The EU has promoted the creation of the Talent Pool as a key tool for addressing skill shortages across the Union. With its adoption expected soon, the question remains: Will Member States, employers, and jobseekers actively engage with it? This commentary outlines five concrete ways to increase the Talent Pool’s added value and, by extension, the likelihood that it will meet its talent attraction and retention objectives.
In April 2025, the European Parliament (EP) adopted its draft resolution on the EU Talent Pool proposal, paving the way for final negotiations that are likely to result in its adoption. In the context of critical labour and skills shortages – and persistent challenges in attracting and retaining international workers – the platform aims to facilitate the recruitment of jobseekers outside the EU by employers across the bloc. Open generally to skilled jobseekers who can fill EU-wide or national shortage occupations, the proposal has been met with a mix of optimism and scepticism regarding its ability to deliver in practice. Since participation will likely be voluntary for Member States, there is a risk of limited uptake if its added value over existing recruitment methods is unclear, or if too few potential users know about and understand how to use it.
The Talent Pool’s promise – and its limitations
In some ways, the Talent Pool takes welcome steps towards addressing policy shortcomings. Importantly, it goes beyond being a job-matching platform by offering additional services that support international recruitment, such as providing information on entry and residence rules, qualification recognition procedures, and working and living conditions in destination countries. For jobseekers, having a centralised platform to explore job opportunities across the EU – where employers are open to hiring internationally – is valuable. Employers, in turn, could gain greater visibility for their vacancies and easier access to a broader, more diverse talent pool. The platform also aims to better connect often-siloed actors, such as migration and labour authorities, through National Contact Points (NCPs) and to facilitate opportunities for individuals who have participated in Talent Partnerships or national skills programmes. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the Talent Pool to serve as a tool that operationalises complementary pathways, namely work-based refugee mobility.
Yet, the Talent Pool cannot resolve challenges that fall outside EU competence, such as gaps and inefficiencies in national migration systems, qualification recognition processes, and relocation and integration initiatives. While improved matching may help, it only addresses one piece of the recruitment puzzle. If migration or credential recognition procedures remain cumbersome, employers and jobseekers may see little value in using the platform – even if it is adopted by Member States. Moreover, although the proposal is designed to address EU-wide or national shortages, the Talent Pool relies on existing labour migration channels, which often focus narrowly on higher skilled individuals and may not fully reflect labour market needs or take into account the experiences of displaced talent.
Nonetheless, the proposed Talent Pool contains several promising features that, if strengthened, could facilitate a more coordinated and effective approach to attracting and retaining talent across the EU.
1. Developing a matching algorithm that supports retention
The Talent Pool proposal includes an automated matching tool (Article 5(2e); Article 16) that generates lists of matches for jobseekers and employers based on jobseekers’ qualifications, skills, and experience. While this could significantly streamline recruitment, it could also go beyond considering just credentials, and indeed, beyond just the main applicant.
It is not just the job that attracts migrant workers to a specific destination, but also other factors including integration-related considerations and long-term prospects. Increasingly, migrants seek to relocate with dependents, as highlighted in the 2024 EU Labour Mobility Practitioners’ Network (LMPN) conference. A commentary by Pairity, an actor that leverages technology and data to facilitate matching in various migration areas, including labour market matching, additionally notes that “the immediate need to match candidates with jobs often overshadows long-term retention considerations, i.e., goodness of fit with local communities – a key factor to ensuring they stay.” If Member States and employers hope to see additional value in their investment in international recruitment by retaining workers, then this goodness of fit with the job – but also with the community and country more broadly – ought to be considered from the onset.
To facilitate better decision-making, matching, and talent retention, the Talent Pool could adopt a more holistic matching system, taking into account candidate preferences and household characteristics in addition to skills. It could also include tools to assess a candidate’s eligibility for national immigration schemes or provide resources to help jobseekers evaluate their compatibility with different destinations. Such improvements would shift the Talent Pool from being a short-term recruitment tool to a longer-term retention enabler, ultimately enhancing its value for all stakeholders and encouraging wider uptake.
2. Reaping the benefits of skills mobility partnerships
The Talent Pool proposal envisions using the platform to spotlight individuals who have developed or validated skills through a Talent Partnership. The Council position would extend this to include those who have participated in national skills development and validation frameworks, while the EP’s adopted position goes further to include jobseekers from countries with bilateral arrangements (Article 12). This tiered visibility could build employer trust in candidates’ qualifications and incentivise Member States to participate. Indeed, one option under consideration would grant Member States temporary preferential access to the profiles of individuals whose qualifications have already been recognised through such partnerships. For instance, under a bilateral partnership between Belgium and Morocco, employers in Belgium could receive exclusive short-term access to the profiles of Moroccan jobseekers trained through the initiative.
To optimise this feature, all jobseekers who participate in EU- or Member State-funded training schemes could be clearly identified. This would enhance the visibility of candidates, while valorising the training investments made by Member States and thereby helping to operationalise and scale these partnerships. These candidates could also benefit from accelerated processing in the recognition of credentials and the granting of visas (though these procedures remain under Member State control).
