What is the best way to build a pipeline of candidates for the future?

I am not convinced there is a single best way. There are a number of best practices that will build applicant pipelines that can become candidate's and ultimately employees.

I would suggest first and foremost determining how you will manage the pipeline; manually or using technology. Either way will determine your limits.

After that ensuring you have a way of following up with this pipeline with relevant information that keeps the participants interested in your organization.

Maintaining good customer relations with participants in the pipeline is crucial. Ensuring that you answer questions, keep them informed of their candidate or application status and related topics is paramount.

Targeting the right audience is essential to any process. Broad shotgun style advertising isn't as effective as targeted advertising; ensure your sourcing activities are appropriate.

It depends how broad the scope of your pipeline is.

If you're building a pipeline for multiple business units in multiple locations, you have a big task ahead with which you will need great applicant tracking technology and candidate care systems as Don has mentioned in the previous post.

I've found that on a single unit basis, a combination of a business' engagement with the community and a carefully structured communications plan can work wonders.

It's also very simple. Think of what a sales & marketing department does for to attract customers and build customer loyalty. Take that same plan and replace the word 'customer' with 'candidate'. What does your target candidate want and need from your product (the employment experience), how are you going to consistently deliver it and deliver it differently to your competitors? Work that out and then shout it from the roof tops. In HR, we're great at designing at implementing great programs and initiatives, but I find most HR teams are dreadful at selling their success to the outside world.

Think about the last time your HR team issued a media release or paid for advertising space outside a job specific recruitment advertisement. Unless you're Accenture, GE, Google etc, I'm guessing it's been a long time!

One thought is to determine how prepared you are to deliver to that pipeline. If you've got your plan in place to make calls, go onsite, prepare proposals, and deliver results, then yes, you're ready to build your pipeline. A very good way to do that is to go ahead and hire a telemarketing firm that specializes in your indstry, then let them do the legwork of making those initial calls. Be ready to provide them with specifics regarding what your desired demographics are... who is your ideal customer? Do that, and you'll be covered up.