How big is your talent pool?

Knowing your needs as well as your options is the perfect way to start an intelligent recruitment process. Have you ever wondered how many people are actually available to fill your position? Rather than endlessly searching for the “perfect person” for your company, here are a few tips to realistic recruitment and finding out how big your talent pool truly is.

Although you may have the best intentions, writing a job description with your perfect employee in mind might not be the best way to find him/her. Instead of dreaming about your ideal candidate, try targeting people who realistically fit the job and might be interested in joining your workforce. To get you started, here are a few figures enabling you to picture the number of available workers in the UK :

• There are 23 million people working in the private sector in the UK

• 10% of these people is actively looking for a job

• 1.4 million of them are looking for a full-time position

But remember, these are overall figures and do not mean that there are 1.4 million people available to work for your company. To find out how big your specific talent pool is, you will need to ask yourself a few other questions, too:

• How many people live in a reasonable commute to your office?

• How many of these people offer the skills your company needs?

• How much competition is there in your area?

In order to answer these questions, try looking at job boards targeting your area and ask yourself why candidates would be more likely to join your company rather than your competitors’.

See how it whittles down? There may even be other questions you need to ask yourself depending on your sector and specific needs. The more precise you are, the closer you will get to realistic recruitment.

All of this might seem like a lot of groundwork but being sensible about recruitment will help you answer your needs better and quicker. If you feel you don’t have time to look into the details of your talent pool, it might be worth investing in having the research done for you, to make sure you get your recruitment right first time. The indirect costs of wrong recruitment can be bigger than you might think.

For more information on realistic recruitment, download our free guide here. We are also available to help you out with any other questions you might have – feel free to get in touch!