Talent Acquisition: Discover the Secret to Hiring for Open Roles

Recruiting exceptional job candidates is an art. 

No matter how the job market swings, the best candidates in every industry are in high demand. Does your HR team have a strategy for finding top-tier talent?

There will always be stiff competition for the best job candidates. In more competitive environments, like tech and SaaS,  recruiters’ options become more limited as fewer applicants have the skills needed to fill roles.

Old recruiting methods are no longer enough to find the right candidates. Recruiters need to take a proactive approach to source talent. Many are turning to talent acquisition strategies to make the recruiting process more holistic.

At its core, talent acquisition rests in predictive hiring, which involves constantly monitoring talent needs for a business and working to fill the gaps. Before a hiring manager posts a job listing, the recruiter needs to know what roles to fill. Predictive hiring includes strategies like passive recruiting, social media recruiting, and more. To do all of this as effectively as possible, companies turn to recruitment marketing software to streamline the process from start to finish.

The importance of talent acquisition

No matter your company’s size or industry, effective talent acquisition is important. Finding and hiring the right people is a vital element to any business plan and it directly affects your future success.

Without the right people on your staff, your organization will likely struggle with low productivity, poor decision-making, a consistently unmotivated team, and a less-than-ideal company culture. These elements mean your organization won’t be competitive in the job market. 

Plus, talent acquisition allows you to think ahead about the needs of your business. Instead of hiring a candidate to fill an opening, a talent acquisition team considers the overall career path of each hire and ensures they have the skills to be potential leaders in the future. Talent acquisition also decreases the risk of an unsuccessful hire, saving a company the time and money training someone who isn’t the right fit.

When you think about all that your human resources team puts into their recruiting and recruitment marketing efforts, talent acquisition encompasses everything from the ground up.

Talent acquisition vs. recruitment

Recruiters who are new to talent acquisition often question how it differs from traditional recruiting. Traditional recruitment focuses on filling an immediate vacancy, whereas talent acquisition is a proactive recruiting strategy where a company forecasts talent needs before openings even happen.

These job functions can often overlap, and for smaller companies, recruiters may manage both strategies during the hiring process. Let’s look at examples of when each strategy is needed.

In this situation, traditional recruiting is the only way to fill a sudden and unexpected vacancy. The focus in this scenario is finding a replacement for an existing staff member quickly.

Talent acquisition is more appropriate in this situation because of the extended hiring timeline and the need to create a specific role that doesn't exist at your company.

Both recruiting and talent acquisition have a special role in an organization. One cannot exist without the other, and both are needed for a healthy recruitment strategy as a company grows and scales. The key is knowing when to use these strategies to find the best candidate for the job. 

The talent acquisition process

The talent acquisition process can be completed in five steps, whether it takes a few short weeks or several months. 

1. Sourcing and lead generation

Sourcing the right fit for your company starts with writing an enticing job description that gets people interested in the role. Then, consider where specialists in this industry typically are, whether it’s social media, specific industry events, conferences, or online forums. It’s all about knowing what your ideal candidate looks like, the qualities they should have, and casting a net where that candidate may be.

From there, see if there’s any networking opportunities so you can build relationships and make these groups aware of your talent needs. Doing so makes it possible to build a talent pool with the right skills, creating a stronger pipeline of potential hires.

2. Recruiting and attracting top talent

Once you cast the net, it’s time to recruit and attract top talent. For this, it’s all about building a strong employer brand, promoting what’s unique about your company’s culture, and designing a compensation and benefits package that is enticing and competitive.

The talent acquisition team should also focus on candidate relationship management to not only ensure the candidate has a positive experience, but also court leads and keep in touch with candidates that may not be the right fit now, but could be later. 

3. Interviewing

Next, come up with interview questions based on the skills that person should possess and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will define their success. Find out if the candidate can solve problems, think on their feet, and be resourceful. You may consider running some pre-employment tests to determine if they’re the right fit.

4. Checking references

While some recruiters or hiring managers skip this step, it’s imperative that you check a candidate’s references. This will hopefully validate that this person is the right choice, as you can see if there are any final concerns or impressions that have gone missed.

Once the reference agrees that the individual has all of the qualifications and skills you’re looking for, you have the green light to make an offer.

5. Hiring and onboarding

Although hiring and onboarding is part of the talent acquisition process, it may not fall under the responsibility of the talent acquisition team. Nevertheless, strong onboarding sets the candidate up for success from day one, so make sure the process is as seamless and hassle-free as possible.

How to build a talent acquisition strategy

Talent acquisition requires dedication and patience. Because it’s crucial to the development of the organization, you’ll want to build a special process for your team to follow. 

This strategy should include building your team and formalizing your outreach strategy. Here are five steps you can use to build a successful talent acquisition strategy.

1. Form a solid team

The foundation of an effective talent acquisition strategy is a team that can do the heavy lifting. Your talent acquisition team will manage the sourcing and hiring processes,  so pay extra attention to creating a team that is well-rounded and experienced. 

Larger enterprise companies benefit from having multiple employees do the same job because they likely receive more applications than smaller companies. Be sure that you have a talent team large enough to handle the high volume of applications. You can even consider using a resume parser to help go through the applications you receive.  

2. Define long-term company needs

Talent acquisition is all about working ahead of company needs. An effective strategy is proactive, not reactive. This takes a lot of foresight and planning to do correctly.

