Any business can develop a Talent Acquisition process. But as talent pools become increasingly competitive, it’s the processes that have been optimised and improved that will drive results.
If you’ve ever hired an employee, your business will already have some form of Talent Acquisition process in place. Any recruitment strategy will help you build your workforce. But at what cost?
By exploring how to improve the talent acquisition process, it’s possible to optimise your approach, developing a more effective way to attract, engage, and retain talent. This can help to reduce costs and widen the candidate pool. It can also help you to grow, develop, and shape your business, giving you what you need to gain a competitive advantage, and thrive in the future.
Interested in learning how to improve talent acquisition? Keep reading. We’ll cover everything you need to know in this handy guide, starting at the beginning: what is a talent acquisition process?
What is a talent acquisition process?
Your talent acquisition process is the method you follow when bringing in a new member of the team. While each business will have its own preferred process, it will typically involve aspects such as…
- Evaluating business requirements
- Creating job listings
- Generating leads
- Assessing the talent pool
- Attracting candidates
- Qualifying candidates
- Interviewing
- Requesting references
- Shortlisting candidates
- Hiring
- Onboarding
See our helpful guide ‘How Does Talent Acquisition Work?’for building your first process.
However, we want to focus on optimising that process to drive better results.
So what do businesses need to know in order to understand more about how to improve talent acquisition? Let’s take a look…
8 Tips for how to improve your talent acquisition process
As much as we’d love to say ‘this is how you can improve a talent acquisition process, it doesn’t quite work like that. There’s no single process that will work for every organisation, so everyone’s approaching optimisation from a different starting point. What we can do, however, is provide useful tips for making the strategy more tailored to your needs, and more valuable.
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Keep employee retention in mind
Talent acquisition processes shouldn’t just focus on getting people through the door; they should encourage them to stay, too. You don’t want to be pouring resources into hiring top talent, only to have them resign a few months later. Improving your strategy to consider both acquisition and retention can save time and money. Think about how to position your business during the talent acquisition process to drive longer-term retention results, e.g. offering flexible working or career mapping.
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Appoint talent acquisition managers
Who carries out your talent acquisition process? If it’s a shared responsibility, consider appointing a dedicated manager to oversee hiring. This ensures there’s always one person involved across all stages to identify weaknesses and implement improvements. It can also be useful to have a single, dedicated point of contact for recruitment. This can help to encourage employees to make referrals, and may be valuable down the line if you decide to work with a talent advisory partner.
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Adopt a data-driven approach
Many talent acquisition processes are based on what businesses believe to be true, rather than on what is true. For example, previous experience may tell you that this job title attracts more candidates, or that job description encourages more applications. But it won’t be true for every company. Great processes are built on real data. By utilising data relevant to your business and industry, it’s possible to tailor your approach to generate higher-quality candidates more quickly, and at a lower cost.
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Increase transparency & inclusivity
Businesses may have a good idea of what their ideal candidate for any given role will look like – perhaps they have certain qualifications, or a particular professional background. But the truth is that approaching acquisition like this can limit the type of talent you’re able to access, attract, and engage with. By adapting processes to make them more transparent and inclusive, you can encourage more applications and make the company more attractive to top talent from diverse backgrounds.
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Simplify the application process
Many businesses think that the ‘hard part’ of talent acquisition is attracting top talent. It’s not. It’s keeping that top talent engaged, and guiding it through the application process. Research even suggests that as many as 92% of candidates drop out of the process between clicking ‘apply’ and ‘submit’. If your process is a little complex or long-winded, try to simplify it. Remove any unnecessary steps. Be clear on what candidates need to do to move forward. Share the information they need.
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Build your brand
Take a look at your acquisition process, and try to see it through the eyes of a candidate. Is it clear, right from the start, who you are, what you value, and how you’re striving to make a difference? Or could this be the process for any organisation? If your brand message doesn’t instantly shine through, then there’s room for improvement. Communicating the right message, clearly, from the very start, can help attract the right people who will fit effortlessly into your company culture.
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Be agile and flexible
Still, using the same talent acquisition process as you were when you were hiring your very first employees? As your business grows and develops, as your needs change, and as the market varies, your organisation’s talent approach should evolve. Developing a rigid process that can’t easily be changed will hold you back. Instead, add agility and flexibility to your process. This will enable you to adapt quickly to internal and external changes and ensure you’re always reaching the right people at the right time.
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Seek professional talent acquisition advice
Building and optimising a talent acquisition process is unique to every business. So ultimately, the best way to improve your approach is to engage a professional services company. Pick a company that understands the market, understands your business, and understands the optimisations needed to align the two. Unlike recruitment firms, advisory services aren’t intended to handle hiring for you. They’re there to help you develop your own internal processes that can ensure you’ve got a solid recruitment base.
Expert talent acquisition advisory
At Innovex, we specialise in the provision of tailored talent acquisition advisory services. We’re dedicated to supporting growing organisations as they optimise their hiring processes. We can help you to maximise the quality of hires while minimising recruitment costs. Contact us for more information.
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