Building a 1,200 strong talent pool in just eight weeks

The battle for talent is especially fierce in the medical products industry. To say that this is a candidate-driven market is a gross understatement. It is especially difficult to entice experienced and highly competent engineers. So when our client set up a new plant in the West of Ireland there was a lot of “heavy lifting” to be done – identifying potential future employees and building awareness of the company as a global employer of choice.

The client in question is an important subsidiary of one of the world's leading healthcare companies, offering a comprehensive portfolio of orthopaedic and neuro products and services for joint reconstruction, trauma, spine, sports medicine, neuro, cranio-maxillofacial, power tools and biomaterials. The parent company is a leading brand with an excellent reputation and more than 100,000 employees worldwide.

It can be incredibly difficult to find professionals with the right set of competences to fill permanent positions in this sector. Demand is high, there is a severe skills shortage and salary levels are soaring in some niche areas. On the other hand, many potential candidates are already engaged on interesting projects and are therefore “passive”, i.e. reluctant to move before concluding a project, even if an attractive salary package is on offer. A reactive approach using contingency recruitment agencies is therefore inadequate in these circumstances. The client’s in-house talent acquisition team needed support to identify suitably qualified candidates across a range of skills to fill roles such as Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Metrology Engineer, Sterility Assurance Scientist, CNC Engineer, Chemical Engineer and Metallurgist. As part of a leading multinational, the client was also keen to take advantage of opportunities to build awareness of the company’s employer brand within the new geography.

Talent pooling takes recruitment from reactive to proactive: it establishes relationships with a pool of potential candidates who offer the precise competence 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. 

M3S started by conducting interviews with the client’s talent acquisition team and with the hiring departments to understand the precise requirements of the business and each role. This enabled us to form a clear picture of what “success looks like”. M3S then briefed its data services team to interrogate the database and identify candidates with the right profile. This surfaced some 6,500 individuals active locally or abroad. Screening reduced the number to 1,200 well-qualified professionals who matched the profiles and were eligible for employment. M3S then reached out to them to introduce the client, asking if they would be interested in joining the company immediately, or within a one-, three- or five-year timeframe.

The project took just eight weeks and saved the client’s talent acquisition team the massive effort that would be required to source, screen and qualify, and engage with candidates. The internal TA team could therefore get on with “business as usual” while the talent pool was created. Seven candidates were appointed to key roles as a direct result of the project and the client received a talent pool of 1,200 potential future employees.

The talent pooling team actively promoted the client’s employee brand, engaging with local and international candidates who were otherwise passive, i.e. not currently looking for jobs. This is vitally important: at some stage these highly talented professionals will reach the end of current projects and start thinking about the next challenge. The client wants to ensure that it is top of mind when that happens.

“It was critically important to deliver an enjoyable experience to the candidates we approached, so the project had to be handled with great care and finesse,” comments project leader Maria Cosgrove.