Communication is required to build a solid foundation for your talent acquisition strategy. Talk to other departments and C-suite executives about your organization's needs. 

Think about the most technical position at your company. This could be a role that only one person does, or maybe it requires very specific skills the average candidate doesn’t possess. How badly would your team be affected if this person put in their two weeks notice today?

Many of these high-priority roles take time to fill. Talent acquisition is about planning how you’ll fill these roles before they need to be filled. 

Plan your company’s hiring needs about six months in advance. Give your team time to research the right titles, consider compensation history, and the skills required for the job. 

Don’t rush this process. Do the work in advance so that when it comes time to make hiring decisions, you can focus solely on finding the perfect fit. 

3. Create candidate profiles

Once you identify the jobs you’re recruiting for, create candidate profiles, which is an organized list of the skills, experience, and education of your ideal candidate.

This doesn’t mean an individual needs all of these requirements. A candidate profile simply helps recruiting teams find job seekers who are the closest fit for a position. 

Candidate profiles help guide your team on who the right candidates are for the job, which questions should be asked during interviews, and more. They’re also a great way to standardize your recruiting practice.

These profiles also help ensure that all of your recruiters are on the same page, improving the quality of candidates sourced and expanding your talent pool.

4. Formalize your recruiting strategy

Finding qualified candidates is the trickiest part of the recruiting process – especially if you work in a competitive field like tech or SaaS, where candidates who check all the boxes are hard to come by.

Developing a multi-channel recruitment strategy increases your visibility and creates more opportunities to find the right candidates. Don’t limit yourself to traditional recruitment platforms and explore options like social media recruiting and college career fairs.

Companies can take this further by improving their recruiting processes. Recruiting on more than one channel won’t matter if the message doesn’t resonate with candidates. Rrm your talent acquisition team with the information they need to make a great first impression on high-quality candidates.

5. Streamline workflows with recruiting software

Recruiters rely on recruiting software to automate their recruiting pipeline as the job market gets more competitive. Many companies choose recruiting software because it allows them to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time finding quality candidates.

Investing in recruiting software is no longer the optional luxury it was just a few years ago. Software that screens and streamlines the recruiting process is designed to save you time.

There’s a misconception that only enterprise businesses that handle thousands of resumes a week should use an applicant tracking system. The truth is, these tools do a lot more than just toss out resumes that are less than ideal. 

In addition to screening resumes for keywords, job skills, and experience, these tools allow your team to create custom workflows to review and manage applicants so that the HR manager, hiring manager, and recruiter can communicate about who to interview.

Tips for effective talent acquisition 

Building a process to effectively recruit exceptional talent is just the beginning. Talent acquisition is a competitive business that rewards innovators. 

Top-tier candidates deal with plenty of recruiters every day. Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd by pioneering new recruiting strategies. Start using these tips today that can help do that.

Forecast open roles

Predicting the future is easier said than done, but part of talent acquisition is identifying which roles are the hardest to hire and making them a priority. Specific skills and experience, especially for senior leadership positions, can take three to six months, or longer, to fill. 

Finding the right person for the job and building a team from the ground up on short notice is easier and faster when open roles are forecasted and planned for.

Build a pipeline

Another way to make talent acquisition easier and faster is by building a talent pipeline. Keep track of the candidates you find and put in the time and effort to network, send outreach, update candidate details, and build relationships. When a role opens at your company and you think a person may be the right fit, most of the heavy lifting is already done.

Recruit for open roles internally

Recruiting brings outside talent into your organization, whereas talent acquisition nurtures internal talent. One benefit to hiring internal talent is that they already know your business and understand team dynamics. The onboarding process for internal talent is also much faster than traditional recruiting.

Internal recruiting practices, like succession planning, allow you to identify key players in your organization that are ready for a career change. You can provide a mentor, train them on the job, and prepare them to step into these highly technical roles when they become available.

Succession planning also has the added benefit of creating solid career paths for your current employees. This improves employee retention and happiness and helps you prevent talent gaps in your workforce. 

Use social media to catch the eye of passive interest candidates

Over the last few years, social recruiting has become a popular way to find and connect with new talent. Social recruiting refers to recruiting job candidates through social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.

What makes social recruiting great is that you can use your corporate social media to catch candidates' attention with passive interest. Often, top-tier candidates aren’t actively searching for new work. These people might be comfortable where they are in their career, but your message could entice them to explore new options.

Social media is a low-stakes, conversational way of introducing yourself to a candidate and offering them something exciting. These candidates can be won over with the right approach and opportunity.

Take advantage of what current employees have to offer

By now, your company probably already has an employee referral program. But are you using it to the best of your ability?

Simply letting your employees know about open positions isn’t enough to beat other talent acquisition experts. You need to strategically dictate which roles you’re hiring for and let your team know about the talent gaps you’re trying to fill.

Tracking employee referrals is a pain point for some HR managers, which is why you should use an employee referral software. This software tracks which employees referred which candidates, allows you to list high-priority positions, and connects job postings to social media for easy sharing.

These tools provide a centralized location for employee referrals, offer employees options for job sharing, and track and manage employee referral bonus payouts.

Acquiring talent takes... well, talent!

Stepping outside of standard recruiting tactics to become a master of talent acquisition is an art. It requires big-picture thinking, planning ahead, and the willingness to try something different. With the right tools and tactics on your side, you can become the ultimate talent acquisition recruiter.

As you go about acquiring talent, make sure your team is offering the best candidate experience  possible.