hiring decisions.
• Advanced Search Capabilities: Finding the right fit for a role involves considering various factors like skill, location, and role. Our advanced search capabilities allow you to easily sift through your talent pool based on these parameters, helping you find perfect-match candidates in seconds.

Never let a high-potential candidate slip through your fingers again. Create your Toggl Hire account today and get started for free!