Talent Acquisition Is the Lifeblood for an Organization

Talent acquisition is considered the lifeblood for many organizations. Talent acquisition is based on an organization’s definition of what a star or talented performance is. Explain how organizations formulate these definitions and how they influence expectations concerning selection criteria to find these star performers. Consider in your answer how these definitions serve as benefits and constraints in an organization’s recruitment and sourcing strategy. Provide examples from industry and/or from your own organization.

In my opinion talent acquisition is defined depending of the type of organization and industry. Talent acquisition can be defined as a talent with the right skills, right culture fit, and right experience to be successful in a particular organization. I will try to explain my experiences as a recruiter to show three different definitions for talent acquisition. My first experience was when I had recently graduated in Business Administration and I got my first job. I joined a small IT Consulting Company and my boss asked me to recruit Consultants with experience Oracle Database and Peoplesoft. It was almost impossible to find these skills in Brazil about 15 years ago. After months searching for talents, I convinced him to try new-grads and train them. I started also taking my HR certificate and it helped me to identify how to start to develop some skills as recruiter too. In my first job, because it was a Consultant company, employees usually worked in a client office. I didn’t have any job analysis/job description/job specification.

My big issue was finding out the nature of jobs required and the relationship of the job with other jobs in the concern. My boss (and company CEO) usually informed how many candidates he needed, how long, and the skills needed. If we didn’t have in house, I started to go/contact universities and soliciting new-grad. Our clients were the largest companies in Brazil, and a lot people wanted (still want) to work for them. I had hired some new-grad paying less (for few months) just for them to have the opportunity to learn a new skill. The most important for me at this point that I didn’t have any experience was sourcing the new-grad, interview them and find out about the personality skills to learn new skills/tools, give to them all equipments/resource (books)/training necessaries to develop the service. After couple years I start to create some process and start to work with job description, some job analysis. Not completed because we didn’t know exactly the full work to be performed before we start in the client. Sometimes we started with a small project and we got a chance to participate in another big one. That’s why the most important skill for me (as recruiter) to identify in a new candidate was the capacity/interesting to learn.

During my time at this company we had a very good feedback from our customers and we keep them for several years. I was able to see that with a good hiring process minimizes disruption to our clients. My second company working as a recruiter was here in United States. I started there in 2008. It was a high tech company. They worked with WiMAX (wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL). People with experience in WiMAX are not easy to find, and they want only with at least 5 years of experience. The only time we had a hire was between August 2008 and January 2009 they opened 9 new positions. We hired a technical recruiter to help me. At this time I create a process with him, and I used to have an interview with the hire manager for the job analysis/job description. The recruiter was responsible to do the phone screen in case the hire manager approve his/her resume. After that he sent to me and I start to work with the candidate to schedule an interview (phone or onsite), round table, performance background/references check, develop/negotiate offer letter and new hire orientation (in case he accepted). We usually didn’t have hard time to keep the employees.

Our team was work hard and very friendly. We had several employees working for almost 10 years and the company offered a very good benefits package. Unfortunately, the company broke in the end of 2011. One big mistake, in my opinion, was because the board member and executives didn’t let us (HR department) to be involved in any decision. For example, these 9 hires were requested because the VP of engineer told that they needed to release a product by the end the year (as the company requested). We didn’t release the product on time and the company didn’t have money to keep the employees and we had our first lay off in February of 2009 (some of the hire was laid off). I suggested to my boss to hire a temporary employee, but they didn’t want. It was a very bad experience for me. Not as a recruiter, but I saw how important is a HR professional to be involved in the company business and understand the organizations’ business needs to try helping them. I am current working in a Biotechnology company. They define as “talent” candidates with PhD and preferable graduated or coming from one of our USA “best” universities (Stanford, UCLA, Harvard, etc). I am not saying that they only hire these candidates, but it is what they consider “talent” for the company.

The company started end last year, and has less than 30 employees. We have no HR department yet. My boss, VP of finance is trying to take care the HR department. I gave her some suggestion about improve our benefit package that is very important for a company try to hire “talents). For example, we offer only 1 health plan – PPO or HMO, dental plan and Vision plan. We offer 3 weeks’ vacation and 5 sick days/year. That’s all. I suggested adding life insurance, finding more health plan options for the next open enrolment, include 401K, FSA/HAS, and life insurance. The only she agreed is 401K. Talent acquisition is not only you find them. We need to have a very good benefit package, a nice workplace, reasonable company policies, be ethical/fair (very important), ????? to keep them. It is terrible when we (recruiter) hire a talent and we see him/her leaving the company because the company was not able to keep him/her. We have all recruiting process (job analysis, job description, source candidates, screen them, schedule interview (phone or onsite), round table, if move forward request background and reference check, develop / negotiate offer letter and finally new hire orientation).