The Talent Profile impacts all other initiatives in the recruitment process. But writing a good profile, and putting it into action across all processes can be a challenge. It’s not about defining a list of criteria in bullet point format and then being done. A good talent profile is clear about what the Job entails, and what an ideal candidate should possess in terms of skills and experience while being based on data so that the Talent Acquisition team can reliably deliver relevant candidates in a well-functioning pipeline. The Talent Profile is also an important part when defining the Assessment for the role(s).
There’s no one way of writing a good talent profile but one good way of approaching it is making sure that the following information is a part of it.
But it is not a wishlist that is long and based on things such as years of experience. Many of the things we put on a requirement list can actually be learned on the job. A good rule-of-thumb is to ask yourself: 'Which of these things did our current high performers master when they entered?' Chances are, those things are fewer than what usually turns up in a Talent Profile.
<aside> <img src="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" alt="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" width="40px" /> What characterizes high-performers is that they learn along the way.
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Creating Talent Pools and segmentation of the candidate market is much easier if the Talent Profiles are clearly laid out. The next step is to populate the profile using data that tells you approximately how big the Talent Pool is, where the right candidates are working now, their salary levels and where your recruitment efforts should be prioritized to maximize impact.
Candidate persona is the semi-fictional representation of your ideal job candidate. Defining your Candidate Persona can significantly improve your talent acquisition strategies. Having this as a part of the Talent Profile has several upsides such as being able to better tailor the Pipelining efforts and getting better reach and engagement with the recruitment-centric content and marketing efforts.
<aside> 💡 Read more about Talent Intelligence, Workforce Planning and Diversity & Inclusion.
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