Let us start by explaining what is talent acquisition. Talent acquisition is the process of perusing and identifying the ideal candidates for your organization. The talent acquisition team or a talent acquisition specialist is responsible for finding, acquiring, assessing, and recruiting a candidate to fill the vacant job roles in a company. Company branding, resource planning, and updating the company’s labor force with the latest rules and regulations are the constituents of talent acquisition.
Many times, talent acquisition specialist is a part of the human resources department of an organization. In other cases, the office has a separate team built especially for hiring top candidates and they coordinate with the HR department. The skill sets required for finding potential candidates include making strategies, applicant’s assessment, hiring standards, compliance with the law, and clear and crisp branding of the office and work culture.
Difference Between Talent Acquisition & Recruitment
Needless to say, many people think that talent acquisition and recruitment are the same since both terms have the same objective of recruiting employees to fill vacant positions. Whereas in reality, recruiters simply fill vacant job positions, without doing much background check about the candidate. On the other hand, a talent acquisition specialist goes through a series of processes before hiring the ideal candidate for their company. They focus on keeping the employee in the company for the long haul, rather than just finding a temporary person who can do the job.
Also Read: 7 steps to build effective Talent Management Process
Effective Talent Acquisition
In order to recruit the top-skilled candidate for the firm, organizations must align their talent acquisition strategies across various departments to peruse and choose the best candidate for the given job role. The talent acquisition specialist also manages the branding of an organization to everyone. The branding of a company should be crisp and precise and should entail what the company offers and its work culture. This makes it easier for the candidates to apply for that company if they feel that their goals and the company’s goals are aligned.
The talent acquisition is also responsible for managing the employee life cycle in their company, from their application to their onboarding. Goal alignment, clear communication, and effective collaboration with talent acquisition specialist are key in this process. Additionally, talent acquisition manager is also responsible for retaining the employees and boosting their morale throughout their employment.
The Talent Acquisition Process
To make sure that talent acquisition process is a success and long-term, it is essential that the talent acquisition manager should keep attracting and retaining the top-performing employees, regardless of vacant roles. Talent acquisition process can help your company to achieve this while solving organizational needs for the long-term.
Below we have accumulated the top strategies through which you can cultivate the best talent for your company-
• Alignment with company’s targets
Always pre-plan your company’s goals at least one to five years prior, and make use of those objectives and targets to define your talent acquisition strategy to meet the organization’s needs. While the human resource department focuses on filling the vacant and available job roles, talent acquisition focuses more on how can the candidate help in the growth of the company in the long-term. Many times talent acquisition manager creates a specific position, even if it doesn’t exist, to help the business achieve its goals.
• Marketing
Any company wouldn’t create a marketing campaign with research and data, then why should they hire a candidate without it? Talent acquisition should be given equal importance as any of the other marketing campaigns. Persuading people to join your organization is just as important as convincing people to buy your products. There are numerous ways through which talent acquisition managers can use important data to their benefit and making strong acquisition strategies. For example, you can do a background check on your top-skilled employee, and use that data to know where they came from and use that information to attract similar talents based on professional networking sites or certain academic programs.
Additionally, the human resource department can team up with the talent acquisition team to refine career pages, job descriptions, and more. Using the data, you can refine the questions that are stopping the candidates from applying for a job in your company. The talent acquisition managers can also create a video or images showcasing the work-culture of their company. Highlighting certain features of the company can help in attracting worthy candidates. Nowadays the millennials give a lot of importance to the work-culture and extra features that come with the company, such as a gymnasium or a huge cafeteria. Showing such attributes can help in incentivizing more and more candidates towards the company. By using data and analytics, the talent acquisition team can make sure that the career pages and job descriptions aren’t stopping qualified people from applying for jobs in your company.
• Expand Outreach Strategies
To find the best-suited candidate for the company, the talent acquisition teams should expand their sourcing strategy. Different job roles require different skill-sets. Best programmers will be found in a completely different place than best marketers, thus diversifying the sourcing approach is a wise decision. Rather than spending all the time finding candidates on a certain platform like LinkedIn, considering other social media platforms can also prove to be useful. Many people nowadays are active on Facebook, Twitter, and many other more sites where they think they might find a relatable job.
