40% of new hires leave within six months.
This goes to show that your role as a recruiter does not end with successful hiring and onboarding. You need to engage employees during their time with your company, so they have a longer tenure with it.
How does talent relationship management tie into this? It is the equivalent of sending your customers branded emails and targeting them with ads. Talent relationship management focuses on relationship-building and connecting with potential and existing employees—building their loyalty to you. Loyal, engaged employees are much easier to retain.
Let’s look at what talent relationship management is, and how you can get started on including it in your strategies.
What is Talent Relationship Management?
Talent relationship management (talent relationship management) is a strategic method of attracting, engaging, and retaining top talents that goes beyond the traditional recruitment process.
Recruitment focuses on filling immediate job openings, whereas talent relationship management takes a long-term perspective by establishing relationships with potential employees even before they become qualified applicants.
50% of all chief human resource officers in a recent survey identified talent attraction as a critical responsibility for any company. The reason—there’s intense competition for limited skills in the current hiring landscape. Circulating a job post is no longer enough, and not even nearly enough if you’re looking for the right talent to help your business.
Talent relationship management proactively builds long-term relationships with potential and current employees. Two elements set it apart from regular recruiting:
- It focuses on a candidate-centric approach focused on engagement and experience.
- It builds a talent pipeline and community to quickly fill future needs, not immediate hiring needs.
Talent relationship management revolves around engagement and experience at each stage of the candidate’s journey—from awareness through consideration until application or hire.
Skilled individuals are highly sought after and they require constant contact even when vacancies do not exist currently. The primary aim here is to create a strong, interested community by offering them positive personalized experiences at every touchpoint.
When the time comes, you can tap into this community to fill vacant posts fast with highly competent personnel, ensure cultural fit, and reduce time-to-fill.
Components of Talent Relationship Management
Here’s what goes into building a successful talent relationship management system.
Candidate relationship management (CRM)
CRM involves collecting and organizing candidate data, analyzing engagement metrics, creating talent pools of individuals with similar skills or qualifications, and nurturing relationships by sending them personalized messages over time.
A good CRM system such as Kula ATS offers a centralized platform for managing interactions with prospects at scale. With Kula ATS, you can track an applicant’s entire journey from one record, upload documents or assessments to their profile alongside video interviews or work samples, and quickly find best-fit candidates using custom tags, advanced filters, and Boolean search.
For instance, you may want to hire someone for a software engineering position. In this case, you could use Kula ATS to:
- Create a talent pool that consists of candidates who have certain programming skills only.
- Filter them based on location or experience level.
- Send out job alerts related to software development specifically.
By continuously engaging these individuals over time, there will always be qualified talents ready whenever such opportunities arise.
Talent pools and communities
Another important aspect of talent relationship management is building communities around groups of potential employees known as “talent pools”. In this way, even when there are no open positions within your organization, suitable candidates remain connected with you until vacancies emerge later on. You become their preferred employer.
With Kula ATS, you can categorize different types of targeted groups based on criteria such as job titles, requirements, and skill levels. This lets you communicate in a personalized way with specific kinds of job seekers.
For instance, if you are in the healthcare industry, you could create a nursing talent community where members get updates on trends or share experiences with each other. While this may seem like you are simply connected with people with no “hiring goals” being met, think about the potential of something like this.
Jimmy Daly has done this well, he’s built a community of serious marketers that he helps with networking and solving marketing problems, but hiring for him is the easiest of all—he can simply tap into his existing network, and hire the people he knows are a good fit, from their interactions in the community.
Recruitment marketing
Promote your employer brand while showcasing employee value propositions (EVP) to attract qualified candidates who may eventually become applicants.
This is done by designing engaging content like blogs or videos, hosting events such as webinars or career fairs, and sharing testimonials from current staff members.
All of this sounds great—but you’re busy. How do you do all this and still stay on top of more urgent recruiting tasks?
With Kula ATS, you build your own branded career and event pages using the out-of-box career page builder. This is an activity that usually takes 2-3 months, and forces your marketing team to pause their usual work. Kula ATS lets you execute this in a few days with half the manpower.
Candidate engagement
You need to ensure that applicants are respected and feel appreciated during the hiring process. How do you execute Personalizing communication, giving prompt updates, having an easy application process, sharing valuable information, asking for feedback, and keeping in touch even after hiring or rejecting are some ways you can do this.
