In today’s job market, it’s not the candidates that must appeal to the employer. Instead, it’s a company that needs to stand out to be noticed by the top candidates. Identifying, attracting, and hiring the best talent out there before the competition has become challenging, requiring companies to evolve their talent acquisition strategies to secure top talent in a candidate-driven job market. This ongoing strategy to find candidates for positions requiring a specific skill set necessitates companies to refine their techniques and approach to hiring.
Unlike general recruitment, talent acquisition is a long-term, strategic approach for acquiring and retaining the specialists or leaders a company needs while also considering candidates who will be a good fit for a company’s goals and values. With 69% of companies reporting talent shortages and difficulty hiring in 2021, hiring the right person for your company may feel like a formidable task, yet, to succeed long-term, your business needs to be able to hire and retain the best employees.
To successfully appeal to the top candidates, companies need a solid talent acquisition strategy built on well-defined business goals and strong employer branding. Safeguard Advisors specialize in branding and can help business leaders find a unique way to stand out with job candidates and drive long-term business success.
What’s the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition?
Recruitment is used to fill a specific role with a qualified candidate, making it a short-term strategy. Talent acquisition disregards role vacancies, making it a long-term HR strategy used to attract highly qualified candidates.
Effective Talent Acquisition Starts with Strong Employer Branding
Defining your employer’s brand is a critical component of a successful talent acquisition strategy. By investing in employer branding, a company will be able to capture potential job seekers’ attention. Your company branding should not only be unique to your business, but it needs to be inviting. This provides a clear picture of your vision, culture, and the mission of your company and ultimately enables potential employees to see what it’s like to work at your organization.
When researching your company, potential candidates will be looking at your website, social media accounts, external websites, and job boards to better understand your work culture and determine if they would be a good fit. Strong employer branding is the first step in raising awareness among future candidates of the organization and what it has to offer.
61% of today’s workforce cite work-life balance and personal wellbeing as being very important. Hence, a company that focuses on the well-being of its staff is almost certainly a place where individuals will desire to work. A great way to define your employer brand is by posting photos or videos of your employees at work and encouraging current employees to share why they enjoy working there. It’s essential that your employer’s brand can be easily communicated by employees who will represent and share your brand, both internally and externally.
Align Talent Acquisition with Your Business Goals
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to developing a talent acquisition strategy. As a long-term and comprehensive approach to finding employees, talent acquisition must consider business goals, needs, and plans and then use those goals to tailor a custom strategy unique to each organization.
There are four steps an organization can take to help them as they work to align talent acquisition with business goals:
- Supply: Analyze the capabilities of your current workforce and talent supply.
- Demand: Consider your future needs by analyzing your organization’s strategic goals.
- Gaps: Determine the skills and knowledge needed to achieve those goals and identify the gaps between your workforce’s current capabilities and the company’s future needs.
- Solution: Plan and implement activities to close the identified workforce gaps.
Specific roles might not even exist yet within an organization. Still, a thoughtful approach to talent acquisition can help ensure that a company will have candidates with the right skill sets and knowledge to grow into these roles when the time comes. Investing in suitable candidates will pay off for your company in the long term.
At Safeguard, we know that a strong talent acquisition strategy can make your organization stand out from the competition. By utilizing a talent acquisition strategy, a company will not only be able to fill its ranks with the best and brightest employees, but it will also be able to retain that talent and reduce employee turnover. You can rely on your Safeguard Advisor for the right products, services, and ideas to make managing and marketing your business more accessible and more productive. Call 855.778.3124 to get started.
Key Takeaways
- Talent acquisition is a long-term, strategic approach for acquiring and retaining the specialists or leaders that a company needs.
- Talent acquisition must consider future business goals, needs, and plans.
- Defining your employer’s brand is a critical component to positively capturing the attention of potential job seekers.
- A talent acquisition strategy helps a company fill its ranks with the best employees, retain those employees, and reduce employee turnover.