Create a candidate pipeline to reduce your recruitment costs

Create a candidate pipeline to reduce your recruitment costs

Candidate pipelining is both a quick and long term fix for companies wanting to reduce their hiring costs while improving the speed of their processes and the quality of candidate they attract.

What is talent pipelining

Talent pipelining is identifying and nurturing candidates you may hire in the future. By building and maintaining relationships with these individuals you increase your chances of hiring them, reduce the time it takes to fill positions and are often able to attract them to work for you more cost effectively.

Pipelining candidates is particularly valuable for roles:

• you recruit for frequently;
• you cannot afford to stay vacant for any period of time; or
• where candidates with relevant skills and experience are scarce.

How does it work

In the simplest terms, pipelining is a three stage process: talent identification; engagement; and relationship management.

A basic (but effective) approach to reactive candidate pipelining

Reactive talent pipelining involves nurturing good candidates who apply to your company but who you don't hire. A basic approach that will develop a solid candidate pipeline includes:

• adding every candidate to your database with notes to help filter them appropriately;
• acknowledging every application;
• giving detailed feedback to every candidate who gets an interview;
• identifying candidates to nurture;
• creating a candidate pipeline programme.

Proactive pipelining is about identifying and nurturing the best talent in the market. It involves scoping the market and then engaging with the most desirable candidates before nurturing the relationships as appropriate.

Talent pipelining requires a time investment up front but it is one that, if applied with discipline, leads to better hiring in terms of quality and speed and can save you money.