What is Talent Acquisition in HR?

What is HR talent acquisition?

The term “talent acquisition” refers to the steps used to find, attract, evaluate, and ultimately hire top talent. It is a crucial aspect of the employee experience and, possibly, the single most essential factor in an organization’s success.

Finding the perfect person to fill a job opening is no easy feat. At a 17-year high, 77% of businesses are saying they are short on talent. You need talent acquisition to help you attract and retain top personnel if you want to succeed in the long run.

Learn the ins and outs of talent acquisition, its significance, and how to develop a plan for it all in this comprehensive guide.

Recruiting qualified candidates and ensuring they are a good cultural fit are at the heart of talent acquisition.

Building a diverse workforce, creating an employer brand, finding, interviewing, and ultimately employing qualified applicants to fill available roles, and planning for future resources are all part of talent acquisition’s scope. When done correctly, this leads to less employee turnover, more productivity, and more engagement.

There should be harmony between the people strategy and the talent acquisition plan. This approach is in line with the overall organizational strategy.

The role of talent acquisition has evolved over the years. It has grown into an integral aspect of people strategy and is now either its own department or a dedicated team in most companies.

The foundations of talent acquisition

According to Benjamin Schneider’s Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) hypothesis, there are three interconnected factors that make up talent acquisition. These are the factors that organizations use to select their employees.

• Attraction is the first force. Even though they have the option to apply to any company, most people only apply to the ones they are really interested in working for. A strong employer brand and an attractive benefit package for workers are two ways in which these companies stand out.
• Selection is the second force. It is the duty of the hiring organization to choose applicants who are a good fit for the position and the company once they receive applications. Job fit and organizational fit are the two most important factors here.
• Lastly, we have attrition. If an employee isn’t a good match for their position or the company, they will leave after a while. This ensures that the company will only keep employees that mesh well with its culture and values.

When it comes to acquiring new talent, these three factors are crucial.

Finding and hiring top talent

Most people mean the same thing when they talk about talent acquisition, recruiting, strategic recruitment, or corporate recruitment. There are some key distinctions between talent acquisition and recruitment, despite the fact that both aim to replace vacant jobs in a company.

The goal of talent acquisition, a longer-term, more strategic process, is to anticipate future staffing needs and locate highly qualified candidates for open positions.

The operational, short-term job of filling openings is more often associated with recruitment. Jobs that are in high demand or won’t be hard to fill are the ones that recruiters target most often. On the flip side, talent acquisition takes additional preparation and time to learn about the various departments and jobs, as well as the specific knowledge and abilities needed for each.

Talent acquisition encompasses a wide range of activities, such as strategic recruiting, employer branding, optimization of the recruitment process, outsourcing of the recruitment process, and many more.

Talent acquisition with a strategic focus

A company’s strategic talent acquisition plan is its own way of finding, attracting, evaluating, employing, and keeping employees who are a good fit for the company’s culture and who can help it reach its objectives, both now and in the future.

This approach will change based on the sector, the type of business, and the jobs being filled. Additionally, organizational objectives are crucial. Because of this, thinking forward to the organization’s needs and objectives is essential when developing a talent acquisition strategy.

A common error that many companies make is to rush to fill open positions. For an organization to succeed in the long run, it is necessary to look beyond its current demands.

A company may require its staff to have particular knowledge and abilities, for instance, if it plans to expand internationally in the near future. Conversely, hiring more people can be necessary for a business to meet the increased demand for its goods and services.

A larger talent management strategy often includes strategic talent acquisition.

Does human resources handle talent acquisition?

The HR department is in charge of hiring new employees, getting them started, paying them and making sure they get benefits, training and developing workers, letting them go, and more.

Managing the hiring demands of a growing organization usually involves the creation of a talent acquisition unit. Finding, interviewing, and ultimately hiring the most qualified individuals for open positions is TA’s main goal.

The Human Resources department is usually in charge of talent acquisition in most companies. As a general rule, the CHRO is reporting to the VP of recruiting or talent acquisition.

What is the value of talent acquisition?

For several reasons, talent acquisition is crucial to a company’s success as it grows.

