You might be asking yourself, what is a Talent Community?

A Talent Community is a social recruiting method that enables an employer to build an opt-in private social network of passive candidates who are interested in learning about your company, culture, employment brand and future career opportunities. This is not to be confused with a talent pool, which is typically a stale candidate database of forgotten and outdated applicants trapped in an ATS or on a spreadsheet, with one sided communication flow that's controlled by the employer. In contrast, a talent community is an active, vibrant social talent network in which relationships and building trust matters, that's fostered by mutual ongoing communication and engagement between the employer and talent community group members.

In a thriving talent community, employers proactively engage and interact with group members in a two way conversation to build trusting relationships by transparently sharing company information and letting them peek inside your company through; news updates, notifications to group members about employment opportunities and invitations to participate in live information sessions that discusses corporate culture, career growth opportunities, daily life and what it's truly like to work at your company.

Employers typically segment their talent community members into subgroups for relevant personalized messaging because the interests of an engineer will not be the same as those of a sales rep or accountant. Relevant customized messaging to talent community subgroups is a best practice that encourages increased member participation, instills trust in group members, creates a sense of community and proactively shapes the positive perception of your employment brand.

So, what’s the big deal? Why do I need to create a Talent Community? Here are a few of the benefits...

With an active and engaged Talent Community you will:

  • Build a just in time talent pipeline: Create a trusting environment for potential candidates to learn about your company, culture, employment brand and future employment opportunities.

  • Super charge your employer referral program: Through building a trusting social network for candidate referrals.

  • Be viewed by potential candidates as an innovative, forward thinking company and employer of choice.

  • Build a private social network & own the data: In contrast to typical public social networks (FaceBook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.) a talent community is a private opt-in social network in which you own all the contacts and relationships.

  • Employment branding: Through transparency and personalized messaging you can proactively shape the positive perception of your corporate culture, values and reputation as an employer of choice.

  • More personalized mutual communication between employer and passive candidates compared to social networks.(FaceBook, LinkedIn, G+)

Bottom line: If you’re not attracting, engaging and interacting with passive candidates by building an active talent community, your competitors are and they will consistently out perform you for top talent!

Take the next step now! Learn how to build a thriving Talent Community.