Talent pooling to identify and screen future employees

The battle for talent is fierce in the medical devices industry. It is especially difficult to recruit experienced and highly competent engineers. So when our client set up a new manufacturing project, there was a lot of “heavy lifting” to be done in identifying potential future employees.

Our client is a globally active manufacturer and supplier of medical technology, driven to make healthcare better, with a history rooted in innovation. In 2016, it employed 33,000 people worldwide. Products include joint replacement components, bone tissue replacement, robotic arm-assisted technology, surgical power tools, and computer-aided surgery.

It can be incredibly difficult to find professionals with the right set of skills to fill permanent positions in the medical devices industry. The internal talent acquisition team lacked the time to source suitably qualified and experienced professionals to support a new and growing part of its business, the manufacture of a 3-D printed device. This is an exciting and fast-developing niche within the medical technology industry, and the demand for engineers specialising in this area is very high.

Many potential candidates are already engaged in interesting projects and are therefore currently "passive," i.e., reluctant to move, even if an attractive salary package is on offer. A reactive approach is inadequate in these circumstances. The client engaged Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions to generate large numbers of candidates who might be interested in working with them in the future.

Talent pooling takes recruitment from reactive to proactive: it establishes relationships with a pool of potential candidates who offer the precise skill sets that best suit the employer’s needs. Building a talent pool is an effective way for recruiters to ensure a constant flow of candidates is available when needed.

“We have helped the client’s internal talent acquisition team by working through the longlist and qualifying candidates, freeing up their time to work on other responsibilities,”

-Programme Manager Maria Cosgrove.

The project proceeded by first gaining deep insights into the qualities of the candidates they were looking for. Based on this information, Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions interrogated its database to identify matches. Screening and candidate engagement established a talent pool of professionals who are eligible for employment with the client, open to future opportunities, and a good fit with the corporate culture.

Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions relieved the internal talent acquisition team of the burden of screening several thousand potential candidates in three months to reach this number. The project thus freed them to work on other responsibilities.

By the end of the project, the client had received a long list of 179 qualified and interested engineering candidates for any future hires within its 3-D printing teams and the wider business.