Talent acquisition

What Is talent acquisition?

The process through which companies find, track, and interview candidates, as well as onboard and train new employees, is referred to as talent acquisition. The foundations of talent acquisition include employer branding, future resource planning, broadening a company's labor force, and building a positive candidate pipeline.

Talent acquisition vs. recruitment

Both have the same goal in mind: to hire people to fill vacant roles. While there are numerous similarities between talent acquisition and recruitment, there is also a significant difference.

Recruitment is focused more on filling the current open positions while talent acquisition is a forward-thinking approach that involves evaluating the future potential employee's career path within the company. Talent acquisition hiring people with the potential to rise through the ranks to become managers and senior executives in the future. As a result, talent acquisition becomes more about developing a long-term strategic plan for future job opportunities rather than simply filling open positions.

The talent acquisition process

Follow these 5 steps and you'll be able to recruit and hire top talent for your company.

1. Lead generation: You must be able to create a pool of qualified candidates. Begin with a job description and work your way up from there such as promoting the job on different job boards, social media, and company career pages.
2. Interviews: In an interview, instead of asking hypothetical questions, learn about their real-life experiences and past work history and performance. Build your questions around the 3-5 most important responsibilities and key performance indicators in the job description. For interview tips and recruiting insights, check out this interview questions database.
3. Recruitment assessment tools: Any tests that are relevant to the job and nondiscriminatory should be taken into account such as personality tests. Also, exercises such as quizzes and case studies can be used to see how the candidate processes information and makes decisions. Read more about how personality tests can help get a sense of whether the candidate will fit into the organization.
4. Background and Reference checking: Reach out to the candidate’s previous employers and colleagues to review the references and determine if the information from the candidate is supported by the references.
5. Choosing the top candidate(s): What criteria do you use to assess or rank your candidates? Create a system that allows you to choose the best candidate for the position!
6. Onboarding: The process does not stop after the new employee is hired. Time for orientation will need to be allocated to the new employee. This will help to encourage confidence and let them adapt to the job quickly.

Effective talent acquisition

An effective talent acquisition strategy also reduces risk throughout the organization by lowering the likelihood of a failed recruitment. This saves time and money that would otherwise be spent on training ineffective hires. Talent acquisition teams are also in charge of creating and communicating company branding to potential applicants. Candidates should have a clear understanding of the company's culture, reputation, and differentiators from competitors.

Company & Employer branding

All companies have a brand image. It can come from thoughts about your products, history, quality of service, leaders, team members, and so on. Your company also has a secondary brand that is linked to its primary brand and concerns how you are perceived as an employer. This is your employer brand, and it exists in the minds and hearts of your past, present, and future employees.

Employer branding is about establishing the identity of your company, both how it's different and what it stands for, and then creating and connecting those values with the individuals you want to attract. It can show that your company is a fantastic place to work, which helps with recruitment as well as employee engagement and retention.

When employer branding is done well, it will generate interest around your company, which will draw in motivated job seekers and satisfied employees. Then those people will tell their friends, clients, customers, and stakeholders about their excellent experience, extending the reach of your employer brand even further.

Tips for an effective talent acquisition strategy

Effective talent acquisition is sometimes a lengthy and precise process. Here's a rundown of the steps you'll need to get started.

• Build a high-quality pipeline: Every company recruits talent in a different way, so make sure yours consistently generates desirable candidates. The method you use to track applicants will differ based on the size of your company and the scope of your search. A basic excel spreadsheet may be sufficient for very small businesses. Others may find that solutions like Manatal might assist them in streamlining operations and sorting large data sets.
• Job descriptions must be as specific as possible: Candidate requirements should be clear, explaining the ideal candidate in detail. This improves the company's chances of finding what it's seeking. Refer to our guide on how to write an attractive job description for more information.
• Encourage communication and collaboration: Employees who are already on the job might also be a fantastic source of information. They may offer valuable insight into the company's work culture, as well as what brought them to the organization in the first place, what might appeal to them in a new career, and where they would look for it. Considering new, fresh ideas and insights can undoubtedly aid you in developing a more effective plan.

Plan for the long term and craft a strategy

To win in the long term, it’s important to create a strategy. Below are key talent acquisition strategies to ensure you're attracting the best candidates.

Align the company’s goals: Consider your company's long-term goals for the next one to five years, and adjust your acquisition plan to match those demands. You should think about what kind of talent you'll need to meet your company's long-term goals, even if some roles don't exist today. Remember that investing in the appropriate candidates will pay off in the long run for your company.

Improve talent acquisition using data analytics: When used properly, data analytics can show where the company's top talent came from, whether certain questions are delaying candidates from completing applications, whether including a video about the company's culture boosts applications and many more useful insights. Overall, data analytics allow for the optimization of job descriptions and career pages for example in order to make sure you are attracting the ideal candidates.

Expand your candidate reach: Talent acquisition teams must leverage multiple approaches for sourcing talent for different skill sets and positions. When relevant, the company should leverage specialized job boards, social media, networking events, and academic programs instead of only using general-purpose job sites like LinkedIn or Monster. Teams should focus on establishing relationships with the best talent in each group once the relevant strategies have been executed.

Employer branding: Typically, qualified candidates receive multiple job offers. They assess companies to determine which has the best culture and is overall more attractive before deciding which one to accept. As a result, building a strong employer brand is critical for attracting top individuals and achieving long-term success.

Conclusion

While talent acquisition is managed and organized differently in each organization, it is easily one of the most important drivers of corporate culture and long-term development. In talent acquisition, finding the best talent that aligns with the company’s future goals and building connections with them, will take more time and effort. Recruitment, on the other hand, is more concerned with quickly filling an open position.