From recruitment to Talent Acquisition

Why it is so important to switch from simple recruitment to Talent Acquisition.

The most common term to refer to personnel selection is recruitment, but recruitment is only one part of the whole process of attracting new workforce. It should be called – in its entire cycle – Talent Acquisition.

Talent Acquisition is the strategic complex of all the processes and actions that allow a company to attract and retain the human resources it needs. Recruitment, on the other hand, is that part of that overall strategy which focuses solely on selecting the right candidate from a shortlist of applicants.

From reactivity to proactivity

Perhaps the most striking feature of Talent Acquisition is the switch from a reactive search for candidates (i.e. in response to a need expressed by management) to the embrace of proactivity. The latter can take many forms: building talent pools, improving the employer’s reputation on websites such as GlassDoor and Google reviews, social networking, producing multimedia material to attract resources on the market, using boolean search etc.

At the end of the selection process, in the context of Talent Acquisition, it is practice to build a talent pool from which to draw in case the candidate chosen to be pushed forward for selection rejects the position.

Talent pools are fed with those candidates who, after having been selected by recruiters, are eventually rejected by management; also, with “hot” contacts, proactively reached out for by the Talent Acquisitio team, ready to answer a possible call. The logic here is both not to foreclose any path to success and to speed up company’s search channels.

Who stands for gain when a job position is offered

The proactive search also makes it possible to have candidates who in most cases already meet the recruiter’s needs. However, there is one aspect on which the rudder must always be kept straight: the proactive search must never give the candidate the idea that it is the company that is in a position to ask and the potential employee to concede. The recruiter must be able to keep alive in the candidate the idea that it is they and not the company that stands to gain from the work/remuneration exchange.

Employer branding

Following on from this, we come to a crucial point in talent acquisition: the employer’s reputation. If we think about it for a moment, we come to the realisation that some jobs are preferable to others simply because they guarantee a position in a given company that is considered prestigious.

It is absolutely crucial that this psychological mechanism is triggered and nurtured – obviously not too openly – by the recruiter and the company itself. It is quite clear that this might allow to offer less in terms of salary and, above all, to deter the chances of rejection by the candidate.

Employer branding can take many forms: publishing videos and other material about the company, maintaining social channels, checking reviews on sites that allow employees to write them, conducting interviews in a professional and always polite manner. The company on the one hand is called upon to ‘flex its muscles’, on the other hand to be genuinely professional

Company culture

Company culture is closely related to employer branding. The basic concept is that one is generally willing to make more if they have good reasons to do so.

For example, without going that far, fanatics of religious sects go to extremes… completely free! So, if you can instil the right company culture in your employees, you will be able to turn their time into gold. stimulating productivity and creativity in work processes.

Talent Acquisition = attraction + retention

The last aspect that should always be taken into account are retention strategies. To me, it seems self-evident to remember, all efforts made to attract human capital are useless if we do not have the ability to retain it.

The first and most important retention strategy is the use of money, something we all understand perfectly when it comes to quickly solve many issues. A simple salary increase protects against possible theft of staff by competitors.

Then you can have reward policies, welfare measures, work/life balance initiatives, the fostering of company culture, the ability to promote a sense of partnership among employees, the ability to listen to union representatives, etc.

For the complex of retention strategies, see another in-depth study.

In a nutshell

Everything, that we have seen up to this point, contributes to creating a truly profitable personnel search and selection system, which does not simply survive the demands of management but really cares about equipping the company with the best available human resources!