Hiring workflows
Talent pools & campaigns
Two tools for finding people before (or beyond) a job posting. A talent pool is who you want to keep in touch with. A campaign is what you're doing to reach them, and how well it's working.
Which one do I need?
| Talent pool | Campaign | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A saved list of people | A time-boxed outreach push with a goal |
| Tied to a job? | No, it lasts as long as you want | Optional: link a job, a pool, or both |
| Use it when | Someone is a good fit but there's no role right now; you want a shortlist ready before a role opens | You're actively reaching out on LinkedIn, by email, through referrals, at an event, on a job board or with an agency, and want to see what works |
| Examples | “Past runners-up”, “Former employees”, “Fintech PMs” | “Email 50 Fintech PMs in March”, “Spring referral drive” |
| Plan | Starter and above | Growth and above |
Talent pools: getting started
- Create a pool. Open Talent pools in the sidebar and use New pool. Name it after what connects the people.
- Add people. On a candidate's profile use Add to pool in the sidebar, or tick several people on Candidates or the pipeline board and choose Add to pool.
- Reach out when a role opens. Open the pool, select people and use Add to a job (pick the job and starting stage; anyone already in that pipeline is skipped). You can also email them from their profile, or track a larger push as a campaign.
Recruiters, admins and owners can create pools and add or remove people. Everyone who can see candidates can see pools. Automations can also add people to a pool.
Campaigns: getting started
- Pick who you're reaching. Optionally choose a talent pool and/or the job you're hiring for.
- Create the campaign. Open Campaigns and use New campaign: a name, the channel (LinkedIn, email outreach, referral drive, event, job board or agency), a target number of people and start/end dates. Start it as Active, or as a Draft if you're still planning.
- Update the numbers. As you go, open Update numbers or status on the campaign and enter how many people you contacted, how many replied and how many are interested. Mark it Paused or Completed when it's done. Add interested people to the job's pipeline from their profile.
The top of the Campaigns page totals every campaign: active campaigns, people contacted, reply rate and interested. Use it to compare channels. Otter doesn't send campaign messages for you; the numbers are what your team records.
Related
- Pipeline & kanban: bulk Add to pool and moving people through stages.
- Inbound & outbound email: emailing candidates and the email log.
- Automations: add people to a pool automatically.