How To Build a Candidate Pipeline For Future Hires

Building a “candidate pipeline” is a great way to form relationships with qualified candidates you may be interested in hiring when a new position opens up.

Oftentimes, employers and hiring managers will have no more than two weeks notice to fill a position. This is nowhere near enough time to source candidates, interview them, and ultimately make an informed hiring decision.

By creating a candidate pipeline, employers can stay ahead of the game and rely on pre-qualified candidates who already have information about your company and relationships with current employees.

While building a candidate pipeline is a great recruiting tactic, it is often hard to execute if the right people and processes are not in place. Keep reading to learn 3 steps you can take to help build your own candidate pipeline.

Assign A Dedicated Resource

The first step, and possibly the most critical, is to assign a dedicated resource to be in charge of building the candidate pipeline.

This person can be an internal team member, a hiring manager, or you can even outsource this effort to a recruiting firm. It’s important that whoever you choose will be able to devote enough time to build up this pipeline.

You need to have someone who is driving these initiatives and making an effort every day to source candidates and maintain relationships, or else it will be swept under the rug as new priorities and projects come up in the business.

Fill the Funnel

Once a dedicated resource has been assigned, the next step is to locate top talent for your pipeline.

This person will source qualified candidates from job boards or LinkedIn, network with former colleagues and contracts, internet research and even seek out competitor’s employees.

Once they have found candidates who initially match what they are looking for, then they will have to reach out and start developing relationships with them. If these candidates are located near you then start by asking them to coffee or go to lunch just to network.

Whether you’re messaging potential candidates or meeting with them, you don’t need to imply that it’s for a future opportunity with your business, but just be about networking in your industry or business in general.

Maintain Contact

After you’ve located potential future hires and made the initial reach out, the next step is to maintain this contact.

The best way to go about doing this is to make calendar reminders for yourself on a weekly or even monthly basis, depending on what your schedule will allow.

It’s important to build relationships with this type of passive audience so when you’re ready to hire, it will be easy to pull the trigger. Letting someone know about a potential opportunity after months of rapport will produce much better results than pitching a position to someone you don’t know when you’re desperate to hire.

Building a pipeline of candidates for future hires is not an easy thing to do, but taking these steps will start you off on the right path.

The most important thing to remember is that this initiative needs to be clearly defined and someone needs to be held accountable. Without doing this first, it’s too easy to lose sight of your goal.