• Getting top talent: Acquiring talent helps companies find and hire the best people for their open positions. Organizations develop talent strategies in response to their specific requirements and long-term goals. That way, the people brought on board aren’t only qualified; they also share the company’s values and have the potential to contribute significantly in the future. Even when a position isn’t immediately available, Nationwide Mortgage Bankers nevertheless hire people that align with company beliefs.
• Spending less: A well-thought-out talent acquisition plan can help lower the cost of hiring by streamlining the process, improving the quality of hires, and lowering turnover rates. This saves time and money in the long run.
• Keeping employees longer: Companies can keep employees longer by coming up with talent acquisition strategies that help them hire people who will fit in well with the company’s culture and share its goal and vision. This can also help you save money, gain organizational expertise and experience, and boost team morale.
• Assembling effective teams: A fundamental goal of talent acquisition is to assist organizations in assembling teams that possess a varied array of expertise, experiences, and perspectives. This makes people more productive, helps them work together, and helps them solve problems.
• Making the workplace more diverse and welcoming: Talent acquisition tactics also help companies make the workplace more diverse and welcoming. There is more imagination and innovation, and the company has a better reputation as a place to work. Bitwise Industries, a tech startup, promotes diversity by doing away with needless degree requirements. Instead, they put their efforts into developing individuals who show potential but don’t have the degree that other tech companies want.
• Keeping the business going: A good talent acquisition plan helps build a pool of top candidates and thinks about what the company might need in the future in terms of workers. Regardless of the circumstances, businesses that take a proactive approach to talent acquisition will always have access to qualified workers. IBM is a fantastic illustration of a proactive company. The need for data scientists is growing, therefore the company has teamed up with various schools to educate the next generation of experts in the field. They’re getting to know prospective students early on in the process so they can attract them when they graduate.
• Successful succession planning and management: By acquiring talent, companies may anticipate future needs and find people who could go into key positions. These workers can be prepared to fill in as necessary through training and mentoring.
• Improving company output: In the end, businesses can boost their efficiency and acquire a competitive advantage by putting top people in the correct jobs. This has a major impact on the company’s success in the long run.

Developing an approach for talent acquisition

To fulfill your organizational goals and avoid talent shortages, you must develop a talent acquisition strategy that fits your company’s needs and vision for the future.

To develop a winning strategy for acquiring talent, you can use one of numerous routes. When faced with a talent acquisition difficulty, many companies turn to the 4 B method: build, buy, borrow, and bridge.

Below, we’ll delve deeper into each of these talent acquisition tactics.

1. Build

Companies may opt to develop skills internally as they face challenges in attracting and retaining highly qualified and specialized personnel. This could mean working with certain schools (like IBM did above), making programs for internships and hiring recent graduates, and also improving the skills of employees within the company.

To find out what needs developing the most, an internal skills gap study can be helpful. That way, companies may tailor their training programs to both current and prospective staff members. These workers can take on more responsibility and new positions after they get upskilled.

Companies with a heavy focus on technology would benefit most from the Build approach.

2. Buy 

Secondly, we can “purchase” seasoned professionals from outside sources. These individuals are either currently employed by a rival company in a comparable capacity or are prepared to advance to a more senior position within the company.

To get these candidates to leave their jobs, however, an appealing employee value proposition (EVP) is necessary. The Buy strategy relies heavily on its main components, which are compensation and benefits. Sixty-nine percent of workers would take a job with greater benefits over another, and 84 percent of businesses think their benefits packages help them recruit top talent.

For fast-growing businesses and startups, where “building” isn’t cutting it, this talent acquisition technique is a great fit.

3. Borrow

The next tactic is to hire outside help. In reality, this entails bolstering your current workforce with the help of freelancers, contract workers, contingent workers, and temporary workers.

A smaller company that has specific, one-of-a-kind job requirements or needs someone for a limited time project but doesn’t want to commit to these abilities permanently or isn’t sure how to use them yet can benefit from this approach.

4. Bridge

Using talent analytics, companies may find out which workers, thanks to their growing skill sets, could be up for promotions and other advancement opportunities down the road. Additionally, bridging is an effective retention tactic. As a result, workers are able to grow as professionals, which in turn boosts their chances of advancement and makes them feel appreciated by their employer.

