What Is Talent Acquisition? Everything to Know

What is talent acquisition?

The most common talent acquisition definition is:

The planning, execution and ongoing optimization of internal and external recruiting activities that lead to the hiring and retention of high-performing employees.

A more nuanced definition of talent acquisition is:

The attraction, engagement and conversion of qualified professionals — ones will fill important organizational needs and contribute to business growth — through a data-backed candidate relationship management (CRM) strategy.

The most crucial daily tasks talent teams tackle — especially tasks that encompass the modern talent relationship management (TRM) lifecycle — include:

Sourcing: Adding many qualified candidates to one’s talent acquisition solution daily

Relying solely on applicants to fill job openings isn’t viable for today’s TA teams.

Talent specialists must also proactively engage potential candidates whose experience, qualifications and skills align with job requirements (i.e., criteria from hiring managers).

There is no one-size-fits-all sourcing approach. Instead, recruiters must try multiple sourcing avenues and marketing techniques to engage and convert prospects.

Nurturing: Engaging passive prospects with personalized, timely messages

It’s critical to fill the talent pool with many qualified candidates. But recruiters must use personalized nurture campaigns to keep the candidates engaged.

Leveraging channels like text and email and regularly testing the schedule, cadence and copy of those messages improve nurture campaign performance.

Interviewing: Talking to candidates of interest with other hiring team members

This stage aims to help the hiring manager and the interview panel learn about and compare the candidates and convert the most suitable one.

As with sourcing, no two companies’ structured interview cycles are the same. But building a framework that leads to efficient, unbiased interviews is critical.

Hiring: Extending offers to and employing the best job candidates

Hiring teams who chat with multiple candidates for a given role must then provide their feedback on the prospects in question (and in silos, until all feedback is compiled, to avoid any bias in decision-making).

Once this feedback is completed, hiring stakeholders can discuss their perceived pros and cons for candidates and recommend who to extend an offer to. Ultimately, the hiring manager decides who they think is the ideal candidate to join their team.

Analyzing: Reviewing data associated with the entire recruitment process

There are many moving parts to get candidates from the start of the recruitment funnel to the “finish line.” Talent teams must analyze insights tied to their work to improve with each successive recruiting and hiring cycle.

This data deep-dive shows them what worked with their recruiting (e.g., candidates express positive sentiment about the interview process) and what didn’t (e.g., certain interview stages were too long and led to a high candidate “drop-off” rate).

Rediscovering: Resurfacing previously engaged talent in one’s database

Legacy recruitment databases prevent recruiters from reengaging previously engaged prospects. This is because these solutions lack functionality that resurface top talent.

Some TA suites offer candidate rediscovery capabilities (i.e., recommendations and search features) that help talent specialists reexamine “known” leads.

What modern talent acquisition teams look like

You now know what talent acquisition entails and the core tasks TA leaders and specialists conduct on their own and with the aid of hiring team members.

Now, let’s look at the typical makeup of a modern talent acquisition team and each individual’s role in the recruiting and hiring process.

Chief human resources officer

Not every organization combines human resources and talent acquisition. Some companies prefer to keep the two business units separate. In these instances:

• Human resources focuses on employee onboarding, upskilling, engagement and retention; owns their company’s internal mobility program; and works with their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) committee on various initiatives (e.g., developing employee resources groups)
• Talent acquisition focuses on identifying, engaging and converting potential candidates and analyzing historical and recent recruiting performance data to identify individual and collective strengths and areas for improvement (e.g., ways to improve speed and efficiency)

However, many businesses still fold talent acquisition into their HR department.

In this setup, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) oversees TA and relays requests from the leadership team and hiring managers (e.g., new hiring priorities for certain teams or roles) to talent leaders. These TA directors then help recruiters adjust their sourcing and nurturing efforts as needed.

Director of talent acquisition

Speaking of talent acquisition directors, these individuals own and operate their org’s TA strategies outright when their teams aren’t incorporated in their HR department.

