Businesses face many challenges, and the most notable among them is labor. It can be costly if done incorrectly because it’s not just about simply filling open roles. You need a strategic plan to find and secure the best talent for your organization, not just for now, but for the future.
This article will walk you through a complete guide to talent acquisition, including what it is, how it differs from traditional recruiting, and how you can develop a strategy that helps your business thrive.
What is Talent Acquisition?
Talent acquisition is a strategic, long-term approach to finding, attracting, and retaining top talent that meets a company’s current and future needs. It’s about proactively building a pipeline of qualified candidates rather than reacting when there are open positions.
The Purpose of Talent Acquisition
The purpose of talent acquisition is to build a high-quality, sustainable workforce that drives business success. This approach puts you on the offense, where you have an opportunity to select from a pool you’ve filled with good people who have been given the right tools and trained in the way your business does things.
Recruitment vs Talent Acquisition
Unlike recruitment, talent acquisition has a broader purpose within a business, including:
- Meeting future business goals: This requires understanding and anticipating the company’s long-term talent needs, ensuring the right people are available to meet strategic objectives.
- Building a strong employer brand: The focus is on creating a positive candidate experience and building a reputation as a great place to work. Top talent will find you at that point.
- Creating a talent pipeline: Talent acquisition professionals continuously source and engage with potential candidates, even when there are no immediate openings. This creates a pool of talent that is ready to go when the need arises.
Is Talent Acquisition the same as HR?
No, talent acquisition is a specialized function within the broader field of HR. While HR manages the entire employee lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, talent acquisition focuses specifically on the processes of attracting and acquiring talent.
Roles of Talent Acquisition in HR
Your talent acquisition professionals are strategic partners whose goal is to help a company meet its current and future hiring needs. Their primary roles include:
- Sourcing: It starts with engaging candidates where they are, using channels such as social media, job boards, and professional networks. And you’re not just looking to catch the attention of those actively seeking a role, but also anyone in a similar role who might be a person of interest down the road.
- Employer Branding: This is where you get to brag about the great place you work. It’s about shaping the company’s reputation because that’s what attracts top talent.
- Candidate Experience: Every candidate you interact with should have a positive and professional experience, which sets the tone for any future conversations.
- Strategic Planning: This role is mission critical. You need buy-in from the top and a willingness of leadership to work together to forecast talent needs and develop long-term hiring strategies.
- Data Analysis: Data-drive decisions and metrics help talent acquisition professionals get the most out of the hiring process.
How Does Talent Acquisition Work?
The talent acquisition process is cyclical: planning, sourcing, and engagement. Here’s a general overview of how it works:
- Workforce Planning: The process starts with a strategic look at your business goals, including a forecast of upcoming talent needs.
- Sourcing and Attracting: This stage is about widening your reach. Employers should look beyond their usual channels and use a variety of sources to draw in applicants, making sure they connect with a diverse talent pool. Building a strong employer brand also helps attract people from different backgrounds.
- Screening and Assessment: Screening and assessing every candidate helps ensure they have the necessary skills and are a good cultural fit.
- Offer and Negotiation: This is where the rubber hits the road because you want the best individual and the individual wants to be compensated fairly. Securing the best candidate requires making a competitive offer and a willingness to negotiate.
- Onboarding: The talent acquisition team then works with the HR team to ensure a smooth onboarding process for the new hire.
- Relationship Building: The first five steps are just the start because the process only works when it doesn’t end with a hire. Talent acquisition professionals need to engage with the new hires and build relationships with potential candidates.
Challenges of Effective Talent Acquisition
Talent acquisition is not without its challenges, even for businesses that have a solid strategy. It’s a war for talent and the constant battle is attracting top performers because there are more positions that need to be filled than people to fill them.
Adding to the lack of people problem is that people might lack the specific skills required to do the jobs, especially with rapid changes in technology and even the industries. Talent acquisition professionals encounter the skill gaps challenge on an every-day basis.
High turnover, especially in the current state of business where job seekers are just as much job jumpers, continuously pecks at business strategy. It’s time consuming and costly to lose an employee, especially a top performer with specific skills, so solving this challenge is essential for talent acquisition professionals and the business.
8 Tips for Effective Talent Acquisition
To overcome these challenges and build a winning talent acquisition strategy, here are some tips to follow:
1. Build a Strong Employer Brand
Highlight your culture, values, and what makes your business unique. This is how to build and solidify your reputation as a place to work.
2. Use a Data-Driven Approach
Track key metrics, including time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and source of hire. This helps optimize your talent acquisition and allocate resources more effectively.
3. Focus on the Candidate Experience
Implement a seamless and transparent process, from the first interaction to the final offer. Offering a positive experience might even turn a candidate you don’t hire into a brand advocate.
4. Leverage Technology
Use talent acquisition software to streamline your processes, automate tasks, and gain deeper insights into your talent pipeline.
5. Optimize for Mobile
Meet them where they spend their time. Since many if not most candidates use their phones to search for jobs, ensure your career site and application process are mobile-friendly.
6. Build a Talent Pipeline
Continuously source and connect with potential hires to build a deep talent pool. Remember, the enemy of talent acquisition is waiting until you have an open role to start looking for candidates.
7. Promote Internal Mobility
Your pipeline to fill open positions should include existing employees, which boosts retention and engagement while also helping reduce the time and cost of hiring.
8. Diversify Your Sourcing Channels
Increase your chances of building a pipeline with quality candidates by using a mix of sourcing channels, including job boards, social media, and employee referrals.
How Paycor Helps with Talent Acquisition
Paycor offers a suite of human capital management (HCM) solutions designed to help you build and execute a winning talent acquisition strategy. With our integrated platform, your business gains the tools to simplify the entire hiring process, from attracting candidates to a seamless onboarding experience.
Our talent acquisition solutions are built to help you:
- Streamline recruiting with Paycor recruiting software
- Automate sourcing with Paycor Smart Sourcing
- Simplify onboarding with Paycor onboarding software
Use Paycor for Your HR Talent Acquisition Teams
Ready to transform your HR’s talent acquisition? See how Paycor’s all-in-one platform can help your HR team attract and hire the best talent to drive your business forward.
Take a tour to see how Paycor’s solutions can work for you.
Talent Acquisition FAQs
Have even more questions about talent acquisition? Read on.
Why is talent acquisition important?
Talent acquisition is important because it ensures that businesses can meet long-term goals by securing the right people with the right skills at the right time.
What is the difference between talent acquisition and recruitment?
Recruitment is a short-term, transactional process focused on filling a specific open position. Talent acquisition is a long-term, strategic process focused on building a sustainable workforce and a talent pipeline.
Is talent acquisition the same as talent management?
No, talent acquisition is a part of talent management. Talent acquisition focuses on attracting and acquiring talent, while talent management covers the entire employee lifecycle (e.g., onboarding and development to retention and succession planning).
Is talent acquisition the same as onboarding?
No, onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into the company and its culture. It is the final step of the talent acquisition process.
Does talent acquisition handle hiring?
Yes, talent acquisition handles the entire hiring process, from identifying a need and sourcing candidates to screening, interviewing, and extending a job offer.