Relationship management only succeeds with a talent pool

“Out of sight, out of mind” also applies to relationship management with talent leads. Therefore, blindly letting off a creative firecracker now and again, in the hope that you will have enough hits to fill current vacancies, is not sufficient. Successful recruitment is not a matter of chance but, among other things, a question of the right communications strategy. At the center of this is your talent pool. Without an efficient database, on the one hand, long-term relationship building is not possible, and, on the other hand, you will be pushing water uphill. Because, whilst with linear recruitment measures you may lose promising candidates that do not fit the advertised job one hundred percent, a talent pool allows you to collect this potential, which you can then refer to at an appropriate time, rather than starting again from scratch.

A perfect fit: target-group-specific email campaigns

With a structured candidate pool that makes it possible to track contact history with talent leads and search functions that form the basis for target-group-specific email campaigns, you will be able to build a profitable talent pipeline. Whether graduates, blue-collar workers, digitalization specialists, engineers, or managers – with the right content, you can inspire enthusiasm for your company in any talent group. This is how to ensure that your communication is targeted and convincing. It sounds time-consuming, but with automatic functions, for example for birthday or Christmas greetings, it is possible to considerably reduce the time and effort required. After all, a birthday email is now considered a mandatory part of communication. Are you still short of ideas? We have a few suggestions:

• Introduce your company!
  If a candidate is new to the talent pool, a welcome email is a nice gesture to begin building the relationship. In this email and the following ones, give the candidate the opportunity of learning more about the company. For example, you can provide links to social media channels or feature your company’s blog. Topics relating to corporate cultures, such as diversity or corporate social responsibility, are suitable hooks on which to present yourself as an employer. It is best to avoid general marketing phrases and preferable to include specific examples (e.g., projects, measures, guidelines, goals).

• Highlight career paths!
  How a candidate’s career might look in five or ten years is always interesting food for thought. Talented individuals value employers that offer their employees career opportunities and support them in reaching their personal goals. Consequently, training and development issues make rewarding topics for email campaigns. Appropriate content, for example, about internships, sandwich course placements, vocational training, entry-level and ex-pat programmes, and also management and leadership programmes, can be in the drawer ready to go. But be sure about which topics are actually relevant for which candidates.

• Feature new business locations!
  If your company is growing, you should share this positive development with others. Since the opening of a new office is often associated with job vacancies and the strengthening of teams, this could be of interest to one or two people in the talent pipeline. For example, invite people to join a virtual tour of the new building and show how good the local infrastructure is. The opening of a new site is, of course, always a good occasion to approach regional or specialist target groups and invite them to join the talent pool.

• The events calendar
  Email campaigns are ideal for promoting other recruitment activities effectively. If you are planning events of interest to particular candidate target groups, you can notify and invite them with the help of the campaign tool in your talent pool – providing full background information in advance and even a short review later on. Here again, targeted communication is crucial. Graduates and young professionals, for example, are interested in networking events and open days. Hackathons are interesting primarily for software developers and digitalization experts. On the other hand, expert panels and informal discussions offer specialists and managers the opportunity to acquire more in-depth knowledge.

• Share notable company achievements!
  Successes are best when shared and therefore an ideal reason for an email campaign. First and foremost, this has a positive effect on the employer brand. It also gives candidates in your talent pool the feeling of already being part of the “we” in your company. For example, in start-ups, this could be about successful finance negotiations that are often associated with additional job vacancies; or celebrating important industry awards or good business results with your potential candidates.

• On-campus recruitment
  For most companies, school leavers, apprentices, students, and graduates represent an important target group of potential applicants. There are a lot of interesting topics in this area with which you, as an employer, can build an email campaign around. Here it particularly depends on the right timing, so that, as far as possible, you send information about internships, vocational training, periods abroad, and bursaries when they are most relevant. Authenticity is a factor that should not be forgotten and is something that this target group attaches great importance to. It is well worth approaching former working students, apprentices, or interns and asking them to talk about their experiences.

On a journey of discovery through your company

These are just some suggestions for target-group-specific email campaigns that you plan in advance and, on the most part, send automatically. If you go through the company with open eyes and in the candidate’s shoes, you are guaranteed to find many other topics that are worth communicating. A useful tip is to discuss things with colleagues in individual departments. They often have refreshing, alternative views of the things that set the company apart as an employer. This way you can successfully develop an active talent pool with which to build relationships with potential candidates and keep your employer brand on their radar.

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