Kula ATS allows you to develop long-term relationships with candidates through automated email and text messages. You can categorize your messages according to what candidates like hearing about most, how they behave when they receive certain emails, or where they are in their job search journey so far. This way, every touchpoint will always be both relevant and useful.
For example, if someone has applied for a job at your company, then it would make sense to send them several emails telling them more about that vacancy post, its responsibilities, requirements, as well as the next steps, interview tips, offer, and acceptance guidelines.
You would have achieved two things—reduce withdrawal numbers among applicants and create an atmosphere that makes it easy for interested people to stay in touch with Kula ATS and track job openings.
Once they are well into the pipeline, you can use Kula ATS to make it possible for candidates to schedule interviews based on when they are available instead of having to wait for recruiters to do it for them, or adjust to someone else’s calendar.
Analytics and insights
By tracking key recruiting KPIs like pipeline growth, time-to-hire, and sourcing ROI, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your processes over time.
Kula ATS provides intuitive dashboards that give you real-time visibility into your talent pipeline, allowing you to track progress against goals and make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.
For example, if you notice that a particular sourcing channel is delivering high-quality candidates at a lower cost-per-hire than others, you could allocate more resources to that channel going forward. Or, if you see that time-to-hire is increasing for certain roles, you can investigate the underlying causes and take steps to streamline your hiring process.
Benefits of implementing talent relationship management
The following details how talent relationship management can help you reach business goals.
Time-to-hire
The biggest advantage of talent relationship management is its ability to reduce time-to-hire. When there are already many interested individuals who are engaged in conversations with recruiters, it becomes easy for companies to fill positions quickly. This is especially useful now when top performers often receive multiple offers within days after applying elsewhere.
Cost-per-hire
In addition to faster time-to-hire, talent relationship management will reduce your cost-per-hire. Over time, you build relationships with candidates and create a pipeline of engaged talent, minimizing the need for expensive job postings and advertising.
Instead, you can focus on nurturing existing talent pools while leveraging referrals from current employees or other trusted sources. This saves money alone but also ensures that you are attracting candidates who fit well with the company’s culture and values.
Better quality of hire
Another advantage is that it improves the quality of hire because you can select from a pool of vetted high-potential prospects whom you know have been developed over time.
This enhances cultural fit which leads to higher employee retention rates, reducing the staff turnover that takes place when employees resign early due to lack of job satisfaction.
Employer brand building
Talent relationship management fosters a favorable employer brand while increasing referral hires through delivering an enjoyable personalized candidate experience. Candidates tend to share their positive experiences with other people when they feel valued and respected during the recruitment process. This makes it more like that they will recommend your company to other job-seekers within their networks.
Workforce planning
Talent relationship management offers current insights about the state of your talent pipeline so that you can execute better workforce planning. Knowing what skills are available now or may be needed later will help you decide where to concentrate recruiting efforts. It will also help you make sure you have adequate staff capacity to support business objectives at any given time.
The 7-step talent relationship management process
Now that you know the benefits, here are 7 steps you can take to implement your talent relationship management.
Sourcing
The first step of the talent relationship management process is to attract potential candidates that suit your organization’s current or future roles in terms of skills, experience, and cultural fit.
This can be done by using a variety of channels:
- LinkedIn and other professional networking sites
- Job boards and industry-specific platforms
- Employee referrals and incentivized referral programs
- Networking events, conferences, and trade shows
- University and college job fairs or partnerships
Employee referrals are one of the most effective channels you can use to build a qualified candidate pipeline. Who knows you better than the people who currently work for you? Referred candidates are always a better cultural fit than those you will find on job sites.
That’s why you can’t let this system sit idle. You must gamify it.
Kula Circles helps you do exactly that. It combines the professional networks of all your employees into a single, searchable talent pool, so you can identify and connect with high-quality candidates easily.
- With just a click, you can request warm introductions to potential hires, skipping the awkward, cold emails.
- You can reach out quickly and succinctly with the help of our pre-set email templates.
- Both you and the referrer can track the progress of each candidate within the platform, making the whole process easy to track and transparent.
