What is talent acquisition?
Talent acquisition is the umbrella term for the HR functions necessary to source, attract, process, screen, qualify, and hire talent. They include:
- Developing a hiring plan
- Creating a job requisition process
- Writing job descriptions
- Posting jobs to job boards, careers pages, and social media accounts
- Tracking hiring metrics
- Receiving and tracking applications and resumes
- Creating screening questionnaires, candidate scorecards and interview scripts
- Scheduling and conducting interviews
- Performing background and reference checks
- Writing offer letters
- Negotiating employment contracts
- Creating employee referral programs
- Sourcing and nurturing passive candidates
Who manages talent acquisition?
Depending on the size of the company, multiple job roles might include talent acquisition tasks. In a small business, the owner might handle all all talent acquisition. In larger organizations, a Human Resources director or hiring manager would perform talent acquisition. Enterprise-level companies may have a talent acquisition team that includes many talent acquisition specialists. Companies also outsource talent acquisition to staffing agencies or professional recruiters (sometimes called headhunters).
How does a talent acquisition specialist fill an open job?
Here is the general process a talent acquisition specialist or hiring manager would follow:
- Submit a job requisition to the necessary members of leadership and obtain approval
- Perform a job analysis to determine the requirements for a new or open position
- Decide how the new position will be filled: with an outside candidate or through internal placement
- Write a job description based on the position analysis
- Create the application including any screening questionnaires included in the application process
- Post the job to job boards, social media sites, careers pages or other job advertising venues
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- Seek referrals from current employees
- Review applications and resumes
- Isolate a group of top candidates from the overall applicant pool
- Manage the interview and evaluation process:
- Determine which candidates from the initial pool will advance to a phone interview
- Of those candidates, choose which candidates to invite for in-person or video interviews
- Schedule interviews
- Conduct interviews
- Gather feedback from the hiring team
- Determine which candidates from the initial pool will advance to a phone interview
- Make the final hiring decision
- Obtain approval from the executive team (or other necessary stakeholders)
- Conduct background and reference checks
- Extend an offer letter
- Negotiate the employment contract
See also
- recruiting/">Recruiting
- Hiring Processes
- Applicant Tracking System
- Job Board
- Video Interview Software
