A succession pool is not a list of promising people in general but a mapping: for each critical position it is known who could take it and what that person is still missing. The pool exists for speed of replacement — it is tested on the day a site manager resigns without notice.
Why a pool is built around positions, not people
A list of "talents" with no link to positions is no help the moment a position opens: it is unclear which of the named people is ready for that particular one. So the pool is built from the other end — first the positions whose vacancy is expensive, then candidates for each.
That also gives the quality test: a pool is useful if every key position has at least one ready candidate and a known readiness date. A "pool of 40 people" without that mapping is a report, not a tool.
How it is assembled
A pool is derived from two things: written requirements for the position, and an assessment of who meets them.
- A list of key positions: the ones where a vacancy costs the most — site managers, crew leads, narrow specialists.
- Position requirements taken from the competency matrix — otherwise "readiness" is judged by eye.
- Candidate assessment: performance review results, certifications, actual KPI figures.
- A plan against the gap: every pool member has an IDP with a completion signal and a date.
How this works in Verifix
In Verifix Career the pool is not maintained as a separate list: the system matches a grade's requirements against confirmed competencies and results, and shows who already meets the conditions for a move and who has one requirement left.
Recruit covers the other half — the external pool: strong candidates who were not hired stay in the talent base with their conversation history, so when a vacancy opens they do not have to be found again.
In short
A succession pool is measured not by how many people are on the list but by how many key positions have a ready successor with a known readiness date.