What is talent acquisition and why is it useful?
When looking to fill an executive position, it might be tempting to turn to a recruiter for this process. However, recruiters are usually there to help you fill positions, not create an overall strategy for attracting the best talent out there for a specialised position. Some executive recruiters may help you to headhunt executive or other kinds of leadership candidates. Although your talent acquisition team might include recruiters as well, this is only one part of the overall picture.
Your talent acquisition manager might have a much broader job description than that of a recruiter. Talent acquisition managers help to source, attract, interview and hire top candidates. However, they also help to create retention strategies to promote the satisfaction of existing talent in your company.
A talent acquisition manager’s job is to develop a talent recruitment and retention strategy. These managers ensure onboarding is smooth and talented employees are rewarded once they begin to play a role in your team. Talent acquisition managers might also:
- Attend or set up careers fairs at local universities for example;
- Oversee other recruiters in your HR team;
- Create and monitor recruitment posts on online job boards;
- Create lead generation for headhunting top candidates;
- Assess candidates during the interview process;
- Hire and onboard talented candidates.
Other members of your talent acquisition team might include HR personnel, who work with your talent acquisition manager to develop the strategies and objectives that they lay out.
When should you start to invest in talent acquisition?
Although talent acquisition has the potential to help any business, there are some sectors where it is particularly useful. These include sectors like:
- Science, technology and medical industries;
- Manufacturing;
- Government and security.
Some businesses have a higher concentration of specialised staff that are perhaps more difficult to source than traditional candidates. These might be candidates with specialised technical knowledge that few candidates have or a particular government-related background.
Some industries hit by skills shortages on the jobs market might also benefit from a talent acquisition manager. Ways that a talent acquisition team can help devise a strategy are explained below.
Creating a workflow
Usually, your talent acquisition team will create a recruitment pipeline that spans from attracting candidates to recruiting, onboarding and talent retention. It might look something like this:
- Lead generation
- Attracting and recruiting top candidates
- Interviewing and assessing candidates
- Checking a candidate’s references
- Selection
- Hiring
- Onboarding
- Retention
The primary stages of your talent acquisition workflow involve making contact with potentially suitable candidates. Headhunting involves contacting candidates from a range of sources.
Your talent acquisition team might choose candidates internally (who are already demonstrating capabilities and have a good knowledge of your company). They might even contact possible candidates working at other companies, offering a competitive and enticing perks package to win them over.
A timeline is useful as it might take a few months to find the right candidate, particularly if their skills fill a niche that few can. A talent acquisition team is often responsible for forecasting your business’s potential skills needs. It is worth making sure that they are keeping a close eye on employee turnover , particularly when it comes to particular roles.
Analysing metrics
One way that a talent acquisition manager can improve your hiring process is to use people analytics. Your talent acquisition staff can make more informed decisions if they understand how to read talent acquisition data.
Looking at recruitment and candidate data can give you an indication as to whether candidates would be a good fit for your business. They also help you find out whether your recruitment process is as effective as it could be. Other talent acquisition metrics to measure include the following:
- Time to hire (including attracting, interviewing and hiring)
- Candidate acceptance rates
- Costs of a hire
- Attrition rates
- Employee engagement
- Offer acceptance
Employment branding
Another area that a talent acquisition manager can help you with is employment branding strategies. This is especially important during the primary phase of attracting top candidates to your business. As you might be competing with other companies for the attention of these candidates, employment branding can play a large role in whether a candidate chooses your company over another.
A talent acquisition manager might look at what your employee value proposition (EVP) is, which includes the perks package and other benefits that employees receive when they work for you. This might also include opportunities for promotion, training and physical and mental health support.
When your company has a solid EVP, it might help you not only attract candidates who are looking to feel secure in a role but also keep them for the long term.
Your talent acquisition manager – perhaps with the help of a content creator or digital marketer in your team – can also look at whether you are currently using your digital media channels to reach your target audience successfully. They might be able to spot weak spots in your current usage, or whether you are not using a social media platform that could benefit your search.
Company culture is often important to talented candidates. Therefore, creating clear, effective company policies and guidelines can also help you to attract talent. If you show that your company is inclusive and supports the wellbeing of its employees, you might stand out from competing businesses.
Succession planning
Talent acquisition managers can also be there to help you when members of your team step down from a role. As they are responsible for thinking about the long term, talent acquisition managers often have a list of potential candidates – either internal or external – who would be able to fill a role after a member of staff leaves. A succession planning programme might also include training and development sessions for promising employees who could take over from the role.
How talent acquisition can help you to deal with a skills shortage
Not only are talent acquisition teams useful in helping you to find specialist candidates, they can also identify areas in your teams where there is a skills shortage. If there is currently a skills shortage on the market, a talent acquisition manager can help your business compete with others looking for the same qualifications and experience from their hires.
Creating communication between talent acquisition managers and the rest of your team
Your talent acquisition manager might work closely with or be part of your HR team. However, it is useful for them to be able to reach out to all of your employees. Including other employees in discussions of what skills are missing from their team or where they need extra support with a workload could become a useful part of their forecasting process. It also means that there is less room for miscommunication and teams feeling left out from discussions about what is necessary.
This can also be an important opportunity to address any engagement concerns that your current talent already has. Keeping in mind your pre-existing talent such as providing training and progression opportunities can encourage them to stay on board with you.
Overall, talent acquisition managers can make the hunt for top candidates – usually in executive or other leadership roles – less stressful. In a competitive market where you need to source candidates with the right skills for your company, talent acquisition managers can create effective strategies to attract the best people.
Not only focused on short-term goals like attraction, interviewing and hiring, they can help strategise long-term outcomes like retention and reducing turnover. After all, it is one thing attracting talent, but keeping talented employees engaged is important as well.
