It’s important to keep your talent pool full of high-quality candidates as being a leader you wish to grow your company or your team. Also, you never know when people might leave your organization suddenly for some reason.But being prepared would definitely help as you would not want to waste 3-4 months for your next hire.Engaging top talent will shorten your recruitment cycle and is a good way to stay ahead in the fierce combat for talent.

Building a robust talent pool might seem difficult to accomplish, but with little bit of your continuous efforts, it’s easy enough and the results will surely be worth doing it. Make it a part of your routine, reserve time slots in your calendar and make it a point to meet new people within your industry.

Here are four hacks for you to build up your talent pipeline and foster your relationships with passive candidates:

Leverage Your Networks

Collegiate and other professional collaborations can be a great way to fill your talent pipeline. These affiliations will open doors to intellectual discussions and help you build relationships, as you already have something in common. Don’t limit this to just your own network, make sure your team is also on look out within their own networks. Setting up great referral program is best way to make it worth it.

Direct Outreaching

Use social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter to target some of your top prospects. For higher-level or technical position, many of the candidates will have their presences on LinkedIn and GitHub for sure. Upgrade your LinkedIn account and connect to relevant groups, this will allow you to send in-mails or have access to their contact information. However, avoid the hard-selling part and instead consider sharing an interesting article or ask them a question. This will open the lines of communication and you can further engage them about open opportunities at your organization.

Personalized Messaging

Rather than tormenting prospects relentlessly through labour-intensive conversations, try to stay on top of their mind. Have a real reason to reach out to someone – for example, you can send an article that reminded you of a conversation or a work anniversary congratulations message. Encourage your team also to brand themselves and personalize their messages.

Host Events to Engage your local industry to find passive candidates.

Best way to develop strategy to build your talent pool is to engage them on a personal and genuine level. You can consider organizing happy hours or open house and invite your area professionals into your organization and publicize the event by using social media platforms and a curated email list. Other great events that can be considered to attract talent might include inviting speakers, hack-a-thons and other industry meetups. These events will allow others to get a peep into your company and its culture. Also, do not forget to do your research on the attendees so that you can introduce them to the right people within your organization. Also encourage your team mates to attend the event.

Final Thoughts

Consider your talent pipeline a community, not just a database. Put continuous efforts to keep your pipeline warm and deliver what you promise. Building talent pipeline for your hiring needs might seem of obvious importance but, with so many priorities on your plate, it is easy to run out of time and you may forget to keep in touch. To avoid this send yourself calendar reminders to stay connected.

Create one “source of truth” to keep your all your teammates on the same page. Use it to keep track of your metrics over time, so you can be sure that your efforts are producing results and never sacrifice speed for quality.