Hiring the best: How to re-engage former hires to boost your talent acquisition strategy

Hiring the best: How to re-engage former hires to boost your talent acquisition strategy

Hiring the wrong candidate isn’t just frustrating, it’s expensive. Each mis-hire costs about six to 27 times the amount of the employee’s pay.

It doesn’t help that America is facing a troubling labor shortage, with 7 out of 10 employers reporting they’re unable to fill open positions as of 2024.

As companies turn to contingent worker programs to fill these positions and bridge skill gaps, many are opting into Direct Sourcing, not only to find new talent, but to re-engage former successful hires.

We look at how Direct Sourcing helps companies engage with former hires and quickly fill open positions with qualified candidates.

Building a seamless talent acquisition program

Direct Sourcing allows businesses to leverage their brand power while attracting experienced talent that already have some loyalty to the company. Using former contingent hires to fill open positions not only saves on talent acquisition costs, but also reduces the amount of time and resources spent on hiring.

While talent acquisition isn’t a cookie-cutter process, these Direct Sourcing best practices will help ensure your company hires the right candidate the first time:

Step 1: Create engaged Talent Communities

Talent Communities allow companies to foster a sense of loyalty while keeping prior contingent hires engaged. Hiring professionals can leverage their organization’s connections and networks to build talent communities with the skill sets and experience needed for future roles. Using an intuitive Direct Sourcing tech platform, Curators can manage these communities and seamlessly communicate with them.

By nurturing active Talent Communities, companies can:

Increase long-term retention.
Leverage more professional networks, since successful hires likely know other experienced candidates willing to engage with your community.
Fill open positions faster.

Step 2: Build specialized Talent Pools

After you’ve created an engaged Talent Community filled with experienced workers, you can start organizing talent based on key factors, like industry, work experience, and skill sets. Direct Sourcing platforms like TalentNet let Curators quickly build specialized talent pools filled with pre-verified high performers.

For example, let’s say you’re an engineering company hiring for a number of roles and have a Talent Community filled with 500 members. These members have skill sets in HR, engineering, marketing, and project management.

You would then create Talent Pools for each specialty, ensuring only known high-performers are in each pool, which simplifies the hiring process.

TalentNet’s platform includes the TalentBridge feature – available for SAP Fieldglass clients. This tool uses data synchronization to automatically create talent pools filled with pre-screened candidates.

Step 3: Match talent to open roles

When a role becomes available, Direct Sourcing allows companies to quickly match potential candidates to a position that fits best with their experience and skill sets. TalentNet’s platform includes AI-powered job matching capabilities that match candidates to relevant openings based on their profiles and resumes.

For example, let’s say an engineer who used to work with your company decides to join your talent community and is segmented into a specific talent pool for high performers. Once an engineering job opens up, both the curator and candidate will be sent a match percentage, allowing the worker to quickly apply for the role.

Step 4: Engage with top talent

Once you’ve created a community, it’s time to communicate effectively.

According to LinkedIn research, 81% of candidates reported that reliable communication created a better candidate experience.

Not only does effective communication increase brand loyalty, it leads to higher retention rates. When connecting with former candidates you’d like to re-engage with, it’s important to:

Be transparent and honest. Candidates know when something sounds fake. Using personalized message templates, like the ones included in TalentNet’s platform, lets curators customize all communication for a better candidate experience.
Stay consistent during the hiring process. Even if a candidate isn’t successful, they’re more likely to reapply for new positions if you keep them updated during the application process and let them know the outcome. TalentNet’s text and email features empower curators to quickly reach out at each stage of the hiring process.
Don’t just communicate with talent communities about open positions. Share industry-related news, trends, and interesting stats. This way, you’ll be able to build an engaged, informed community.

Step 5: Track performance

When re-engaging with known talent, it’s vital to track related performance metrics to ensure your Direct Sourcing strategy is attracting the right candidates as effectively as possible. Some key data points to monitor include application activity, Talent Community registration and time-to-fill metrics.

Your Direct Sourcing platform should let you track key metrics when needed. TalentNet, for example, includes our TalentInsights feature, which allows companies to download Excel and PDF data sheets when needed.

This tool also includes DEI metrics and hiring outcomes, enabling companies to get a full picture of their hiring process.

Re-engaging top talent with ease

A successful Direct Sourcing strategy should include solid candidate re-engagement, allowing companies to create pipelines filled with high-performing talent that’s already familiar with your brand values and work environment.

By building strong Talent Communities and pre-vetted pipelines, and using AI-powered tools to engage with candidates, curators can increase retention rates while streamlining their talent acquisition strategies.

To learn how TalentNet’s platform can help, book a demo here.