I am writing in response to your article ’Using technology to fish for candidates’ (Recruiter, 8 December 2010) about talent pools.

I agree that maintaining an internal talent pool can be an excellent way to access high quality candidates while controlling costs.

However, for an internal talent pool to really add value companies need to think about what non-public data they can include in their internal pool to augment the candidates’ standard CV information. For example, this might be notes from previous interviews, details of the candidate’s contacts/links with the company’s employees, or for contractors this might be information about performance during previous assignments at the company.

Including this kind of information, which other companies wouldn’t have access to, would put companies who have invested in developing an internal talent pool in a better position to decide which, if any, of their future roles their talent pool members are suitable for.

Errol Forbes, founder and chief executive, Resourcing Circle