Talent pool as a factor of the competitiveness enhancement of the modern university

Article - case “Talent pool as a factor of competitiveness enhancement of the modern university†. The aim of the article is to form suggestions on a general talent pool structure for improving higher education institution competitiveness using the experience of Tomsk Polytechnic University talent pool in 2014-2015. The recent years witnessed a growing interest towards creating talent pools at Russian universities which is caused by the launch of national research universities project in 2008, the project on im­proving Russian universities competitiveness among international education institutions in May 2013 and resulting financing growth. Therefore we feel the need to exchange best practices in creating and managing talent pools at universities. In order to achieve the stated objective the following methods were used: description, measurement, comparison and analysis. The authors made a review on academic publications on the giv­en topic for the last 5 years and singled out main specific features of working with talent pools in modern organization, in particular, at the universities. Then the author provided stage by stage practical ex­perience of working with talent pool at Tomsk Polytechnic Univer­sity: candidate evaluation and selection, candidate enrollment and talent pool groups formation, talent pool members development pro­gram, use of rating system for evaluating efficacy of their activities. The talent pool management system described in the article can be viewed as the foundation for effective development of hu­man resources at any Russian university willing to achieve high po­sitions in national and international rankings. When adapting the system of creating and managing talent pool suggested by the author for the needs of another university one must pay particular attention to factors limiting talent pool program im­plementation at the university in order to avoid possible difficul­ties in creating its own system. The modern system of talent pool at TSU is a combination of traditional university approach to working with human resourc­es and modern HR instruments borrowed from business environ­ment and adapted to university needs. It allows for more effective formulation of talent pool members selection criteria, conducting candidate selection according to fixed criteria of international best practices and creating productive talent pool members develop­ment program based on competence model used at TSU as well as designing evaluation system for talent pool members efficacy and suggesting methods of top managerial vacancies prognostica­tion. Obtained results form the basis for further more systematic and effective work with talent pool which makes a significant in­put into achieving strategic aims of the university. Therefore this article is of interest for rectors, university managers and person­nel executives.