It’s the age of race and survival, may be not against time, but against the competition for excellence. Everyone is overdoing everyone with their own talent, efforts, and timeless dedication! In this huge cluster of people who are ready to do anything and everything for etching their mark of excellence in their field, how do recruiters choose the best for their organization? After all, they need specific talent, maybe not at that
moment, but some other time in future.



Here is where the strategy of ‘building a candidate pipeline’ or ‘talent pipeline’ comes in. Building a candidate pipeline refers to the process of selecting a group of qualified and eligible people interested in learning about job opportunities as they become available to the organization in future interest. They ‘pipeline’ candidates because their skills, experience, and traits match a role for which there is no immediate hiring need. Building a candidate pipeline is synonymous with talent pipelining or relationship recruiting where in, there is building a long term professional relationship with passive talent for future opportunities. This means getting to know the talent landscape, the actual people regardless of whether or not they are looking to make a career change immediately.

Often this process of ‘building a candidate pipeline’ is merged with other recruitment terms and processes such as ‘resume database’, ‘a static on call list of candidates’ or ‘an exclusive access to pass the top talent’. But there is world of difference between the both. Candidate pipeline is not selecting the top, high profile candidates for the job which is general and not in a field specific area, but it is selecting people with specialized knowledge prior to the requirement in the field and keeping them updated or training them, and grooving  them for when and where they would be required. 

Building a candidate pipeline is an emerging and highly valued category of recruiting in most high-profile companies. It has its own process of evaluation and assessment techniques which is multi-staged and is often considered tedious. This process has also been called as a way of changing reactive recruiting process to proactive reacting process, or recruiting in advance of the organization’s hiring needs- a way of safe-guarding the candidates with the specific and appropriate skills in their field of interest for future purpose.

Everything is business and this can be considered as one of the business strategies where in, through the process of ‘building a candidate pipeline’, vacant spaces created due to sudden removal or resignation of the employees can be filled by these ‘pipelined’ candidates who are kept updated about the organization’s work. The organization benefits in two ways because of this; one is that they can remove the inefficient workers without the fear of recruiting new ones considering time and cost of recruitment and the second being, having a set of people for the same kind of work, with the same skills but different efficiency, hence having complete freedom for choosing the best for the organization when and where the appropriate skills are needed. 

Developing candidate pipeline is not a short term strategy and takes time to develop and nurture, but in the long term the benefit is worth the investment. This process takes time and requires a consistent relationship building between the organization’s officials and the selected or the ‘pipelined’ candidates.

This is what makes a ‘list of names’ investing time in or worth paying for. They must be selected through a process which not only evaluates their skills required for the work in general, but other specific features in the candidate’s profile, like his/her interest of work, passion and dedication for the work, strive for growth of the organization and specifically the skills which interests the recruiter, are some of the qualities that line up to make the company’s ideal candidate profile. To be successful in developing or building a candidate pipeline, the recruiters in the first place must do a deep research and analysis of the company’s needs and requirements for its future growth and progress. They must have enough knowledge and skills to predict of what kind of talent they would need in future.

Talking about the advantages of this process, we have both sides of the coin to reap the results mutually. One of the most important advantages of building a candidate pipeline is that it shortens the time to fill for open positions. Talent pipeline allows the organization to be two steps ahead of the hiring process and saves time in actively sourcing and narrowing down the ideal candidate profile. The second advantage is that it allows the culture fit candidate much before candidate’s first interview. Even the best of the talents will not be able to succeed if they did not like the company’s culture and working conditions.

Hence, this process of developing a candidate pipeline would benefit both the recruiter and the candidate to develop a rapport with them and know the pros and cons before joining. The candidates also see huge benefits from this process like getting to know full information about the organization for which they are going to work beforehand which makes it simpler and easier for them to work when they are a part of the organization, to know whether they can fit in the work place or not, hence giving them choice.