Up to 80% of talent acquisition managers agree that employer branding is one of the most important elements of hiring quality talent.

Talent acquisition is all about understanding how to find and secure the best talent. Many employers know the basics of recruitment, but if you really want to find the best talent available, you should work with professionals who know how.

A talent acquisition consultant can determine the best strategies to use to find suitable candidates for positions within your company. Implementing an effective talent acquisition process will help save time and money while ensuring you always hire employees who will fit into their new roles perfectly.

Let’s take a look at how talent acquisition consultants can help your business.

What Is Talent Acquisition?

Talent acquisition is a strategic process that involves identifying, assessing, and engaging new employees for a business. Some companies build internal talent acquisition teams.

These often consist of HR professionals, hiring managers, and other professionals. They work to craft a process that will help your business find candidates with the appropriate skills, experience, and personality that suit your company.

Talent Acquisition Consultant vs. Recruiter

Talent acquisition and recruitment often get used interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. In many cases, the recruitment process is far more basic than the talent acquisition process. A recruiter will sometimes work as a part of a talent acquisition team.

A talent acquisition specialist focuses on long-term business goals. They develop ongoing strategies to find leaders, executives, and specialists with high-level skill sets to meet the needs of an organization.

Recruiters typically focus more on short-term needs. They mostly look for new employees to fill immediate job openings.

Responsibilities of a Talent Acquisition Consultant

A talent acquisition consultant needs to create and maintain strategies that will find the top talent and bring it to your business. There are various responsibilities they have to help them do this.

Lead Generation

This is the first part of the talent acquisition process. It involves creating a detailed job description and looking at different channels to find candidates. This can involve things like online communities, social networking, and industry events to source from various talent pools.

Attracting Talent

Just finding talent isn’t enough – you then need to attract it. You want candidates who align with the goals and culture of your business, so a talent acquisition consultant will work with this in mind.

They’ll promote the views and missions of your brand while providing candidates with a clear view of what they’ll get from working with your company and why you’re better than your competitors.

Sourcing Candidates

Once some leads have been generated, they’ll engage with and evaluate them. This will allow them to narrow down the list of candidates to only the most suitable. By targeting the best candidates at this point, later steps will be more streamlined.

Candidate Screening

They’ll then screen the candidates to ensure you’re only considering those who are qualified. This often involves phone/virtual interviews and helps to gauge the interest level, salary expectations, and other details of these candidates.

Scheduling Interviews

You will now have a much shorter list of candidates, so your consultant will start scheduling interviews with them. This could be just one interview, or it may be several.

Your consultant can help to establish interview processes and questions for interviews for these candidates. The interview process can have a significant impact on candidate interest, so it’s important that they’re streamlined and engaging.

Advising Hiring Managers

Hiring managers make the final decision, but talent acquisition consultants can provide invaluable advice. This can be based on resumes, screening, and interviews. They can also advise hiring managers to make sure they’re using fair and ethical hiring procedures.

Following up With References

Checking references is an essential part of the hiring process. A talent acquisition consultant can contact previous employers and colleagues to ensure candidates have the qualifications and experience that they claim. It’s not uncommon for organizations a request background checks before making job offers.

Hiring the Best Candidates

By this point, the candidate list will be much shorter. The talent acquisition consultant will then work alongside your hiring manager, HR department, and other stakeholders to make a final decision on the best hire. They can use tools like evaluative software or grading systems to help with this.

Onboarding New Employees

Once the new hire has started, a talent acquisition consultant can still provide services. They can help with the onboarding process to ensure new hires are properly introduced to new work environments.

This helps new hires get to grips with company culture, processes, and coworkers. It can have a sizable impact on employee retention and loyalty.

Developing Metrics to Measure Success

At the end of all this, you want to make sure the whole process is worth it. Your consultant can analyze various metrics related to the process. This includes things such as:

  • Time-to-fill
  • Cost per hire
  • Quality of hire
  • Offer acceptance rate

Doing this will highlight any weaknesses in the process. You can then make improvements for the future.

Benefits of Working With a Talent Acquisition Consultant

All of the above responsibilities can prove very helpful. Some of the ways that these will benefit your business are:

  • A more streamlined recruitment process
  • Better quality hires
  • More diversity
  • Reduced time-to-fill
  • Expert advice

It’s generally a good idea to work with the same talent acquisition consultant for different hires.

When you have the same specialist working with you, they’ll gain a solid understanding of your business. This includes the culture, mission, views, and people. The better they understand your company, the easier it will be for them to find suitable talent.

Finding the Right Talent for Your Business

Even with the help of a talent acquisition consultant, finding the right talent can still be challenging. Many businesses these days are implementing remote work for many reasons. One of these reasons is it opens businesses to a much larger talent pool.