The most successful businesses are where they are today due to their people. Talent and the workforce that drives a company is directly responsible for its success – with many citing the importance of an effective recruitment strategy in filling the gaps and maintaining traction as they grow and adjust to the ever-changing business landscape.

Talent mapping focuses on the strategy through which the people in your business are linked to your future goals. It is a strategic approach used by businesses to plan for short, medium and long term talent acquisition and to support future roles, which also helps retain top talent through succession and clear progression.

As well as the strategic benefits, talent mapping identifies and builds a pool of talent where individuals have been pre-screened and potentially already expressed an interest in working for the organisation. This means that they can be engaged with in more detail around specific roles up to 18 months after the initial mapping project. Crucially, this embodies a proactive approach to recruitment, with businesses anticipating their next move, mapping their future talent and where it exists in their competitors.

How does talent mapping work?

By recognising where your existing talent lies, you can create a map for development within each team, looking at the potential roles you need to be cultivating, and the types of candidates who will be best placed to step into those roles.

With that in mind, why would you outsource your talent mapping to a recruitment partner?

It comes down to expertise, the allocation and time of resources, and access to the broadest market of skills and personnel. With talent mapping, outsourcing this activity means that a recruitment specialist can support in interpreting what you need and go out to market to identify it for you. Using their own skills, network and access to talent across the market, both among active job hunters and passive talent, the concept of talent market is proactive, strategic and considers what your company can do to future proof plans and stay ahead of the competition.

The benefits of a talent mapping strategy

The benefits of this process are wide-ranging and include:

1. Succession planning – helping your company to recognise what talent you have at your disposal, and how you plan to replace them as and when they move on, retire, or transition to new roles.

2. Competitor insight. Talent mapping can not only provide invaluable insight into your own team but can also help to highlight areas of the business where competitors are hiring and expanding different roles and teams to boost their own success. This allows you to understand your competitors’ approach to talent and provides valuable information to make informed strategic decisions.

3. Reducing the recruitment timeline – helping businesses to plan for the onboarding of necessary roles before they are even advertised, streamlining the entire process and allowing your chosen talent partner to understand the required skill set of a candidate from day one.

4. Garnering market intelligence. By gathering information on where the company is projected to grow and expand in the coming months and years, you can plan your recruitment expenses and goalposts accordingly.

5. Access untapped talent pools. One of the biggest benefits for our clients is the provision of our expertise in helping to connect their talent needs with our access to top-level candidate pools. Not only that, but senior level and executive candidates are often more likely to take contact from recruitment professionals seriously compared with being headhunted by an internal recruitment team, making the process more successful if your talent mapping highlights the need for new recruits.

6. Support for diversity and inclusion strategies, empowering companies to identify their future needs in terms of both skillset and what it takes to present themselves as an inclusive workforce. At HW People, we take a proactive approach to helping you meet D&I objectives by mapping the market to identify a diverse pool of talent.link

Under the guidance and support of HW People, talent mapping can be as targeted or as broad as you like; providing valuable insight to support future succession planning. Placing talent and the people within your business at the centre of growth, our team helps to create a roadmap for future success in order to stay ahead of the competition and support the needs of your business as you grow.

To find out how our talent mapping services can support your business, please contact us at hello@hwpeople.com.