Why talent pools matter
Our Jobtrain July 2026 Talent Insights Report, based on a survey of around 10,000 jobseekers, showed nearly 30% of candidates found the job they applied for through direct messages or job alerts, compared with just under 25% through job boards. Using your own candidate database to reach people proactively is one of the most effective ways to fill roles.
Talent pools and Talent Network: what's the difference?
Talent pools let you group people who've already applied, such as strong runners-up (silver medallists), so you can contact them quickly when a similar role comes up. Talent Networks is an enhanced version that goes further: it lets people who haven't applied yet register their interest and tell you about their skills, preferred locations and experience. If you see Talent in your top menu, you have Talent Networks enabled. If you see Talent Pools, you have the standard version.
What the session covers
- Managing your pools: viewing candidates in each pool, using ranking, notes and last activity and filtering by location, department, skills or employment type.
- Engaging candidates: sending bulk emails or text messages using templates, forwarding candidate details to colleagues and assigning candidates to jobs or other pools.
- Your whole network: seeing every candidate in your database and which pools they belong to in one view.
- The candidate experience: how pools appear as cards on your careers site, how candidates join through a short one-page form, and how they can update or remove their details at any time.
- Setting up: creating talent application forms with standard and custom fields, building landing pages with text, images and video from your media library, choosing whether a pool is published or kept internal, setting closing dates and restricting access to specific users.
- Sharing your pools: using the apply link or landing page link on your website, in emails or as a QR code at careers events and open days.
Good to know
Changes to a talent application form apply straight away, including to candidates who've already completed it. Your existing talent pools and candidates stay in place if you switch to Talent Network and the way you assign candidates from vacancies doesn't change.
Want to turn on Talent Networks?
Raise a ticket with our support team and we can switch it on in your test site first so you can try it out before going live.