Bridge is the last talent acquisition method in the 4B model. The goal of this approach is to broaden the skill sets of current employees and, maybe, provide them with training in related fields through the use of learning and development programs.

For secure companies that are willing and able to invest money into their employees, the Bridge plan is the way to go.

Businesses can increase their chances of success in growth, innovation, and general operations by implementing a well-thought-out talent acquisition strategy.

The process of acquiring talent

Streamlining your talent acquisition process is the first step in putting your strategy into action. Normally, there are nine stages to this procedure.

Below, we will look at each stage.

1. Needs assessment for the organization

All of your hiring decisions and strategies should be based on the results of the organizational needs analysis.

This phase involves developing a set of fundamental skills and principles that embody the organization’s purpose, vision, objectives, and values. These factors impact your selection criteria for evaluating the candidate’s fit with the organization and the role, as well as the profile you’re seeking.

A skills gap analysis—also known as an organizational needs analysis—may already exist as part of an established HR policy.

2. Getting the employment request greenlit

The first step in hiring is obtaining approval for the job requisition. Job requisitions are the official way for organizations to ask for new employees when they have a need. A common format for the job requisition is a document outlining:

• Exactly why is this role necessary
• Whether it’s a new job or one that already exists
• Organizational unit
• Manager in charge of hiring
• Job responsibilities
• Compensation and financial planning
• Commencement date
• Whether this is a temporary or permanent position
• The job’s status (full-time, part-time, etc.)

This will allow the direct supervisor and the appropriate vice president or director to officially authorize the position request.

3. Job openings

A talent acquisition expert will undertake a thorough job analysis during the intake process to gather all the necessary data for a quality hire. Among these are:

• The job description: Outlines all the necessary abilities, knowledge, and tasks for the position on a daily basis.
• The person specification: Outlines a candidate’s requirements, including both necessary and desirable qualities, as well as their experience, education, and other relevant factors. You can use this information to develop a profile of the perfect prospect.
• The competence framework: The essential skills and knowledge needed for the position, together with the bare minimum of each. Once the position is filled, these will serve as the foundation for performance evaluations and will also aid in developing the person specification.
• Vacancy intake is sometimes underappreciated because it is time-consuming and might postpone the recruiting timetable.

4. Choosing criteria and procedures for selection

We decide on the selection criteria and process based on the vacancy intake. Numerous selection procedures exist; some examples include:

• Evaluation of general cognitive abilities
• Evaluations of work samples
• Interview formats (organized and unstructured)

Methods of selection vary according to functions.

A high-profile candidate may be “headhunted” for a post such as chief financial officer. Several unstructured interviews, thorough reference checks, and a test of job expertise would make up the selection procedure. Nevertheless, a far more regimented procedure incorporating a GMA exam, well organized interviews, and work sample exams may be adequate for an entry-level accountant.

You can use a utility study to figure out the return on investment (ROI) of selection. With this information, we can find the best selection strategies.

5. Seeking and attracting

The next step in talent acquisition is the search for candidates, which is the most publicized and recognizable step.

Candidates typically fall into two categories: active and passive. Unlike passive applicants, who aren’t actively looking for work, active candidates may frequently visit your careers page. For them to take an active interest in your position, you need to use a more targeted trigger or outreach strategy. As a result, talent acquisition experts may need to adapt their strategies to appeal to various demographics.

Using the candidate persona that we discussed before, we can determine the best routes for recruitment. Campus recruiting and the ad features of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, for example, could be useful when filling entry-level positions. Conversely, channels like LinkedIn tend to attract senior and experienced candidates.

6. Carry out procedures for selection

Applying for a job is the first step in the selection process. Things like:

• Screening
• Initial evaluations
• Performance Assessments
• Interviews
• References and background checks

7. Final hiring choice

A job offer comes after you’ve chosen the person you want to hire. Before the candidate officially accepts the offer, there may be some back-and-forth bargaining to ensure that all parties are satisfied.

The offer acceptance rate, defined as the proportion of offers that were accepted out of all the offers made, is an important measure to monitor at this stage.

