How to do a talent mapping: the practical guide
Talent data gives rise to a new way of sourcing talent. With talent mapping you make use of that data to enable realistic hiring goals and anticipate sourcing challenges.
What is talent mapping?
Talent mapping is the process of analysing the entire available talent pool for a given position. Recruiters do a talent mapping to enable realistic hiring goals and anticipate sourcing challenges.
When to do talent mapping? You do talent mapping when you want to solve a hiring problem that requires hiring at scale and/or hiring for positions that are expectedly very hard to fill.
With talent mapping you get a better understanding of the total talent pool for a set of job criteria. You could also say that you map out the total addressable talent market for a job.
Why do a talent mapping?
Recruitment is getting more data driven. There is not only an increasing amount of talent data but the data is also getting richer and more accessible.
Nowadays we’re talking about a global talent market. Tech companies who have cross-border impact can hire from all over the world. Especially for the remote first companies the world has become their sourcing ground, instead of being limited to local talent.
This gives rise to the opportunity of tapping into new sources of talent and truly find the best candidate there is. This is making very ambitious hiring goals achievable.
But how do you know if your hiring goals are aligned with the actual supply of talent?
And do you understand why challenges that you encounter during the sourcing process arise?
Here talent mapping comes in.
What are the benefits of talent mapping?
Better understanding the total talent pool for your defined set of job criteria brings you the following benefits:
- You have a realistic overview of the total size of the talent pool (total addressable talent market)
- You prevent going after a talent pool that is just too small to realistically succeed in your hiring goal
- You understand challenges that arise during the sourcing process better and therefore you can better manage them
- You align the expectations of the hiring manager and the actual capability to source for desired candidates
How to do talent mapping?
Talent mapping sounds complex but it doesn’t have to be, especially when you already have experience in sourcing.
Step 1. The hiring goal.
Determine the hiring goal together with the hiring manager. Get the key questions answered before you deep dive into the actual search and analytics.
Questions to discuss with the hiring manager:
- What position does the hiring manager needs to fill?
- Why does she needs someone on the position?
- What is the number of hires that she needs?
- And in what time frame?
Tools to use for the hiring goal:
Primarily conversations optionally supported by tools like Zoom and Miro.
Step 2. The profile.
Define the scope of the talent mapping exercise. Determine what the…
