talent acquisition strategy

How to Craft an Effective Talent Acquisition Strategy

gigsmart-admin | Apr 28, 2021

Build an Effective Talent Acquisition Strategy to Find Great Workers

In today’s hyper-competitive job market, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to attract and retain top talent. Therefore, companies must prioritize talent acquisition as a critical component of their overall strategy. Doing so enables companies to maintain a full recruitment pipeline, keep employees happy, and bolster their employer brand.

What is a Talent Acquisition Strategy?

So, what is talent acquisition? According to Hubspot, Talent acquisition is a long-term HR strategy aimed at fulfilling organizational needs by finding top talent and convincing them to bring their unique skills to your company.

Talent acquisition should not be limited to recruitment because recruitment is just one part of talent acquisition. In addition to the recruitment process, talent acquisition includes the following:

  • Employer branding
  • Recruitment marketing
  • Employee onboarding
  • Succession planning
  • Talent development

In addition, management should consider leveraging talent outside of full-time workers, such as gig workers with specific skill sets and expertise. Businesses that adapt, shifting their focus from traditional 9 to 5 hiring practices, can leverage additional talent sources to meet changing demands quickly, save money, and reduce time to hire.

With these considerations in mind, organizations can dedicate resources to sourcing qualified candidates while following hiring best practices to help them remain competitive.

Steps to Build Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

To build a talent acquisition strategy, management should ensure that the changes implemented at the recruiting and employer brand levels align with the purpose and goals of the company.

Consider the various scenarios you may face pertaining to your future hiring needs. It may help to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are you hiring senior-level strategic candidates?
  • Do you have plans to increase your workforce?
  • Will you encounter seasonality that requires you to make a large number of hires at once?
  • Do you have an internal process so your employees can refer potential candidates?
  • What positions could be offered to gig workers or contingent labor?

Toolbox says there are five steps in the talent acquisition process. Let’s dive into each of these.

1. Inbound Marketing

The goal of inbound marketing is to attract the best talent without having to actively seek them out. This means that you should build a strong employer brand, including the work culture and overall mission. Encourage referrals, and have an up-to-date recruitment website, Glassdoor, or careers page.

Businesses who put their brand and culture first, by aligning it to what makes employees feel valued and satisfied, will continue to win the war in attracting and retaining top talent.

2. Outbound Marketing

It is essential to combine a mix of inbound and outbound marketing. Much like digital marketing today, you should focus on both inbound and outbound efforts to source the right candidates. Outbound tactics include paid social media and job ads.

3. Filtering & Selection

Once the talent pool is full, HR can focus on filtering and selection (recruitment). This step requires you to verify, screen, and assess the candidate pool.

4. Conversion & Onboarding

During the conversion & onboarding step, management should focus on hiring and training new hires. As you complete these functions, work towards cultivating a positive candidate experience. Designing a structured and seamless onboarding program for new hires helps them easily transition into the role.

5. Continuous Improvement

Lastly, it’s important to collect feedback. Request feedback from your employees to learn what’s working and what can be improved as it relates to your hiring practices.

Talent acquisition should be incorporated into your overall company strategy, carried out across many departments, and continuously improved.

Why Crafting a Talent Acquisition Strategy is Important

An effective talent acquisition strategy helps you remain competitive and stand out from competitors. Companies that think ahead and proactively scout the best talent can adapt to market challenges and mitigate risk with ease.

Without an effective talent acquisition strategy, you will continue to experience turnover due to mismatched hires. You may also struggle to fill skill gaps and open positions due to a lack of planning.

Modern Talent Acquisition Strategies Include Gig Workers

Today, workers have more freedom than ever to pick up temporary positions that allow them to work on their own terms. As a result, there’s a growing talent pool who may not be interested in your full-time job posting.

But the good news is that workers aren’t the only ones benefiting when gig workers are utilized. Consider ways to leverage temporary Workers as part of your talent acquisition plan. Doing so can help your business take advantage of many benefits, as outlined below.

Hiring gig workers can help you:

  • Find specialized expertise on-demand.
  • Rapidly grow or shrink your workforce (without the downside of cutting full-time employees).
  • Offer 24-hour customer service.
  • Experience tremendous growth by enabling you to leverage specialized skills from freelancers without the high overhead of hiring an entire in-house team.
  • Save money on employee benefits and traditional staffing expenses.

As a bonus, utilizing gig workers frees you up to capitalize on available time and resources without the burden of long-term commitments. Successful businesses can set themselves apart by finding ways to utilize on-demand workers as part of their modern talent acquisition plan.

Strategic Planning is Vital to the Success of Your Business

It is now more critical than ever for employers to be proactive in creating talent acquisition plans that will set them up for long-term success.

Management must take into account the trends changing today’s labor market. Cultivating a healthy mix of on-site and remote workers is imperative. Diversify your staffing strategy with W-2 employees, third-party outsourced solutions, and independent contractors. Businesses that think beyond the traditional job requisition and leverage freelancers and gig workers will reap countless benefits.

By adapting to these trends, companies can save money, secure the best talent, fill positions faster, experience less employee turnover, and consistently outproduce competitors.

GigSmart makes it easy to leverage temporary workers when your business needs arise. To post your first free Gig, sign up for Get Workers today.

Back to Blog