8. Onboarding

Onboarding new staff is the next step in talent acquisition.

A 30-60-90 day plan is an excellent tool that helps new hires and their bosses alike. By outlining each phase of the onboarding process, it helps the manager in communicating their expectations and provides the candidate with a clear understanding of their responsibilities.

The strategy can be based on the vacancy intake.

9. Evaluation

Evaluating candidates is the last step in talent acquisition. Here, we inquire as to whether or not the position and company are a good fit for the candidate. This is a great chance to reconnect with the candidate.

You must resolve the issue of conflicting expectations. Recruiters may have made promises that managers do not know about or there may be a breakdown in communication.

If you want to find out what’s holding your talent acquisition process back, how to make it better for candidates, and whether or not it’s successful in bringing in and keeping the best employees, then you need to conduct an evaluation.

Guidelines for effective talent acquisition

To ensure the success of your talent acquisition strategy, it is essential to adhere to the following best practices.

1. Establish an excellent track record as an employer

When a company has a solid reputation as an employer, it is easier to recruit top talent and keep good employees around. What is your employer brand saying about you, then? How can potential employees learn about your company through your online presence? Is there a way to rethink your employer brand by focusing on these areas and making your company’s values, culture, and mission statement more prominent?

Companies who put effort into building their reputation as an employer attract 50% more top talent. Additionally, their time to hire is 1-2 times faster. In addition, there is a 130% higher likelihood of increased employee engagement at organizations that prioritize workplace branding. Finally, LinkedIn found that employers who put money into their employer brand saw a 28% drop in employee turnover.

When it comes to building your employer brand, pay and benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. All of these things—work-life balance, employee wellness, teamwork, DEIB, possibilities for advancement, the culture of the workplace, and more—are a part of your strategy.

To boost your employer brand, put employee testimonials on your website’s careers page, promote employee engagement on social media, and check that job descriptions accurately reflect your company’s values. YNAB wants potential employees to know if they’ll be a good cultural fit, so they offer job descriptions that are up to four times longer than average.

In a job market full of people looking for work, think about how you can tell a story that makes you stand out and show people why they should choose you.

Attracting top talent is as simple as putting recruitment marketing strategies into action. If the TA group wants to make an impression as an attractive employer, they should work together with the marketing department to create engaging employer branding materials including job postings, jobs pages, emails, and more.

2. Align the goals of your business with the talent acquisition process

While talent acquisition is more concerned with the big picture, recruitment is more concerned with meeting immediate needs. You need to think about the future of your business and how it will grow or evolve. Using this data, you can find talented people to accompany you on this adventure.

Create a step-by-step plan of your present talent acquisition process, note the problems, and evaluate how you can make it more uniform and effective. This will help you treat everyone fairly. The next step is to meet with company executives and talk about how these phases can be more business-focused so that the business can achieve its goals in the next few years.

The talent acquisition group may seek out applicants with foreign work experience, for instance, if the company is planning an upcoming expansion into Asia. On the other hand, you might want to prioritize recruiting skilled programmers and developers if you’re in the process of building a new software as a service solution. Think about the skills your company will require in the future, even if a specific position doesn’t exist quite yet.

3. Make use of information and technology

Keeping abreast of any market technological changes that can improve the TA team’s performance is crucial, especially given how quickly technology evolves and becomes popular. By 2028, the global market for talent acquisition suites software is expected to grow 14.3% each year.

From advertising open positions to assisting new hires during the onboarding process, technology may greatly enhance your talent acquisition approach. Nearly all CEOs (99%) report that digital investments have paid off for their companies.

It is your responsibility as a business to sell your wares to the people who will buy them by explaining the value they provide and the reasons they need your product or service. Convincing people of the benefits of joining your organization is equally important. Data can greatly enhance your talent acquisition strategy in that particular area.

If you want to know how to attract and retain top talent, for instance, statistics can show you which channels and tactics are most effective. It can also let you know if there are any questions or parts of the job description that are turning off potential applicants, so you can fix those.

4. Propose alternatives for more adaptable work schedules

There has been a huge shift away from the 9 to 5 office model since the pandemic. A lot of companies have gone for a more versatile strategy and started using a hybrid model.

