Recruiting vs. Talent Acquisition — The Rising of Artificial Intelligence
“In today’s competitive environment for people, all talent markets need a talent acquisition strategy. At any given time, some markets might be ‘hotter’ than others, but the best organizations are projecting future needs and are always scouting the best talent.”
— Dee-Ann Turner, executive Chick-fil-A
It is not surprising to find people still using the terms “Recruiting” and “Talent Acquisition” interchangeably. This confusion may, in someway, explain why there are so many companies suffering from talent shortage. However, companies who keep an eye on the big picture and plan for the future know the big difference between the two. To put it simply, recruitment is a process of filling vacancies, while talent acquisition is an ongoing strategy to find specialists, leaders or future executives for your company.
But of course, we can go much further into this, as well as address how today’s trends in technological progress, namely artificial intelligence, can and will augment these roles.
Recruitment
Recruitment is a reactive process of searching for specific candidates to fill specific positions. It is reactive because a position is vacated or created; thus, the company has to find someone to fill the vacancy. This approach leads to increased time-to-hire and cost-to-hire. At times, companies have to compromise on quality in order to control the cost and time. There are many more details and metrics to talk about around requisitions and hiring manager satisfaction, but we at EmployToy focus on Talent Acquisition, so it would be more appropriate to focus on that.
Talent Acquisition
Strategic talent acquisition takes a long-term view of not only filling positions today, but using the candidates that come out of a recruiting campaign as a means to fill similar positions in the future. The future positions may not exist today, but they can be identified using predictive analytics and industry experience. The future talent requirements of the business can be planned for and potential candidates identified ahead of an immediate need.
Talent Acquisition professionals understand each talent has something of value to offer. They build relationships with the best talent that lead to a more successful network, more referrals, and more business; these relationships allow for an amazing give and take of expertise, knowledge, and information.
Here are the elements that differentiate talent acquisition from recruitment:
· Planning and Strategy
Establishing a solid talent acquisition strategy needs a lot of planning. Unlike recruitment, talent acquisition requires a deeper look at the nature of your business and an understanding of future workplace needs. It’s a forward-thinking approach; looking through a wider lens that takes into consideration the local and global labor markets. Since talent acquisition doesn’t happen in a vacuum, the process involves more planning and strategizing.
· Workforce Segmentation
Talent acquisition depends on understanding the different work segments within a company, as well as the different positions within those segments. Not only do you need a thorough understanding of your company’s inner workings, you must also know the skills, experiences, and competencies that each position requires for success.
· Employer Branding
More than ever before, brands are going beyond attracting consumers.. to attracting talent. Ensuring that your company’s brand is clear and attractive is a primary element in talent acquisition. This involves fostering a positive image and company culture, as well as establishing a good reputation based on quality products and services. A solid brand attracts top candidates while giving them a look inside at what it’s like to work for your company.
· Talent Scoping and Management
Top talent comes from many different places. Through talent acquisition, you’re researching and recognizing the different places where you can source candidates. Once you’ve established contact with potential candidates, you have to maintain and build those relationships. All of this is done with the understanding that most of these candidates will not fill positions right away but rather down the line.
· Metrics and Analytics
Finally, no talent acquisition strategy is complete without using key metrics to conduct proper tracking and analysis. By collecting and analyzing pertinent information, you can continuously improve your recruiting process and make better hiring decisions, ultimately improving your quality of hire.
Talent Acquisition is an ongoing cycle and process that starts by building Employer Brand, to the communication of Employee Value Proposition, then on to fostering relationships with targeted Talent Segments. Talent pools are therefore developed under TA, and so the network will continuously supply needed talent. This leads to the more strategic and proactive nature of TA.
How Can AI Help?
“Artificial intelligence is changing the way managers do their job — from who gets hired to how they’re evaluated to who gets promoted.”
— Ted Greenwald
A lot of talent acquisition leaders and recruitment professionals say the hardest part of their process is identifying the right candidates from a large applicant pool. This can be solved by simply using a software with dynamic artificial intelligence. Machine learning automates repetitive, high-volume tasks such as screening resumes and shortlisting candidates to interview. It takes only seconds for such a software to finish the work that takes even the best HR teams hours to finish.
There is an even greater benefit offered by AI besides more efficiency — it brings you better employees. Think about this: how well can you know a person after viewing his resume? How do you know when someone has the skills their resume says they have? This can be solved easily with Data Science. Particularly, smart machine learning algorithms that can provide a comprehensive profile of who a person is.
We are living in a world where people spend most of their time online; where “Facebook knows you better than your wife does” is not a (creepy) joke. The post you liked, the articles you read, the pictures you post — all these is data which contains the “real assets” of people. With the help of Data Science, data from social media can be quantified and analyzed to show people’s emotional intelligence, soft skills, mental diversity, and personality. It can give HR a much more comprehensive and deeper analysis of applicants than viewing resumes.
Many entities are already collecting, or buying your data to sell more things to you. Your data is the biggest marketing asset. But unlike the tyrannical and largely unethical ad industry, you should and can have the power to decide which employers can see your data. When it comes to Talent Acquisition, candidates can use their own data to sell themselves far more accurately then resumes ever can.
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Written by Wei Liu
Edited by Elijah Claude
