Teresa Wykes from Armstrong Craven presents 'Best Practice Talent Pipelining' Essential learning for novices or a refresher session for those already doing it. Support for talent teams to handle and coach hiring managers as they are required to socialise with talent and lead their own succession planning. Theory, best practice, what works and doesn't work in this talent strategy approach.

1. BEST PRACTICE
TALENT PIPELINING

2. 01 PRINCIPLES

3. FROM A RECRUITMENT FEE TO A STRATEGIC TALENT INVESTMENT
Innovative talent
methodology
Reduces cost
and eventual time
to hire
Strategic HR
3
Greater ROI

4. 4
DEFINITIONS
TALENT MAP
A view of the current talent landscape containing organisations, names,
job titles and contact details, but not yet involving any candidate engagement.
TALENT PIPELINE
A population of proactively-generated, assessed and engaged
individuals that meet your current and future hiring requirements according
to business strategy.

5. WHY BEST-PRACTICE COMPANIES LOVE IT
• Agile
• Reduces TTH & CPH
• Delivers insight
• Employer Brand
• Operational to strategic
• Forearmed
• Talent community
• Benchmarking
• Allows you to be confident that you have the best talent, selected by you,
rather than making do with the (incoming) talent you get given
5

6. WHY THE TALENT LOVES IT
• Accommodates unpredictable lives
• Education: business news, opportunities, companies not normally considered
• Shows you care
• Candidate experience
• On-boarding & career development planning
• Career management tactics
• Highly–valued customer
6

7. 7
APPLICATIONS
• Multiple vacancies now /future
• Succession planning
• Diversity & inclusion
• Recurring hires
• New market entry/Immature markets & cohorts
• Market testing/proof of concept
• Benchmarking
• PR

8. ENVIRONMENTAL SUCCESS FACTORS
• Do we understand our current talent?
• Do we take a future view of talent?
• How willing are we to move beyond transactional hiring into strategic hiring?
• What exactly do we want to do with the talent pool?
• To what extent can we rely on the business to socialise ?
• How comfortable is the business with the idea of succession planning?
• How will we (HR) measure the success of this initiative?
• How will the business measure the success of this initiative?
• To what extent are we prepared to compromise/be bold?
8

9. DISCUSSION
• Consider the environmental success factors:
- which ones could potentially present a challenge at your company?
• How can you begin to overcome/mitigate some of these challenges?
9

10. 02 PIPELINE MANAGEMENT

11. THE PIPELINE LIFECYCLE
Activate
Build
Manage
11

12. BUILDING THE PIPELINE
12
DEFINE SEARCH
AREA
ASSESS ENTER PIPELINEENGAGE
•• Market sectors
•• Companies
•• Skills
•• Culture
•• Behaviours
•• The brief is too broad
•• Missing varying
objectives
RISK
•• Introduction – managed
approach and
expectation
RISK
•• Career conversation
•• Screen against business
need
•• Share your story
•• Inappropriate questions
and technique
•• Expectations are not
managed
RISK
•• Set expectations
•• Confirm communication
preferences and methods
•• Gain candidate buy-in
to the programme
•• Candidate fallout
•• You do nothing...
RISK
•• Candidate experience

13. 13
CAREER CONVERSATIONS
CAREER CONVERSATION
A two-way conversation where both parties seek to explore the
existence of, and fit for, potential opportunities.

14. DISCUSSION
14
• How should a career conversation differ from a recruitment conversation?
• What kind of insight do you want to come out of such conversations?
• What kinds of behaviours do you want to see from the talent at this stage?

15. CAREER CONVERSATION
15
Do you consider yourself
able to be successful there?
What allows you to be
successful where you are
now? What’s stopping you?
What would a good career
relationship with us look
like for you? How would
you like this to run? Who
would you like to get in
front of?
What impression
do you have of
How’s it
going ?
Do you have
career relationships
with any other
organisations?
What’s keeping
you where you
Permission
to talk...
Are you on any
succession plans
either internally
or externally?
What impression do
you have of our
competitors?
Have you had any recent
approaches from other
employers?
What were they like?
How have you typically
have managed your
career choices to date?
Are you currently on
a high-potential/career
management programme?
What’s involved in that?

16. MANAGING THE PIPELINE
16
HOUSEKEEPING ENTER PIPELINEPROGRAMME OF
COMMUNICATION
•• Priority
•• Level
•• Functions
•• Geography
•• Propensity to move
•• Stakeholder
understanding
•• Expectation management
RISK
•• How often
•• Changes?
•• News to share
•• Referrals
•• Socialise?
RISK
•• HMs off message
•• Process vs VIP approach
•• Make contact
RISK
Organise by

17. DISCUSSION
17
• What would be the most effective way(s) to keep the talent pipeline warm?
• How would it add value to turn the talent pipeline into a talent community?