According to studies, some employees would prefer working remotely rather than receiving an increase in pay. Additionally, compared to those without scheduling flexibility, those with it report 29% more productivity and 53% better attention.

In particular, members of Generation Z and Millennials are pushing for more flexibility in their work schedules. Consequently, people are more likely to be interested in working for organizations that provide opportunities for remote work, hybrid work models, and flexible scheduling.

5. Work on anticipating and planning the workforce

Workforce planning is essential for a successful talent acquisition strategy since organizational and workforce trends impact talent acquisition decisions.

You can gain a better grasp of the present and future recruitment workload by maintaining constant communication with your hiring managers. If the TA team can see into the future, they will have a far better chance of attracting top talent when they need it.

Additionally, the talent acquisition team may anticipate future recruiting needs by comprehending workforce characteristics, such as retirements, changes in skill requirements, and turnover rates. The organization may better control recruitment expenditures, have a consistent stream of high-quality candidates, and be ready for different eventualities with this forward-thinking approach.

6. Strengthen your methods of reaching out

One important thing to do when acquiring talent is to broaden your sourcing tactics. Using a variety of outreach strategies is essential if you want to attract top people with a wide range of abilities.

LinkedIn is great for broad-based recruiting, but if you need to fill a position that requires a specific set of skills or expertise, you might want to look into specialty job boards, form partnerships with academic programs, or attend networking events.

Another important aspect of corporate recruiting for many companies is Recruitment Process Outsourcing, or RPO. As a type of process outsourcing, RPO lets an outside service handle all or part of the hiring process. If there are any unforeseen shifts in the demand for workers, it might be beneficial to keep in touch with these companies even if you aren’t using their services at the moment.

If you want to create a strong talent acquisition operation, follow these strategies. Ultimately, you want your talent acquisition capabilities to be the engine that propels your company forward.

A well-thought-out and implemented TA strategy lays out a course of action for your workforce over the next three to five years, including data and analytics into your HR operations as a whole to provide tangible results for your company.

Analytics for talent acquisition

Data is now crucial for developing and implementing talent acquisition strategies, as we have previously stated. These days, talent acquisition analytics is all the rage, and with good reason: it helps with strategic planning, decision-making, and increasing the efficacy of TA initiatives in general.

Talent acquisition analytics, often known as TA analytics, is the process of analyzing various types of recruitment and candidate data using technology in order to discover trends and insights. This includes looking at how well the different sourcing channels work, the results of candidate experience surveys, how long each step of the hiring process takes, and more. Having said that, these analytics will only be useful if the teams involved know exactly what metrics and data points they should be collecting and why.

Improve the hiring process as a whole, make better choices, and get closer to your organization’s goals with the support of the TA team’s evidence-based recruiting and onboarding decisions.

Predictive talent analytics are presently available to only 20% of companies. Companies that put money into talent analytics outperform their competitors by 40%, according to research by Bain & Company.

Performance indicators for talent acquisition

To do talent acquisition analytics, you need to keep track of data. Usually, you can do this in an Excel sheet, an applicant tracking system, or an assessment suite.

Among the many talent acquisition metrics out there, you might find the following useful:

1. Time to fill

A position’s time to fill is the average number of days it takes to find and recruit a replacement employee, or the time it takes from the approval of a job requisition until the candidate accepts an offer of employment.

A lot of things influence this statistic, including how quickly your TA team works and how many people are applying for the specific position.

2. Time to hire

Time to fill and time to hire are not exactly the same thing. Time to hire counts the days that pass between when a candidate applies for a job or when one of your workers contacts them and when they accept the job offer.

This indicator provides insight into the efficiency of your recruiting team and the time it takes for candidates to go through your hiring process. Additionally, it might help you identify any obstacles or places where you could improve your hiring process.

Candidates will have a more pleasant experience if your hiring process is shorter. Additionally, you lessen the likelihood that your competitors will steal your applicants.

3. Offer acceptance rate

The percentage of applicants who have accepted an offer out of all those who have been offered a position is known as the offer acceptance rate.

A low percentage of applicants accepting your offer may be an indication that your salary and benefits aren’t competitive. One way to address this is to include compensation expectations in the job description or to inquire about candidates’ salary expectations at an early stage of the hiring process.