3. Creating a virtual one-stop shop for all things labour migration
The Commission foresees the Talent Pool as more than a job-matching platform; it is intended to serve as a one-stop shop for jobseekers and employers to access comprehensive, reliable information and resources throughout the labour migration cycle (Article 17). This includes guidance on recruitment and migration procedures, migrant rights and obligations, as well as integration services for workers and their families.
Centralising this information could help address a key barrier to international recruitment: information that is often unavailable, difficult to access, or dispersed across multiple sources that vary in quality. The Commission’s streamlined information platform developed for people fleeing war in Ukraine, from preparations for departure through to integration and return, can serve as inspiration. A similar approach could be taken for the Talent Pool.
By compiling and regularly updating clear, reliable information across participating Member States, the platform could support better decision-making and can also help level the playing field across and within EU Member States by increasing the visibility of job opportunities, especially in less frequently considered destinations. Information tailored to displaced jobseekers and employers interested in hiring them could further support complementary pathways to protection, as displaced talent often faces particular mobility challenges.
Importantly, this resource hub should be open to all users – not only those matched – and draw on existing platforms like Make it in Germany, Work in Finland, and EURES. Other tools, such as the EU-funded MPF-ECDPM mapping of legal pathways to the EU27, which identified nearly 300 legal pathways across the bloc, could also be embedded to ensure high-quality, comprehensive information with minimal additional resources needed from Member States.
4. Empowering bridging actors to boost outreach
Widespread uptake of the Talent Pool will depend on effective outreach to both employers and jobseekers. The Talent Pool proposal recognises the important role of NCPs in guiding users, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that may face resource constraints or lack the know-how to navigate international recruitment. The EP also proposes awareness-raising campaigns targeted at employers to promote the Talent Pool, as well as communication and information campaigns in countries of origin and transit (Article 17).
However, outreach need not rely solely on NCPs. Other bridging actors – intermediaries that connect jobseekers or employers to the Talent Pool – stand to play an important role. To tap into these bridging actors, the EU can leverage existing infrastructure. On the jobseeker side, this includes migrant resource centres and similar structures that provide information, counselling, and training to aspiring labour migrants in countries of origin. Implemented by a variety of organisations, including ICMPD, GIZ, ILO, and IOM, they could integrate the Talent Pool into their programmes and help candidates create competitive profiles. This would align with President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for “multiple purpose legal gateway offices” in partner countries.
On the employer side, bridging actors that work directly with companies in countries of destination, including public employment services, international houses, chambers of commerce, and industry associations, can promote the Talent Pool and support employers in using it for their recruitment needs. Projects such as BRIDGE, a recently launched ICMPD MPF research project, will soon offer further insights on strengthening the role of these intermediaries.
5. Addressing labour exploitation from the outset
A promising feature of the Talent Pool proposal, reinforced by the Council and EP, is its emphasis on ensuring employer compliance with EU and national laws regarding ethical recruitment and decent working conditions. Member State authorities, through their NCPs, would be tasked with vetting participating employers (Article 13), who can be suspended for non-compliance (Article 10(2e)). While such compliance monitoring already exists across various instruments, gaps in policy and implementation mean that migrant workers remain vulnerable to fraudulent recruitment and labour exploitation in the EU. To counter this, the EP has proposed increasing transparency on the Talent Pool platform about working conditions, and all three trilogue institutions have proposed establishing mechanisms for workers to lodge complaints (Article 18). On the other hand, it remains unclear whether migrant workers whose employment ends due to employer misconduct would receive support in finding alternative roles.
The Talent Pool, all told, has the potential to safeguard worker rights and set a higher bar for working conditions. At the same time, lengthy procedures, administrative burdens, and onerous reporting requirements might deter employer participation, especially among SMEs. To avoid this, the platform could combine oversight with incentives such as employee feedback systems, certification badges, or expedited visa processing for employers that meet high standards for workers’ working and living conditions.
Conclusion
Attracting and retaining international talent will ultimately require broader reforms to labour mobility and integration policies across EU Member States, alongside efforts by employers to foster environments conducive to retaining international talent. While the Talent Pool cannot solve all structural challenges, it could be a strategic step forward. Its success will hinge on whether Member States, employers, and jobseekers see real added value in it compared to existing approaches. If well designed and implemented, the Talent Pool could improve recruitment outcomes and lay the groundwork for a more holistic approach to labour migration – one that connects labour and migration actors, fosters exchange and learning among Member States, and engages the bridging actors that make mobility possible.
Marina Grama is a Junior Policy Officer in ICMPD’s Policy Unit. Her work focuses on labour migration, international protection, and EU migration policy.
Caitlin Katsiaficas is a Policy Analyst in ICMPD’s Policy Unit, where her recent research focuses on talent attraction, complementary pathways, and integration.
Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) alone.