Sourcing vs Recruiting

Talent Acquisition vs. Recruiting: What’s the Difference?

It’s easy to confuse these two. In many ways, they share the same goals: placing people into open positions.

But, there are differences. Job recruiting addresses a company’s short-term headcount needs. Talent acquisition, on the other hand, is an overall business and HR strategy that factors in an organization’s long-term goals and acknowledges that people (or talent) can play a huge role in a company’s future successes. Unlike simply filling seats, talent acquisition is an ongoing process that tends to identify and vet appropriate candidates for executive-level positions, leadership roles, and jobs that require specialized training.

Talent acquisition vs. recruitment

While talent acquisition and?recruitment?share a similar goal -- to fill open positions -- they are separated by various differences. The biggest difference is that recruitment focuses on the present moment within the company, while talent acquisition focuses more on the future of the company.

In other words, recruitment is more invested in filling an open position as quickly as possible, while talent acquisition gives more consideration to the company's goals and takes the time to find the qualified candidate who best fits the business needs. To gain this broader perspective, talent acquisition teams analyze the current skills of prospective employees, as well as their potential future development and role within the company culture.

Other smaller differences extend from this one major difference. They are as follows:

• Talent acquisition usually requires significantly more time and planning than recruitment.
• Talent acquisition uses metrics and data analytics to improve the recruiting process and make better, more informed hiring decisions.
• Talent acquisition depends on teams understanding the different roles and segments within a company, as well as the skills and experiences needed to succeed in each area. Recruiting pays less attention to these details.
• Talent acquisition spends more time discovering the best places to find talent for specific jobs and then building relationships with people in each of these areas. Recruiting is more likely to use a general-purpose job search site and does not spend as much time on relationship management with potential or previous candidates.

Finally, while the recruitment process is reactive and linear, talent acquisition is cyclical and strategic. Recruitment focuses on fulfilling a current need, while talent acquisition focuses on creating a talent pipeline in anticipation of future needs.

Recrucial offers a state-of-the-art sourcing and hiring platform. We are powered by a massive database of skilled and verified employees making sourcing extremely easy for employers.?Contact us?to learn more.