18. ACTIVATING THE PIPELINE
18
APPROACH
•• Changes?
•• Consistency
•• Speed
POINT OF
NEED
TALENT PIPELINE
EXTERNAL
HIRE
INTERNAL
TALENT
REVIEW

19. 03 SOCIALISATION

20. 20
DEFINITION
SOCIALISATION MEETING
A proactive way for high profile businesses and top external talent to engage,
in a non-threatening environment.

21. 21
WHY BEST PRACTICE COMPANIES SOCIALISE
• Ongoing need
• Passive talent = >quantity & quality
• Nothing to lose
• Benchmark
• Informality = confidentiality
• Trust, understanding, <derailment

22. 22
PREPARING FOR SOCIALISATION MEETINGS
How much do I know
about the person I’m
meeting? Who might
we know in common?
How are we going
to position our
company?
How am I going to
handle confidentiality
on both sides?
What impression
do I want to
make?
Is there anyone
else here that
we can introduce?
What will happen
next and how will
I communicate that?

23. 23
SOCIALISATION QUESTIONS & CONVERSATIONS
?
?
?
• Career
• Development plans
• Motivation
• Mobility
• Relationships & networks
• Market
• Intuitive
• Spontaneous
• A business conversation
• Careers advice

24. 24
SOCIALISATION ROLES
•• Manage/drive external talent meetings to hiring managers
•• Capture feedback
•• Report outcomes to key stakeholders
•• Ensure hiring managers are aware of & adhere to the process
•• Ensure a great candidate experience is created and maintained
Relationship
Ownership
•• Engage with Relationship Owner’s talent responsibilities
•• Honour & protect socialisation time
•• Position the company’s employee value proposition in line with socialisation guidelines
•• Provide feedback & recommended action items to the Relationship Owner
•• Ensure a great candidate experience is created and maintained
Business
Manager

25. 04 HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS

26. 26
HOW ORGANISATIONS MEASURE SUCCESS
Candidate
Experience
Development and
Retention
Onboarding
EVP
.......................................... .............................................
............................
Succession planning
•• Risk mitigated
•• Internal talent benchmarked
•• Increased knowledge of
external market
Diversity & Inclusion
•• Employee base reflects
customer base
•• Evidence to test targeted
talent exists
Multiple and recurring hires
•• Reduced cost per hire
•• Reduced time to hire
•• On spec and ready to
activate talent
New market/product
•• Increased knowledge of
talent market
•• Evidence to test targeted
talent exists

27. 05 CANDIDATE SERVICE

28. 28
BEST PRACTICE CANDIDATE SERVICES
• Maintain the high –touch, VIP approach
• Articulate why you are interested in them
• Ensure consistency across emails, LinkedIn messages, voicemails – what’s the company way
• Reinforce the approach – this is a high level, talent (not recruitment) initiative, we’ve chosen
you, you come highly recommended etc...
• Ask who they would like to meet at your company and make it happen, be generous
• Offer high –level, respected careers advice (goes a long way especially when attached to
the your company brand/coming from high-profile people)
• Keep asking what would make it work for them and show you are keen to meet their needs
• Follow up when you said you would – if you have to apologise then it’s too late

29. DISCUSSION
29
• What is working well with your executive candidate experience?
• What can you improve?

30. 30
FINALLY
• Gather referrals at induction
• Name drop the source of any referrals
• Shelf life
• Confidentiality
• Use your products & services
• Position any psychometric assessment as a learning opportunity
• Think of the pool in terms of valuable additions to your and the company’s business
network rather than candidates

31. 31
ARMSTRONG CRAVEN CONTACTS
Teresa Wykes
Global Practice Lead, Technology & Professional Services
+44 (0) 7500 887 602
teresa.wykes@armstrongcraven.com
For more info visit us at: www.armstrongcraven.com

32. ABOUT ARMSTRONG CRAVEN
Intelligent people improve performance by creating an intelligent business. At
Armstrong Craven we use people intelligence to give you a future business view.
Your business success isn’t about yesterday, it’s about what you do today to secure
the people you’ll need tomorrow. So Armstrong Craven digs deeper, travels further,
looks longer, thinks harder – about what people want.
We provide insight, search, pipelining and leadership risk intelligence services to
business leaders all over the world. We help organisations to better understand the
markets they operate within and the markets they hope to enter. And we provide
the people they need to make it work.
www.armstrongcraven.com
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