The purpose of #talentacquisition in a company

You know when a company needs to #grow? Or when the same company needs to start making some changes within its own structure and some #employees should be moved from one unit to another? Whenever a situation like that happens, there's a few areas that are involved in those #changes but only ONE team is the one that will #lead all the initiatives: The Talent Acquisition team. But what, exactly, that department is in charge of?

About 15, 20 years ago, it was hard to find someone in a company that really knew difference between #hr and #talentacquisition . For most of the #hiringmanagers , it was all the same thing lol. OF COURSE, there were some companies that matured more than others and, perhaps, the differences between both were clear but, overall speaking, there were lots of misconceptions about it. Whenever a project was approved, usually the hiring manager used to go to HR and ask to hire a number of people. HR was used to involve TA and then the process would start. Compared to today, I believe this "communication step" was one of the very few things that did not change that much over the years but what happens next changed a lot…

I remember that, as a recruiter experiencing the #rise of TA back in those days, all we cared about it was "filling this position asap, no matter what".? We were very concerned about filling the position quickly because we knew there was a project that was depending on us to have the people allocated. TA did not have that many initiatives as #rewarding for #referrals or anything related to #sourcingeeffectiveness. The Hiring Manager was used to ask for interviews only and we were used to have lots of #partners to help us find candidates, especially when the job was very challenging.

Reading the above with today's #mentality, it seems a very "basic" job. And indeed, it was! Not saying it was not important but, comparing to how TA has #evolved, it was basic! But what has changed, significantly, to a point where made Talent Acquisition much more #strategic?

Nowadays, if a company does not understand that bringing the right people to the organization is not important for the #longrun, I must say that the company will be faded to face lots of challenges. The Talent Acquisition teams, today, have started to use much more #analytics to help hiring managers make smarter decisions. Understanding and measuring the numbers of candidates being rejected in a process is as important and filling the job. Paying attention to the company's #branding and allocating the right initiatives to make it more appealing is equally important to the job that will be done by that new project!

What about Diversity & Inclusion? That is a very recent #theme which companies started to talk about. And who is used to working leading that initiative? Usually, Talent Acquisition. The importance of having a #diverseworkplace and a #diverseteam will give the companies better ideas to run their own business.

We can't deny there's a #warfortalent? outside. Everyone is looking for the best of the best and, many times, candidates have the option to choose where to work. And for that reason, even if your company is a REALLY GOOD EMPLOYER, there will always be a company without that particular candidate. That's why the Talent Acquisition teams started to promote #internalmobility more often together with #upskilling. Most of the time, the solution is in front of us and there's not a need to look outside. Did Barcelona hire Messi? No, the club has #formed the athlete. And I see a lot of companies that started to understand that through Talent Acquisition teams.

And guys, let's not forget #automation! Of course, TA did not invent that but now the teams have understood the importance of automating basic tasks to help them focus on the right things! Posting jobs from the scratch? C'mon, we are in 2023...

Speaking on #rightthings, if your company has a Talent Acquisition team and you didn't start to talk about #scorecard , there's something wrong happening. We should start removing #bias out of the interviewing process and making sure we are #evaluating candidates based on the core competencies for the job and also making sure the candidate fits to your company's core values! Remember when someone was hired based JUST on what he/she was able to do, technically speaking? Guys, that time has passed already. Now, a #mature Talent Acquisition team will have to help Hiring Managers to take their decision ALSO based on #softskills. Not saying our #gutfeeling is not important but we can't count on it ONLY to make our decisions.

As we can see, there are tons of things that have changed throughout the years. And all the companies that have been #successfull are the ones with a very solid TA department. And many more things are about to change in the future! Let's not forget that AI is beginning to show up more often in different situations and I don't think TA is excluded from that conversation.

If you have a Recruiter or a Talent Acquisition Partner in your company, ask them about their team's core business. There's A LOT OF THINGS happening in the backstage that adds lots of #value before presenting candidates to be interviewed :)