The average talent leader:

• Liaises with C-level leaders and partners on workforce planning — not just to “take orders” from their leadership team to execute (i.e., specific requisitions to prioritize next), but also to provide data-driven insights to help inform hiring plans
• Aligns their TA functions with the goals and strategic needs of the business
• Leverages a holistic view of their team’s performance and related business objectives using robust talent analytics that “blends” with HR’s data set
• Standardizes their talent acquisition teams’ processes and ensuring they have the well-built TA technology stacks that support those processes

“Setting their recruiters up for success day in and day out helps talent leaders get the most out of their TA staff,” said Roy. “These efforts have a trickle-down effect.

“Recruiters who have clear guidance from and regular check-ins with their talent directors are able to continually enhance their efforts to engage and convert active opportunities and make strides with DEI and candidate experience to boot,” Roy added.

Talent acquisition specialists

The heart and soul of every company’s talent team are the “on-the-ground” personnel who execute the plans crafted by CHROs and/or TA leaders.

That said, there are different “flavors” of talent acquisition specialists you will commonly find at companies today, including (but not limited to):

• Generalist: This TA team member wears several hats (e.g., writing impact job descriptions, advertising roles on job boards and social media, “matching” archived candidates to new and future openings).
• Sourcer: Sourcers scour LinkedIn, Indeed, Wellfound and other popular (and even niche) career communities to identify qualified, diverse candidates to contact and gauge their interest in available positions.
• Coordinator: Dedicated talent coordinators to keep recruiters on track. Pipeline management is often a core responsibility of coordinators, as this helps recruiters stay organized and on schedule.
• CX specialist: Many TA teams employ candidate experience specialists to advise recruiters on how to provide a consistently top-tier CX and reduce dissatisfaction among hired and archived prospects.

“Not every talent acquisition team will have all these roles,” said Chris.

“But many scaling TA leaders now understand that assigning recruiters to niche positions like these can help ensure they leave no stone unturned when it comes to enhancing their individual and collective output,” Chris added.

Recruiting operations managers

If recruiters are the heart and soul of talent acquisition, operations is the backbone. These analytically minded TA professionals focus on two main tasks:

• 1) Technology utilization: Many teams across your average org are not tech-savvy. That means these departments need guidance to best utilize their solutions. Ops managers aid talent acquisition with onboarding new platforms and relaying best practices from those software providers to recruiters to ensure they can take full advantage of the tech.
• 2) Process refinement: Operations managers also eliminate dated and inefficient processes and create new, better processes in their place. These professionals are especially concerned with processes around the primary TA solution recruiters use to source and nurture candidates and manage and analyze their pipelines.

“Operations managers don’t just keep the talent acquisition ship afloat,” said Roy.

“They also ensure recruiters can thrive using the tools they have at their disposal and unearth actionable insights talent leaders and specialists alike can exploit to augment their work and improve key metrics,” Roy added.

Other key hiring stakeholders

There are other hiring team members who play pivotal roles in the recruiting process:

• Hiring managers who submit requisitions to fill new/open roles on their teams
• Interview panelists who speak with candidates and offer their feedback/scores
• The CEO and CRO/CFO who dictate the overall growth direction of the business
• DEI committee members who ensure diverse candidates are sourced/engaged
• HR generalists who “complete” a candidate’s experience through onboarding

Each stakeholder has a unique perspective, as it pertains to the recruitment and hiring process. Collectively, these unique vantage points lead to more intelligent hiring decisions — and a more productive talent acquisition team.

How today’s leading talent acquisition teams operate

Leading TA orgs work closely with executives, human resources, people managers, operations, and other key stakeholders to continually improve in key areas that cumulatively impact their ability to hire and retain top talent.

Workforce planning to map out headcount needs

The C-suite decides which business unit to prioritize in terms of headcount in their quarterly and annual workforce planning sessions (in part based on insights and suggestions provided by talent leaders). It’s then on TA directors to follow these requests and prepare their recruiters accordingly.

Talent leaders must also meet with HR when headcount needs and priorities change (e.g., when the business needs new engineers to support software expansion).

