Candidate sourcing strategies to build your tech talent pipeline

Attracting top talent helps to future-proof your business, and utilises fewer resources. Harnessing your employer brand to attract more people is an integral role of an internal recruiter. Every day you have to consider the content you’re sharing online and whether it matches your brand, culture, and personality as a company. So where do you start?

What is the difference between talent pool and talent pipeline?

A talent pool is essentially an unvetted talent pipeline for your company. A talent pool is anyone who is interested in your company, and in a traditional essence submits a speculative CV to keep on file or apply for roles.

Your talent pipeline is people who have been vetted, as there may be unsuitable candidates who have applied for roles.

To build your talent pool, and subsequently your talent pipeline, you need to develop a full strategy in order to attract the right people to your company. 

How to source candidates?

When over X% of techies are browsing or open to new opportunities at any one time, it’s important to speak to them about how and when they want to be spoken to. They don’t want to be bombarded with recruiter messages of unsuitable opportunities, they want to see what companies and roles they are best suited to, based on their experience and preferences.

1. Use passive hiring tools
   

That’s why we built Haystack. Haystack is a careers and insights marketplace designed for those working in software development, data and design. Allowing techies to cut out the noise and browse opportunities based on their interests, values and tech stack - completely free of spam and recruiters.

Encourage techies to always submit their CV’s and portfolios, even if you aren’t actively hiring. Always have an open job on your careers site and ensure you get back to each individual with feedback and a thank you note. This way, you’re actively building your talent pool.

To find out more about Haystack, book in a completely free, no obligation call with one of our team.

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2. Combine hiring efforts with marketing 
   

Recruitment marketing is an important part of any employee value proposition, and companies need to align recruitment efforts with marketing in order to portray the brand in the way they want it to be portrayed.

Candidates discover, explore and consider employers the same way consumers find products, hotels and restaurants. Much of the information that candidates have on your company is acquired long before they actively apply for your job. So you need to engage with them much earlier in the job-seeking process - before there even is a job-seeking process. Recruitment Marketing is the strategy and process that you have to complete before a candidate applies for your job.

3. Meet and exceed expectations
   

Talking about recruitment marketing - by always giving open and honest feedback to prospective candidates, you’re keeping that level of communication open and providing a positive experience. Meaning that even if your role isn’t suitable for them right now, when they’re more experienced they may still want to work for your company. Whereas if you ghost them - they might never apply again.

Whether you’re an in-house recruiter or a hiring manager, it’s always important to keep an eye on what's going on in the industry in terms of demand and salary expectations. If your company has a poor reputation for salaries or reviews in the public domain, then even if you’re hiring and have a seemingly great offering, you may struggle to attract top tech talent.

Encourage your current employees, particularly those in engineering, to submit feedback and help to build an employee value proposition that really resonates with your audience. You want to become a desirable place to work and this starts by looking internally.