Robert McLuhan talks to Restaurant Associates, KPMG and FDS Group.

As some organisations are again reporting problems filling vacancies as the economy picks up, it pays to keep in contact with previous applicants. Recruiters from three companies describe the benefits of maintaining an online talent pool, and offer some tips.

An online talent pool offers significant advantages, says Jane Moger, HR Director for Restaurant Associates, part of the Compass Group.

"We make sure that all our UK opportunities are online for people to apply to. If there is nothing that suits them at that time they can leave their details and we contact them if one comes up.

The system enables us to search for all the people who have applied for a particular role and have experience of two years or more. If we haven't been in touch with them for three months it will send an email inviting them to refresh their details. That's so we know they are still interested.

Using a talent pool smoothes the recruitment process, as it's hard to get to know someone from an application form. Getting into a dialogue with potential recruits makes the process less clinical.

We can also tell them about other opportunities they might be suitable for with the Compass organisation That's a huge advantage as it helps build its reputation with potential customers or clients, who may not have been aware of the full range of its activities.

This is a sophisticated recruitment method, like driving a Formula 1 car as opposed to an old banger with an L plate. The more the HR user gets into it, the better they make use of it.

But in our experience it's best to let recruitment experts use the system, rather than HR generalists or technical operators. Applicants want a proper response, and if you don't give it you could end up damaging your reputation."

Keeping in touch with applicants makes more efficient use of e-recruitment, says Keith Dugdale, Director of Recruitment and Resourcing at KPMG.

"The recruitment market has been in a downturn in the past couple of years. But now the concept of the war for talent is re-emerging, and all of us are wondering where can we find the competitive edge.

After a selection process you may end up with three exceptional candidates but only one vacancy. In the past the other two would have disappeared, perhaps working for your competitors.

By keeping in touch you will be able to make an offer when an opportunity arises. This is where a talent pool really comes into its own.

KPMG has a pool of around 10,000 individuals who are interested in working for us. Now whenever a vacancy comes up we search there for someone with the skills and experience whom we might have had contact with in the past.

As a result of that we might pull them back to the organisation and hopefully persuade them to stay with us.

Running a talent pool is more about cultural attitudes and training than technology. Recruiters have almost Pavlovian response when a vacancy arises, saying 'we had better get this out to the market place as quickly as possible.'

We should really stop and say, 'let's first look up the talent pool, mine that, and only after we have exhausted that route go to the market place.' "

An online talent pool reduces the time to hire, explains Karen Battrick, Operations Director of field marketing company FDS.

"We set up talent pool so that we could shorten the time to hire. Instead of waiting for an advertisement to appear we can go straight to our database of potential recruits.

This contains a large number of people that are interested in joining our company in various senior positions, such as field sales executive and account director.

We keep in touch with them by means of HTML newsletters, giving them updates of what is going on at FDS. We will send around eight of these a year.

Candidates also get a personalised email when there is something that might interest them. This would be along the lines of 'Dear Jack, your details match closely with a job we have in Nottingham, would you be interested?'

How often we stay in touch depends on our needs and where people live. Those in the South East and London will get quite a lot of contact, compared with someone in Scotland where we have fewer vacancies to fill.

Applicants can select themselves into the talent pool by clicking through from our website. However many will be logging on from abroad, so the system needs to be set up so that everyone who is included has a work permit for the UK."