Candidate sourcing to augment recruiters’ outreach

The top talent teams gradually refine their sourcing by using data to determine which specific sources work best and worst for finding qualified candidates.

But hiring managers also often know where to find premier prospects based on their past hiring experiences. Talent specialists can glean these insights during kickoff calls after requisitions are approved.

Recruitment marketing to boost conversion rates

Hiring managers often suggest language and value propositions to include in candidate nurture campaigns (i.e., series of personalized text messages and/or emails to prospects of interest) and job listing and career page copy.

Talent specialists must craft messaging for this collateral. But hiring managers’ voices must also be factored in to ensure the role-related assets support their needs.

Employer branding to best promote the business

Human resources also helps with recruitment marketing — specifically with how the employer brand is positioned within promotional content posted on the company website and used in external messaging.

The HR team also handles brand reputation management and employee referral generation to aid TA. Both activities impact application totals and nurture engagement.

Compliance to abide by data regulation measures

Operations managers must be able to handle real-time requests for candidate data deletion — something your C-suite wants them to prioritize to avoid non-compliance and penalties. That means they need a user seat for TA’s primary candidate database.

Internal mobility to advance and retain employees

The Great Resignation caused countless professionals to quit their jobs. Many people put in their notice due to the effects of the global pandemic and job burnout. But some also did so due to a lack of career mobility options.

This is why TA and HR now often work together on internal mobility: to allow employees to express interest in open and future roles and help talent teams learn which current workforce members would be good fits for those positions.

Diversity recruiting to aid TA with DEI hiring efforts

Improving diversity, equity and inclusion is a table-stakes initiative for every company. However, achieving DEI goals is a collective effort by everyone at a business.

Employees can aid their orgs’ DEI efforts through referrals. Recruiters want to add candidates from various backgrounds to their talent pools, and internal referrals help.

Recruitment outsourcing to ease the burden for TA

Some TA teams have lofty hiring goals assigned by leadership — goals they can’t meet without the aid of external talent acquisition consultants or agencies. Many scaling orgs and Fortune 500 firms lean on outside partners often.

For instance, some enterprises use recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) agencies to outsource a talent search (e.g., C-level or technical roles). RPOs are used when in-house TA specialists don’t have the expertise or bandwidth to launch a search.

Analysis and reporting to unearth valuable insights

Truly data-driven talent acquisition teams sync their recruitment tech with the HCM and/or HRIS used by HR. The “blended” candidate and employee data helps them get quality-of-hire insights that can help elevate their recruiting.

Merging TA-owned recruiting data with HR’s post-hire data enables talent teams to better discern what traits high-quality hires have compared to the rest. These insights can then primarily inform changes to sourcing.

Talent acquisition metrics every TA team must track

“When you know better, you do better,” said Lever Group Product Manager Bec Powell.

“Clear and holistic measurement, forecasting, and predictive analytics throughout all stages of the hiring process empowers talent leaders to pinpoint exactly where to spend their energy to improve and adjust to an ever-evolving talent ecosystem,” Bec added.

With that in mind, here are several talent acquisition metrics recruiters must regularly improve to appease their talent leaders and other key hiring stakeholders.

Speed: How quickly recruiters advance candidates through the funnel and fill key roles

• Time to hire: The average number of days from when a recruiter is assigned a new requisition to when an active candidate formally accepts a job offer
• Time to fill: The average number of days from when a requisition is approved by leadership to the first day the candidate who accepted an offer starts their job
• Time to feedback: The average amount of time it takes (hours, days or weeks) for every interview panelist to provide feedback for a given candidate they spoke with
• Days in stage: The average number of days a lead spends in a recruitment funnel stage (can be used to calculate time in stage for specific roles, teams and locations)
• Pipeline speed: The amount of time (days, weeks or months) it takes a talent team and specific recruiters to meet their talent pipeline’s target quota

Efficiency: Productivity and cost-effectiveness of individual recruiters and the entire TA team