4. Yield ratio

The yield ratio monitors the progression of candidates through each stage of the recruitment process. Accordingly, you should expect a yield ratio for applications that make it to the screening stage, another for applicants that make it to the video interview stage, and still another for the total number of applications to the number of hires.

If you want to know if your present approach to sourcing and recruiting is producing the desired results, this statistic will help. Along the way, you can also identify any biases, roadblocks, or negative effects.

5. Sourcing channel effectiveness

The effectiveness of your sourcing channels can be defined as the number of qualified applicants and the percentage of those applicants who end up applying through each channel. By comparing these rates, you can determine the effectiveness of each channel, allowing you to redirect your resources from inefficient sources to those that yield better results.

Here are some other measures for talent acquisition:

• Quality of hire
• Sourcing channel cost
• Recruitment funnel effectiveness
• Candidate NPS
• Percentage of open positions
• Assessment and demographic data
• Candidate drop off rate
• New hire turnover rate

Dashboard for talent acquisition

To better understand and track your talent acquisition KPIs, a talent acquisition dashboard can be a great asset. It helps you quickly see trends and possible problems. By allowing you to “see” patterns and issues, you can save time when preparing charts and tables and make them easier to identify.

In addition, you can see clearly how many applicants go through each step of your employment funnel. By analyzing this data, you may pinpoint the stage of your recruitment funnel that requires the most work and then adjust your approach accordingly.

In addition, a dashboard makes it easy to communicate data to other people in the company, such as managers and executives.

The team responsible for talent acquisition

The topic of talent acquisition offers a wide variety of job opportunities and career pathways. Listed below are a few common positions and the duties that come with them in the talent acquisition department.

Talent Acquisition Specialist 

A talent acquisition specialist is in charge of the whole process of finding and hiring new talent. Common tasks performed by employees include:

• Sourcing
• Writing up job postings and descriptions
• Candidate screening
• Helping upper management with recruiting
• Assisting the compensation division
• Providing advice for future hiring needs
• Keeping track of applicants’ backgrounds

In order to develop strategies for recruiting, succession, and onboarding, Talent Acquisition Specialists collaborate with HR and line managers.

Typical qualifications include prior experience in the field (either in a line position or in an HR/recruiting capacity), familiarity with relevant employment legislation, and experience with application tracking systems.

Typical questions asked during interviews for the position of Talent Acquisition Specialist include:

• When you need to find top talent, what resources do you usually turn to?
• How do you evaluate potential candidates?
• Do you have any knowledge of application tracking systems?
• Give me an example of when you used data to find new team members.
• Explain how you dealt with a difficult situation involving a hiring manager.

Compensation for a talent acquisition specialist

Many factors, including job duties, years of experience, location, and sector, influence salary ranges. A Talent Acquisition Specialist in New York City can expect to earn an average of $72,610 per year, compared to an average of $60,616 per year elsewhere in the United States, according to Payscale.

Talent acquisition coordinator

Talent Acquisition Coordinators help with the hiring process, usually by handling paperwork. Job duties include:

• Helping with job descriptions
• Maintaining candidate databases
• Preparing job offer letters
• Conducting compensation and benefits analyses for roles
• Coordinating interview scheduling
• Performing background and reference checks
• Assisting with new hire onboarding
• Creating reports on talent acquisition metrics
• Designing candidate experience surveys
• Organizing the employee referral process

It is common for a Talent Acquisition Coordinator to have prior expertise in the field, either working as an HR assistant or in a similar capacity. You should know the basics of labor regulations and have experience with applicant tracking systems and databases. You must have excellent organizing abilities and experience with social networks like LinkedIn.

Pay for a Talent Acquisition Coordinator

The US average pay for a talent acquisition coordinator is $55,194, with most people making between $49,144 and $62,549.

Talent Acquisition Manager

Creating a positive employer brand is just one aspect of a talent acquisition manager’s responsibilities in creating and executing an organization-wide TA strategy. Their primary responsibility is to find, interview, and hire people who will fit in well with the company’s culture and values.

