How Talent Communities compare to Talent Pools in Direct Sourcing

Relationship building is at the heart of any Direct Sourcing strategy. Without consistent engagement, clear communication and company-wide buy-in, creating a strong pipeline of qualified candidates becomes near impossible. 

Talent Communities and Talent Pools play a key role in attracting active, knowledgeable workers who genuinely care about your company. While the two concepts are often used interchangeably, they’re vastly different tools that play two distinct roles. 

Here’s what you need to know:

What are Talent Communities? 

Talent Communities aren’t only filled with applicants looking for work. They include qualified, experienced professionals looking to engage about their fields. While future openings may be of interest to this group of workers, other topics take precedence here. 

Members of a Talent Community are just as likely to chat about how AI is changing their market and how to streamline key processes in their fields as they are to click on posts about current openings. 

Talent Communities are unique because they put the worker at the center of the strategy, allowing members to influence the type and frequency of engagement. Communities are often built using top-performing current and past workers. Members are more likely to have a direct connection to your company, though this isn’t a prerequisite.

The goal of a Talent Community is to nurture relationships with top talent for long-term hiring. 

Benefits of building a Talent Community include:

  • Brand loyalty. Through engaging with community members and creating opportunities for industry-focused discussions, Curators are able to foster a level of brand loyalty and company knowledge. This creates a smoother transition when members of a community are hired. 
  • Long-term retention. Building strong relationships often means workers hired from these communities are more likely to last longer in their roles. 
  • Word-of-mouth growth. Top workers often have networks of high-performing talent that they’re more likely to bring into your Talent Community. 

What are Talent Pools?

Like a Talent Community, Talent Pools are made up of qualified candidates that have the experience and knowledge needed to excel at your company. Unlike a community, which is broad and includes candidates from a number of industries and job preferences, Talent Pools are specialized groups within a Talent Community.

Curators can create Talent Pools based on industry, job type (for example, hybrid, in-office, or remote), location, and many other factors. For example, if you’re a software startup looking to scale, you might have a Talent Pool specifically for marketing candidates with 5 years of experience looking for a hybrid role, as well as a Talent Pool for back-end developers located in your city with a salary expectation of $80,000-$95,000.

Curators can then send specific job openings to each Talent Pool, which helps narrow down the application process.

With Talent Pools, Curators can:

  • Decrease time to fill by quickly finding qualified candidates when a role opens up. 
  • Ensure retention. Members are usually vetted before they’re placed into a Talent Pool, increasing the chances that they’ll do well and last long-term.
  • Increase the quality of hires. Talent Pools are made up of workers who have the skills and experience your company is looking for. 

Building a strong talent pipeline

While Talent Communities and Talent Pools have distinct differences, they both take time and effort to grow. When building a successful talent pipeline, it’s important to:

  • Implement proper best practices company-wide that allow your Curators to build a successful talent acquisition strategy.
  • Track candidate analytics to monitor each pool or community. TalentNet’s TalentInsights feature allows Curators to quickly find and download customized metrics like community registration and time to fill. 
  • Find a platform to support community and Talent Pool growth. TalentNet’s innovative solution includes:
    • AI-based candidate matching, which quickly matches Talent Community registrants with jobs that fit their qualifications, creating a 60 second application process. 
    • Seamless communication management. Curators can easily engage with community and Talent Pool members through SMS and text capabilities. 
    • Our TalentNavigator platform, a virtual assistant that searches candidate profiles to find the best fit for each position. 

Click here to learn more or request a demo.