What else can you do, other than find the right channels to source great candidates? You can:
- Build a strong employer brand
- Create targeted job descriptions
- Leverage boolean search techniques to find niche skill sets.
Learning how to systemize sourcing will help you organize candidates into talent pools based on configurable parameters like skills, location, and experience.
Our insight reporting and data tracking within the platform helps you measure how well your sourcing efforts are doing, alongside outreach programs—which we will get into next.
Engagement
Once potential candidates have been sourced, you need to capture their interest and convert them into active job seekers.
This involves personalizing outreach to each candidate based on their background, interests, and career goals then utilizing different communication channels:
- Email campaigns for targeted messaging
- Text messaging and social media interactions for immediate & direct communication
With Kula ATS, you can create scheduled branded email campaigns to engage passive applicants before they apply, nurturing talent pools for upcoming opportunities.
Tip: Provide value through informative content about industry insights, and career advice and highlight the company’s unique value proposition and culture to attract top talent.
Recruitment
Moving candidates through the recruitment pipeline manually is tedious, but it doesn't have to be.
You can simplify applications to reduce candidate drop-offs and use Kula ATS to automate and optimize your recruitment processes. Kula ATS offers:
- Applicant tracking system for managing candidate data and workflows
- Tools for personalizing interactions such as an in-built CRM
- Video interviewing platforms for efficient screening
- Assessment tools used in evaluating skills or cultural fit
You can also conduct structured interviews with scorecards to ensure fairness and objectivity in evaluations. You can also use it to enable easy collaboration with hiring managers.
The messaging features keep candidates informed and engaged throughout the process through regular updates and feedback.
Onboarding
Once a suitable candidate has been selected, introduce them to the organization’s mission, values, and culture.
This can involve:
- Introducing new employees to team members and key stakeholders
- Providing an onboarding plan that is clear about the milestones/expectations attached
- Assigning mentors/buddies who will guide them throughout their first few months at work.
Development
This will involve:
- Creating individualized plans for progress according to the needs and potential of each employee
- Identifying those who have high chances of becoming leaders and involving them in succession planning
- Encouraging interdepartmental collaboration that allows staff members to work with different sectors within the company.
You can also support workers with certifications or degrees, and create an environment where learning never stops.
Retention
Retaining top talent remains a strategic goal for any firm because it’s easier to keep them than hire them again. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Offering competitive salaries alongside other benefits like insurance covers which might include medical care, housing allowances, and transport reimbursements among others
- Enabling work-life balance through flexible working hours, part-time schedules, telecommuting/remote options combined with generous leave days policies
- Recognizing outstanding performance through promotions
- Rewarding those who contribute toward organizational objectives
- Conducting regular appraisals to provide constructive criticisms and addressing concerns raised by staff members quickly
- Conducting surveys to measure engagement levels
Community building
One of the best ways to foster a strong sense of community is by organizing company-wide events. Think holiday celebrations, team-building activities, and volunteering opportunities. These events bring people together and help them bond over shared experiences outside of their day-to-day work.
Another crucial aspect of community building is facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration. You can achieve this by leveraging internal communication platforms that allow employees to connect, share ideas, and work together on projects seamlessly. It's also a great idea to host regular town hall meetings or even Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions with leadership. These initiatives promote transparency, encourage open communication, and give employees a chance to have their voices heard.
Celebrating employee milestones is another fantastic way to build a strong community. Whether it's work anniversaries, promotions, or personal achievements, recognizing and appreciating your employees' successes goes a long way in making them feel valued and motivated.
Kickstart talent relationship management with Kula ATS
Throughout the talent relationship management process, Kula ATS will help you optimize your efforts and achieve better results.
To recap, you can:
- Easily upload documents, assessments, video interviews, and work samples to candidate records, keeping all the important information in one place.
- Quickly find the best candidates for your roles with the platform's custom tags, advanced filters, and Boolean search capabilities.
- Streamline the interview process by allowing candidates to self-schedule based on real-time recruiter availability, saving time and reducing back-and-forth communication.
- Track key recruiting KPIs like pipeline growth, time-to-hire, and sourcing ROI to make data-driven decisions and continuously optimize your talent relationship management process.
You can leverage Kula ATS's features and follow the 7-step process to build a strong talent pipeline, enhance your employer brand, and create a thriving workplace culture that attracts and retains top talent.
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