What is talent pipelining?

Talent pipelining is a strategic service that proactively identifies candidates for future needs. Candidates in a talent pipeline are pre-qualified and interested in your company. This means you can move quickly when a hiring situation arises, avoiding the need to start a talent search from scratch.

Our approach to talent pipelining

Our years of experience, wide network and efficient processes mean we can always move quickly, but talent pipelining goes beyond this. We identify candidates who are not active on the market but match either your current or future needs and are attracted to your brand. Once identified, we assess their suitability and maintain a light-touch relationship on your behalf, creating a talent pool for you to access as you need it.

Trust & transparency

We like to work closely with our partners and adapt our approach to suit specific needs and preferences, maintaining transparency throughout the talent pipelining process. Similarly, we are clear with our candidates from the outset that talent pipelining, for them, is about potential opportunities and not roles available today.

How we find the right talent to pipeline

Our expert team works across all major sectors and functions in 24 countries. We can identify and pipeline the right people for your business based on current or future priorities, either by role, skill or location:

Roles

Whether you’re seeking talent for C-suite, HR, finance, operational, or commercial leadership roles, we can find people who have the right knowledge and experience to ensure their success in the role.

Skills

If you need a special skill set, whether that’s AI expertise, M&A knowledge, or a talent for stakeholder communication, we can create talent pipelines of individuals with those skills so you can see who is out there and also know they will be interested to join you when the timing is right.

Locations

Should you be planning to expand into new territories or are looking to fill upcoming international opportunities, we work around the globe, sourcing talent from 24 countries across five continents. 

Talent pipelining benefits

  • Reduce your time to hire dramatically
  • Increase your readiness for future changes or opportunities 
  • Mitigate the negative impact of open roles on your bottom line
  • Provide confidence to your board or key stakeholders

When to use talent pipelining

  • To generate a talent pool in advance of restructures or expansion
  • To prepare for pre-planned executive exits to reduce downtime
  • To benchmark your current talent against external talent
  • To create a rare skill pool for exactly when you need it

How we’ve supported businesses with talent pipelining

  • A retail company’s recruitment team were not appropriately resourced to do proactive searches or seek out passive talent in the market. They outsourced the responsibility to us, and we built a comprehensive talent pipeline they could refer to in future.
  • A major consumer goods company needed AI and digital skills at their leadership table to deliver on their future strategy. A talent pipeline was built based on these skills, offering them invaluable insights into the range of available quality candidates.
  • A large logistics company was concerned they had made a mis-hire but felt it was too soon to decide. They wanted to be prepared and reduce risk if they needed to act, so we built a tailored talent pipeline that gave them confidence they could re-hire quickly.
  • A major life sciences company was planning a series of moves in their global HR leadership team and wanted to move fast to secure the best talent in the market, but they were not yet ready to press ‘go’. We built a pipeline to ensure they were prepared when they needed to hire.
  • The client had an individual leading a division of their business who they valued and wanted to retain however the individual having been in role 3 years wanted a fresh challenge. There was no internal successor for their position but also there was no opportunity for them to move to in the short term but when this arose the client wanted to move quickly, rehiring either in India or the UK. We undertook a thorough mapping of potential targets against agreed competencies, in the UK, US and India and approached these individuals on a confidential basis Regular client updates allowed us to advise on where the strongest talent pools existed and provided some valuable insights into salary expectations. We presented the pipeline report and kept the talent engaged for 2 months. An opportunity for the internal individual arose and they asked that we shortlist the strongest potentials based on a more detailed dive into their technical and leadership capabilities, which we did within 2 weeks. Following the presentation of 6 shortlisted candidates, an individual from the US was relocated to the UK and hired.
  • An engineering services company was looking to expand its product offering and wanted to retain and grow their existing commercial and operational talent, but equally needed to compare this with the outside market. They were potentially looking to bring in expertise with a new perspective and also use this as an opportunity to increase diversity. We undertook a comprehensive mapping of competitor and adjacent industries, then agreed with the client key information we should gather and who we should target. Individuals were approached without revealing the client’s identity, which prevented internal talent being unsettled. After 4 weeks, a pipeline report was presented with 12 candidates who were all strong options. The client decided at this stage that they would like us to shortlist the most suitable individuals and from these 2 were successfully hired.