• Cost per hire: The average amount of money spent to make and onboard a net-new hire (accounting solely for external candidate who accept an offer)
• Offer acceptance rate: The average rate of job offers extended to candidates that are accepted over a given period, including by team, location and diversity
• Archived opportunities: The number and percentage of candidates who enter the recruitment cycle for a role but were eventually archived by talent teams
• Resumes/applications reviewed: The number, percentage and rate of submitted resumes and applications that are reviewed by recruiters over a given period
• Nurture engagement: The average open, click-through and reply rates of nurture emails and/or text messages sent by recruiters to passive prospects in their pipeline

Quality: Strength of sourced candidates, hiring stakeholder sentiment and employee output

• Quality of hire: Value an employee adds to a business based on predefined criteria set by HR and hiring managers (i.e., what they deem a low- or high-quality hire)
• Quality of source: Rating for sources based on predefined criteria set by talent teams (i.e., how frequently a source leads to engaged candidates and new hires)
• Sourcing diversity: The diversity makeup of one’s talent pool based on responses to EEO/DEI surveys included in job listings (latter survey often made optional)
• Candidate Net Promoter Score: Rating from engaged candidates that denotes the quality of CX provided (i.e., on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most satisfied)
• Hiring manager satisfaction: Rating scale (custom to each org) that denotes how satisfied hiring managers are with TA’s recruiting efforts for their open roles

The ideal talent acquisition strategy framework

No two talent acquisition strategies are the same. However, the commonly implemented tactics and techniques from leading TA teams are common for a reason:

They lead to quick and efficient recruitment cycles, greater recruiter productivity, and more accepted offers.

Here are three businesses — small, mid-market, and enterprise companies — that established ROI-improving talent acquisition strategies with LeverTRM.

Small business with a modest TA function

TextNow’s focus on recruiting speed and efficiency pays off

• TextNow did not have enough in-house recruiting bandwidth to source the quantity and quality of candidates it needed to build a robust prospect pool. The company outsourced much of its sourcing to an RPO.
• However, lead volume still lacked, and the business lost out on qualified candidates to other employers because its recruiters couldn’t nurture the talent added to its candidate pool by the RPO in a timely manner.
• So, TextNow brought sourcing in-house and began to leverage LinkedIn for sourcing and LeverTRM to nurture applicants and sourced candidates — changes that helped the company decrease time to fill by 65%.
• TextNow also streamlined hiring manager collaboration, interview scheduling, candidate searches, and pipeline evaluation (including which stages candidates tend to “exit” the funnel most often) using LeverTRM.

Mid-sized company with a scaling TA team

Samba.tv eliminates recruiting bottlenecks to fill roles faster

• As often happens with rapidly scaling orgs, Samba.tv outgrew its legacy ATS and needed a more advanced, user-friendly solution to help its recruiters source, nurture and interview smarter and faster.
• Samba.tv also needed a platform that connected directly with the third-party tools its recruiters used to augment candidate outreach and internal collaboration and gain more intricate pipeline insights.
• Investing in LeverTRM for Enterprise helped Samba.tv’s talent team identify, nurture, advance and monitor candidates with greater ease and “keep the [recruiting] engine running smoothly.”
• The average time to fill for Samba.tv before investing in LeverTRM was 129 days. After onboarding our TA suite, that figure sped up by 69%, leading to greater hiring manager satisfaction.

Enterprise org with many in-house recruiters

Coupa builds predictable and scalable talent acquisition engine

• Coupa Software needed to support its rapid business growth in 2022 and beyond with an accelerated hiring plan that increased its headcount by 40% (or roughly 1,300 employees) in a matter of months.
• Providing a high-quality candidate experience, achieving diversity hiring targets and further streamlining recruiting workflows remained imperative during this hyper-speed hiring period for Coupa.
• To continue to make headway with its DEI goals, ensure candidates enjoyed their recruiting experience and empower recruiters to work efficiently, Coupa needed data-driven TA tech to support this rapid growth period.
• LeverTRM helps Coupa to increase its hiring speed, hit its high-volume hiring quotas, improve recruiters’ productivity, analyze and take action on specific facets of its DEI and candidate experience efforts.