On a daily basis, you may expect to do things like analyze hiring needs, use talent acquisition platforms like ATS, develop methods to improve the candidate experience, analyze survey data from candidates to see how they felt about the process, and attend career and job fairs.

The Talent Acquisition Manager in a smaller firm is likely to be an experienced recruiter who takes care of all recruiting needs, whereas in a larger company, this role is more of a managerial one where they oversee a team of TA experts.

Talent Acquisition Managers usually have management experience in talent acquisition or a similar HR job. They need to be well-versed in interview techniques, employment regulations, online job boards, and professional social media platforms, in addition to having strong communication, multitasking, and interpersonal skills.

Compensation for a Talent Acquisition Manager

As per PayScale, the typical income for a Talent Acquisition Manager in the United States is $85,690. Location, organization size, and years of experience all play a role in determining salary.

A career in talent acquisition

Talent acquisition professionals might choose from a wide variety of occupations. They may advance to positions like Head of Talent or Talent Manager within the talent acquisition department.

There is room for advancement in human resources to become a manager, an HR generalist, or even the head of employee experience.

Another option is for TA experts to branch out from human resources and TA into fields like sales and operations. Account manager, business development manager, account executive, and project manager are all positions that benefit greatly from the abilities acquired in recruiting.

Recruiters most often transition into human resources (51%), sales (9%), and business development (6%), according to LinkedIn data.

Skills for talent acquisition

To thrive in the ever-changing talent acquisition industry, one needs specific talents. So, in order to be successful in the field of talent acquisition, what are the most important skills to have?

• Listening actively: Paying close attention to hiring managers and job candidates will help you understand the job better and meet everyone’s needs and expectations.
• Clear communication: Giving candidates regular updates so they know what’s going on is the first step to a good candidate experience. Equally crucial is maintaining open lines of communication with hiring managers to communicate requirements for finding qualified candidates for open positions.
• Aptitude for technology: Keeping up with new technology and knowing how to use different recruitment tools is also vital.
• Data literacy: TAs need to be able to use data to analyze their work and figure out how to make the hiring process better, more objective, less expensive, and more likely to produce good hires.
• Networking and building relationships: An important part of a talent acquisition professional’s job is to build relationships and trust with both passive prospects and hiring managers.
• Time management skills: This position often requires you to juggle numerous activities at once, including reviewing applications, setting up interviews, making job offers, and responding to manager job requisitions. Competence in time management and the ability to set priorities are essential skills for TAs.
• Resilience: There are a lot of challenges in this field, like getting the right people to apply, speeding up the hiring process, and managing the demands of both prospective employees and hiring managers. Being patient and resilient are two qualities that will serve you well when times are tough.
• Sales: You pitch potential employees on working for your company, and they pitch themselves to the recruiting manager. To be successful, you must know and practice a variety of sales and cold outreach strategies.

The latest trends in talent acquisition

It is critical for forward-thinking companies to monitor changes and new trends in talent acquisition. The use of technology in talent acquisition is evolving in response to new industry demands, changing demographics and society, and other factors.

Take a look at the latest trends in talent acquisition and how they are influencing companies’ strategies for developing their human resources.

1. Integrating the gig economy

The rise of the “gig economy”—in which businesses rely on independent contractors or freelancers rather than traditional full-or part-time employees—is a noteworthy development in the talent acquisition landscape. Workers with these kind of specialized talents can be more flexible in their schedules and work arrangements, which benefits the business and its employees by lowering fixed labor expenses.

2. Talent-based recruitment

To find the most qualified candidates for open positions, more and more businesses are turning away from degree and certification-based hiring practices and toward competence models and skill-based tests.

Companies are able to get a better picture of each candidate with this method. They can zero in on applicants that best fit the position and the company by analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

3. Cultivating talent

Establishing and nurturing connections with current and prospective candidates allows firms to create strong talent pools that they may tap into whenever necessary.

In order to find the top talent and foster these connections early on, more and more companies are teaming up with schools. Additionally, companies are figuring out how to attract potential employees for future positions. Internships, mentorships, and regular communications about corporate news are all part of these supportive programs.

