What it is
A talent pool is a saved cohort of candidates you keep warm for a recurring need — qualified security officers, experienced care workers, a region’s forklift drivers. Over time pools drift: people get placed, criteria change, and members go quiet. Refreshing a pool re-checks its members against what you need today and shows you which pools are healthy and which have gone stale.
Pools are how you fill repeat roles fast without sourcing from scratch every time. But a stale pool is worse than no pool — it gives false confidence. Refreshing keeps each pool honest: re-engage the quiet ones, merge two pools that have drifted together, split a bloated one, or archive a pool whose purpose has ended.
When to use it
- A pool hasn’t been touched in a while and you’re unsure it’s still good
- You’re about to source from a pool and want it current first
- Two pools have drifted into the same cohort
- A pool has grown too broad to be useful
How it works
Step by step.
- 1
Scan your pools
Each pool shows as a card with its segment, criteria summary, membership and recent activity — so healthy and stale pools are easy to tell apart.
- 2
Spot the stale ones
Pools with no recent additions and no recent engagement are the ones to act on first.
- 3
Refresh against current criteria
Re-evaluate the pool so its members are scored against what you need today, not what you needed when you built it.
- 4
Act on the result
Re-engage quiet members, merge two pools that overlap, split a pool that’s grown too broad, or archive one whose need has ended.
- 5
Confirm and move on
Apply your action. The pool card updates to reflect its new shape and freshness.
Worked example
Follow it through.
The scenario
Your "Docklands forklift drivers" pool hasn’t moved in two months and you have a peak coming.
- 1 Scan the pools; the Docklands forklift pool shows "No additions · no engagement · 42 members".
- 2 Open it and refresh against current criteria — current licence and recent availability.
- 3 The refresh flags 11 members whose licence has lapsed and 6 who are now placed elsewhere.
- 4 Re-engage the 25 still-qualified members through a quick outreach.
- 5 Archive the lapsed members out of the active pool.
The result
The Docklands forklift pool is current — 25 warm, qualified drivers ready for the peak, and the stale members cleared out.
Tips & notes
Good to know.
- Refresh a pool before you source from it, not after — it’s the difference between calling people who can work and people who can’t.
- Merge two pools only when they’re genuinely the same cohort; otherwise you lose the targeting that made them useful.
- Split a bloated pool by a sharper criterion — region, ticket or availability — to make it actionable again.
- Archiving doesn’t delete anyone; it just takes them out of the active pool so the warm list stays warm.
When you’re done
A current, trustworthy talent pool you can source from with confidence.