What is Talent Acquisition

Glossary > Talent Acquisition

What is Talent Acquisition?

Talent acquisition (TA) is the combination of sourcing, engaging, assessing, hiring, and onboarding new employees in a company. It can often be part of an HR department or have its own department in larger companies. Talent acquisition can involve recruiters, hiring managers, team leaders, and other HR professionals. The best TA strategies utilize technology and automation for better results.

What is a Talent Acquisition Strategy?

Recruiting talent requires strategy in order to meet your organizational goals. A talent acquisition strategy includes your recruiting technology stack like your Applicant Tracking System (ATS), career site, Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system, and more. It involves communicating with passive candidates as well as current applicants for open roles and has the goal of hiring top talent in the most efficient amount of time.

What is the Difference Between Recruitment and Talent Acquisition?

While recruitment and talent acquisition are often thought to be the same, they have some important differences! Both share the goal of filling open positions, but the strategy is different.  Recruitment  is what many companies do when they have a massive number of roles to fill – think retail and foodservice jobs as an example. Often the goal of these hires is a short time to fill since they have high turnover. Talent acquisition involves an ongoing strategy of recruiting top talent, nurturing employees for internal promotions, and other long-term planning. It requires teams to constantly analyze their programs to improve in order to meet company hiring goals.

Is Talent Acquisition the Same as HR?

Often talent acquisition can live in the umbrella of HR in an organization, but it doesn’t always. Talent acquisition is the strategy of sourcing, nurturing, hiring, and onboarding top talent in your organization. HR can be any Human Resources function including payroll, benefits, or conflict resolution in a company. While all companies have an HR person or department, not all organizations have a talent acquisition strategy.

What is a Talent Acquisition Suite?

A talent acquisition suite is a technology stack that allows you to attract, engage, hire, onboard, and promote talent in your organization. Artificial intelligence adds efficiency and ease to recruiters’ daily tasks. TA technology also allows teams to analyze and learn from their efforts to continuously bring improvement to their organizations. This technology usually has licenses for members of recruiting and HR teams to individually use and save data.

More About Talent Acquisition 

Curious about incorporating talent acquisition strategy into your organization? Check out these articles to learn more – and read our blog and resource library to stay updated on what’s new in the HR tech space!