4. Equal opportunity in employment

The struggle against prejudice and discrimination, the elimination of bias in the hiring process, and the promotion of an inclusive environment are all current trends in talent acquisition.

This is growing in significance as the younger generation increasingly values employment with an organization that openly promotes diversity and inclusion.

5. Applying generative AI

Technology is advancing at a quick pace, thus TA professionals are always searching for new methods to work. For instance, they use creative AI like ChatGPT to write job postings and messages to candidates that are clear and interesting. They also use Boolean strings to find candidates.

For talent acquisition teams to stay ahead of the competition and lure top people, they need to stay technologically advanced and use the latest solutions.

Software for talent acquisition

One area of HR technology that is seeing rapid growth is talent acquisition software. At every point in the talent acquisition lifecycle, a wide variety of suppliers provide cutting-edge solutions.

Let’s look at some examples of software that helps you find good employees.

1. For job advertisements

AI-based talent acquisition tools can make job posts more appealing to all candidates, regardless of gender, age, or race, by changing the language and removing any bias that might be in them.

Discover any implicit bias in your job postings with the help of Textio, a language guide for the workplace. This enables you to raise both the quality of your candidates and response rates.

2. Sourcing candidates

You may expedite the search for outstanding people and simplify your sourcing processes with the help of talent acquisition technologies. The correct software can help you create a solid pool of potential employees.

Designed specifically for the purpose of finding and hiring top talent, Entelo has an extensive candidate database of more than 500 million individuals. As an added bonus, it can assist you in finding outstanding talent from under-represented groups so you can create more diverse teams.

To help you find the best individuals when you need them, Hiretual provides access to 800 million profiles across 45+ web channels.

Beamery is an all-in-one solution for talent acquisition that streamlines the whole hiring process. In order to boost conversions, you can personalize the applicant experience and help candidates in finding opportunities that are a good fit for their abilities and goals.

3. For screening

After that, we need to screen and narrow down the candidates.

With Ceipal’s AI-powered resume parsing software, you can learn about candidates’ technical abilities, job histories, and character traits.

IDEAL uses artificial intelligence to rapidly and accurately evaluate and shortlist thousands of candidates in real-time, allowing you to access top talent more quickly.

Textkernel is an AI and ML powered multilingual resume parsing technology that collects all social media profiles and resumes into a searchable applicant database.

4. For assessments

In order to find the best candidates, more and more businesses are turning to pre-employment tests. They are useful for comparing candidates’ abilities, knowledge, and character traits to identify the most qualified individual for each position and ensure a good match for the company in the long run.

A variety of tests are available, including those that measure cultural fit, social skills, situational judgment, and personality.

Harver offers adaptable, AI-driven pre-employment software that evaluates a candidate’s ability, cultural fit, and soft skills to predict their performance in a given position.

To aid businesses in their search for top tech talent, Kandio provides online examinations covering an ever-expanding collection of subjects.

In order to eliminate prejudice from the recruiting process, McQuaig offers talent assessment tools. It is also capable of forecasting an applicant’s success in specific position as well as the organizational culture.

5. For interviews

The hiring process uses different types of interviews at different times. These include phone, video, and in-person interviews. If the hiring panel thinks an applicant is a good fit, they can advance them to the next round. In order to improve the applicant experience and increase team productivity, TAs should invest in strong interview software and tools.

Hirevue provides a live and on-demand video platform with trackable records, real-time assessment tools, guides for interviews, and automated applicant routing. To help TA teams craft high-quality interviews quickly, there is a structured interview tool that provides evaluation guides, job-related competency lists, and sample questions for every kind of position.

Calendly is a powerful organizing tool that makes it easy for job candidates to set up any kind of interview.

6. For the offer & onboarding process

One way to make a good impression on new recruits is to use onboarding software to streamline the offer and onboarding process.

In order to get candidates pumped up about their new work before they ever step foot in the office, Enboarder provides a bespoke virtual onboarding experience. It can manage requests for equipment and services, help new employees connect with their colleagues, and gather feedback to improve the onboarding process.

If you want to boost your new hire retention rate and provide a smooth onboarding experience, Talmundo has everything you need. It includes electronic forms, automated activities, engaging content, real-time progress tracking, and more.