It is essential for the talent acquisition teams to find the majority of skilled candidates, whether it is online forums, conferences, professional events, or social networking sites. Not only will strengthening relationships through networking sites help in talent acquisition, but it will also popularize the company’s brand name and work-culture.
• Employer Branding
For successful talent acquisition, employer branding is essential. As a matter of fact, in 2017, a LinkedIn study showed that about 80% of talent acquisition specialists have found employer branding to be very useful to attract remarkable talents. When experienced and top-skilled candidates are searching for a job, they are going to go for the one with good work-culture, best values, and perfect work-life balance. By creating an intriguing employer brand, talent acquisition can be made better, and for the long-term. Create a clear-cut strategy that represents your company clearly. Don’t hesitate to use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., to let the candidates know about your company in detail. The more online presence your company has, the more talent acquisition will improve.
By utilizing the latest and advanced technology, both internally and externally, you can show the potential candidates that your company is up to date with all the latest trends. The talent acquisition team and the HR department together can ensure that the employer brand is in alignment with the company brand. For talent acquisition of top-notched candidates, the company must create a brand that the candidates are eager to work with.
• Robust Employee Referral
Talent acquisition can be a tedious job for a company, especially for hiring managers since they are responsible for finding new talents. The process of talent acquisition for a company can be made plain-sailing by using an employee referral program. The easiest way is to create a program where your existing employees can aid talent acquisition managers and refer their ex-colleagues or people who they know who will fit the job description perfectly.
The employees get rewards if the person they referred gets hired, thus the program proves to be successful and motivational. Referral programs can do wonders for talent acquisition managers as they don’t need to waste their time and resources in finding the perfect fit for the job role. In fact, studies have shown that 45% of employees in any given organization are hired through a referral program. It will take a little effort and time to get the best employee referral program in place, but once it is done, it is going to boost up the company’s hiring practices.
Employees won’t visit the page of vacancies every day as they have their own job to do. Due to this, many roles may go unread and cause a loss for the company if they hire an unsuitable candidate. To motivate the employees to share the job vacancy is going to be hard as an additional time of their day is going to go into it. Thus, giving them incentives and rewards will turn out to be a morale booster and will help in better talent acquisition.
• Retention
Talent acquisition is also all about keeping your employees happy and making sure they work for the organization for the long haul. Showing the employees that they are an important asset of the company and giving importance to their skill development can help in retaining them for a long time. Try investing in their growth, and give them the opportunity to work outside their specific job description.
Gone are the days when people used to work in the same job role throughout their lives. Nowadays people want to try and experiment in new fields to find what suits them the best. Therefore giving them the flexibility to try different skills can ensure their retention. Additionally, various reward programs can be put in place as at the end of the day, everyone wants to work for a company where their talents are being recognized and rewarded.
Also Read: 7 Effective Tips to increase employee retention rate
• Transparency
Many times, the employees feel that the company is not what they expected it to be, and thus end up leaving the company within a short amount of time. Not only does this put a dent in the company’s reputation, but also costs the company. The candidates may feel that they did not research enough about the company, or the company set unrealistic expectations. Thus, to avoid this, the company should be transparent about each and every aspect of its brand. Additionally, many times candidates end up applying for a job for which they are not qualified or don’t fit into the job description. It is the job of talent acquisition manager to ensure that the job role contains all the needs and requirements they are expecting from the candidate so that the company doesn’t get flooded with tonnes of applications.
Takeaway
It is very essential to have proper processes in place to identify and generate top-quality candidates. Every company has a different way of working, and hiring candidates. Therefore, for talent acquisition, it is essential that proper protocols should be followed. The key role of any human resources is to peruse and identify the candidates that are going to help it in reaching its targets and goals. Talent acquisition is very crucial as investing in top-skilled candidates can benefit the company enormously. By taking a bit of extra effort, and following these top 7 talent acquisition measures, a company can create a well-balanced and desirable atmosphere, for everyone involved. Every company should have a effective talent acquisition strategy in place as the importance of hiring top candidates should never be underestimated. The little efforts are worth it if it’s going to worth it in the long run.
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