The Changing Landscape of Talent Acquisition

The Talent Acquisition industry has had some tumultuous years recently, from the explosion of hiring in many sectors during and immediately following Covid, to more volatile demand of the last few years causing a downturn in hiring and subsequent redundancies across numerous sectors.

This reduction in recruiter resources, and overall reduced investment in Talent Acquisition. This has occurred at the same time, there is a growing buzz and pressure from business leaders, about the potential of AI technology to drive efficiencies across the hiring process.  

Despite all of this, Talent Acquisition professionals, continue to be challenged to deliver quality hires in markets, where skill sets remain in high demand. Although candidates are staying put in their current roles, due to market uncertainties, and potential loss of flexibility that they have in their current organisations.

With every challenge comes opportunity, particularly as businesses start to think about the future and their talent needs to realise growth plans.  

Changes to the TA Landscape

If implemented and used intelligently, developments in Talent Acquisition technology can greatly reduce the highly administrative burden on recruiters. This should free up their time to focus on areas, where their expertise can add value, allowing them to become a true partner to the business. This value-add approach is going to be essential when competing for critical talent in a shrinking pool. This could include identifying talent via skills-based hiring vs. the more traditional approach based mainly on previous experience.

Improved technology and analytics, will support Talent Acquisition leaders, with much-needed data to highlight the value their teams are creating and improve their ability to influence business decisions.

Understanding what Talent Acquisition capabilities you have now, and what you will need to deliver for your future business is key.  Asking for investment is tough but the impact of not meeting hiring targets can ruin even the best-laid business plans.

Leveraging Into New Solutions

To find the right approach for your organisation, one size definitely does not fit all.  Options can include building out an internal Talent Acquisition function, buying in talent using external agencies or outsourcing to a partner that can tailor a solution right for you and will grow with your business.  If there has been a significant lack of investment in tools and technology or if it is a new hiring territory, often an RPO or Embedded partner is a much more time and cost-efficient route.

One thing is for sure, a flexible model is going to be key to success in this ever-changing market.

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