Build Talent Pools & Job Alerts in Quelixa

The one who nearly made it

Lina: Monday the twenty-fifth. At nine o'clock a new advert went live: a senior product designer for the Singapore studio.

James Whitfield: Claire Beaumont was second for the designer job in October. Eighty-five on the test.

Elena Novak: And she heard nothing from us since. Let's not start from zero.

Lina: That is this chapter: keeping good people close after a no — and telling people about jobs they asked to hear about.

Lina: A talent pool is a short list of people you would like to hear from again. A job alert is a candidate asking to hear from you. Both only work if people have agreed to be contacted.

Staying in touch, properly

Lina: Four ideas.

Lina: A pool: people you decided to keep in touch with — the ones who came close, a bench of strong profiles.

Lina: An invitation: when a job fits them, you write and ask them to apply.

David: And a job alert is the candidate doing the asking.

Lina: Exactly — they choose what to hear about, and how often.

Lina: And under all of it, consent. Nobody is written to who has not agreed to it, or who has asked us to stop.

Two switches

Lina: It starts with two switches, which James turned on when Northwind began.

Lina: Keep silver medallists: anyone who reaches the interview, the merit list or the offer and is not hired joins a pool automatically.

David: So nobody has to remember to add them.

Lina: Nobody. And send job alerts: candidates who asked for them get new jobs as they go live — instantly, daily or weekly, never twice for the same job.

Northwind's pools

Lina: Elena's list of pools.

Lina: The silver medallists — filled on its own,

David: Can anyone start a pool?

Lina: Any recruiter — like this finance bench somebody built by hand. Each shows how many people are in it, and how many can actually be contacted.

What the pool is for

Lina: The silver medallists pool.

Lina: Automatic,

David: So it grows after every round, on its own.

Lina: with a sentence saying who belongs: people who reached the final stages and were not hired.

Lina: And a warning worth reading: one member cannot be contacted. They will be skipped, whatever anyone clicks.

Eight people, each with a reason

Lina: The members.

Lina: For each person: why they are here, how far they got, and how many times we have invited them.

Lina: Claire: reached the merit list for Product Designer in October.

David: And Tariq?

Lina: Tariq clicked unsubscribe in November. He stays in the pool, but the pool will not write to him.

Ranked against the new job

Lina: Now the useful part. Elena matches the pool against the senior designer post.

Lina: Everyone is ranked by how many of the post's skills they have, then by experience.

Lina: Claire comes first — design systems, product design, user research — and the most years.

David: Two of them score nothing.

Lina: Two engineers from another round. They stay in the pool; they are just not right for this job.

Lina: And Tariq cannot be ticked at all.

Five people, one personal line

Lina: She ticks the five designers, and adds a line of her own.

Lina: The note under the button is the promise: consent, opt-outs and earlier invitations are respected automatically.

David: So nobody gets the same invitation twice.

Lina: Never twice for the same job. Invite five.

Sent

Lina: Five invited: an email to each, and a note on their candidate portal.

Lina: And the list has changed: the five now read, already invited to this job. Only the two engineers could still be picked.

Keeping a pool honest

Lina: A few habits keep a pool worth having.

Lina: Every member has a reason for being there.

Lina: The ranking is a suggestion. A person still decides who gets written to.

David: And an unsubscribe really means stop.

Lina: It does. And pools age: when Northwind's retention period passes, old profiles are anonymised, and they drop out of every pool.

An alert he asked for

Lina: Meanwhile, the other direction. Rohan Desai was not a silver medallist — he did not get past scrutiny in October.

Lina: But he asked for job alerts, and at five past nine this reached him: a new job matches your alert.

Lina: The job, with one link to it,

Lina: and at the bottom, a way to stop.

Rohan's own settings

Lina: And this is where he set it up, on his candidate portal.

Lina: Alerts on, a weekly digest,

Lina: and two keywords: designer, design system. The Dubai post did not match, so it never reached him.

David: He's in charge of what he gets.

Lina: Entirely. And he can see when the last one went out.

An email from October

Claire Beaumont: Northwind again. The designer job — they remembered me.

Lina: Claire opens the invitation Elena sent on Monday morning.

The invitation

Lina: From Northwind,

Lina: with Elena's line in it: you came very close in October.

David: It doesn't read like a mass mailing.

Lina: Because it isn't one. The job, one link,

Lina: and a footer that says why she received it — she applied before and agreed to be contacted — and how to stop these messages.

On her portal too

David: And if she never opens her email?

Lina: Her candidate portal says the same thing — we thought of you —

Lina: next to her October application.

The job, from her side

Lina: The link opens the job, and the portal compares it with her profile: she matches three of the six skills.

Lina: Then the same apply button everyone else sees.

Nothing to type twice

Lina: She presses apply, and the form is already filled from her profile — her name, contact details and headline here; her qualifications and experience on the next steps.

David: So coming back is quicker than the first time.

Lina: Much quicker. She checks it, and sends it that evening.

A kind no

Yuki Watanabe: It's a lovely role. But I start a new job next month — they should stop writing to me.

Lina: Yuki Watanabe was invited too.

Asked, not assumed

Lina: She clicks stop these messages. The page asks first: alerts and invitations will stop; messages about an application she made will not.

David: Why ask? She already clicked.

Lina: Because mail security scanners open every link in an email. If the link alone unsubscribed people, some would be unsubscribed without ever touching it.

Done

Lina: She presses it. Done — and she can switch alerts back on from her profile any time.

David: And messages about something she applied for still reach her.

Lina: They do. Only the marketing stops.

Every message, on the record

Lina: Thursday, Elena's invitations log. Every alert and invitation, sent or skipped, with the reason.

David: Does it know she applied because of the invitation?

Lina: It links the two: Claire's invitation — marked applied.

Lina: Rohan's alert.

David: So you can tell whether the pool is worth the effort.

Lina: Exactly that.

What came of it

Lina: And the pool itself: five invitations sent, one application already.

Lina: Underneath, who was invited for what, and who came back.

Yuki's choice, respected

Lina: In the member list, Yuki now reads opted out of messages — the choice she made on Wednesday.

Lina: And Claire: invited once.

Claire, back in the process

Lina: And in the applications, Claire's new one, for the senior post — under a code, blind like every other new applicant.

David: No head start for having been second last time.

Lina: None. She came back because she was invited; she will be judged like everyone else.

Three things worth keeping

Lina: Three things to keep.

Lina: A no can be a not yet: the people who came close are kept, with a reason.

Lina: Matching suggests; a person decides who is written to.

David: And stop really means stop.

Lina: Confirmed with a click, and on the record.

Who fits how

Elena Novak: Skills we can match. How someone works with a team is another question.

James Whitfield: Then let's ask it properly — for the Dubai team lead.

Lina: Next chapter: the Personality Index — a questionnaire about how people work, and how much it should count.

Lina: That was talent pools and job alerts. See you in chapter four.