A guide to talent acquisition: Definition and best practices

Despite having more tools and channels available than ever before, finding the right talent remains difficult for most businesses. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 69% of organizations say it’s difficult to fill full-time roles, citing gaps in technical and soft skills. 

Talent is out there. The question is whether your organization is set up to find it and pick the right people when you do.  

That’s where talent acquisition strategies come into play. 

The goal of talent acquisition is to build a workforce that can support business objectives over time. When the strategy works, growth plans hold. When it doesn’t, execution can slip in ways that take a long time to recover from. 

Here, we’ll outline what the talent acquisition process involves and how to approach it with strong fundamentals. 

 Key takeaways

• Best practices in talent acquisition focus on building a workforce that supports long-term business goals, not just filling immediate roles. 

• A strong talent acquisition strategy connects hiring decisions to workforce planning and skills gaps. 

• Clear processes and a positive candidate experience can improve hiring outcomes and strengthen your talent pipeline over time. 

• Data and insights from HR reporting and analytics help teams make more informed and consistent hiring decisions. 

• Technology enables organizations to streamline hiring efforts while aligning talent acquisition with broader business strategy. 

What is talent acquisition? 

Talent acquisition is the process of identifying and attracting top job candidates, then hiring from these talent pools in a way that supports your organization’s long-term goals. Though filling roles is a critical part of this process, the true focus is on building a workforce with the skills and potential needed for future growth. 

In the broadest sense, this involves continual workforce planning and assessments that help your team identify skill gaps and develop strategies to engage candidates before roles even open. It also aligns with retention, as hiring the right people directly impacts performance and long-term stability. 

Talent intelligence platforms have become standard support tools for this work. They help hiring teams make more informed decisions about where to find talent and how to match hiring with business priorities. 

Is talent acquisition part of HR?

Yes, talent acquisition is a part of human resources, but its specific focus is on bringing new people into the organization. While the broader human resources team supports employees once they’re hired, talent acquisition teams work to find and attract the right people to fill roles. 

That work involves a lot of coordination with hiring managers and business leaders. Although that might seem incredibly task-driven on the surface, these efforts are truly strategic. Hiring decisions shape company growth and long-term performance more than almost any other operational call. Getting it right can pay off: McKinsey found that top performers in highly critical roles deliver 800% more productivity than average performers in the same role. 

Recruitment vs. talent acquisition: What’s the difference? 

While there’s no denying that recruitment and talent acquisition are closely related, these parallel efforts serve different purposes. 

Recruitment focuses on filling open roles when they come up, often driven by more immediate needs. If someone leaves or a new role is approved, recruitment’s priority is to find a qualified candidate who can fill the position quickly. 

Talent acquisition looks at hiring through a wider lens. Hiring is a part of it, but it also focuses on setting up recruitment for success by building candidate pipelines and mapping out future workforce needs. This long-game approach becomes especially important when the role is harder to fill, like leadership or highly specialized positions.  

In the end, though, both efforts play an important role. Recruitment helps keep the business running day to day, while talent acquisition supports long-term planning and stability. The best organizations rely on both, often using tools like talent acquisition and recruiting software to more effectively manage hiring. 

Understanding the talent acquisition process

No single action defines talent acquisition. The overall effort involves a series of connected steps that help organizations hire with more foresight and intention. While each team will differ slightly in their steps, many talent acquisition strategies follow a similar path: 

1. Understand business needs 

Every strategy starts with where the business is headed. That might mean building out a new department or planning for capabilities the company doesn’t have yet but will need within a year or two. Clearly aligning talent acquisition strategies with business goals helps set the foundation for every step that follows. 

2. Build role and candidate profiles 

Candidate profiles must be established for each role. This involves outlining responsibilities, skills required of successful candidates, and traits that matter most to the department and company culture. Strong profiles consider both immediate performance and long-term potential. 

3. Source and attract talent

This involves identifying where qualified candidates may “mingle” and engaging with them. Job postings, referrals, internal mobility, and proactive outreach all play a part, and the right mix depends on the role. 

4. Screen and assess candidates

Screening, interviewing, and assessing interested candidates helps you narrow the field of top candidates. These efforts work best when they’re consistent and objective. Using your established candidate profile as a guiding light helps keep the process objective and reduces the influence of unconscious bias on individual decisions. 

5. Select the final candidate and make an offer

A final candidate is then chosen based on how well they match the role and team. An offer is extended that reflects market conditions and the candidate’s expectations. There’s often some negotiation involved before things land. 

6. Onboard and support early success

The talent acquisition process isn’t over when the candidate signs the offer. Onboarding software helps new hires get up to speed during the early days in their new roles. That includes setting clear expectations and providing training and resources to help them succeed quickly. 

Best practices for your talent acquisition strategy

Best practices for talent acquisition help you fill today’s roles with an eye on tomorrow’s needs. They help organizations hire with purpose and consistency, building a workforce that can support where the business is going. 

Align talent acquisition with business strategy

Hiring priorities must reflect future needs. That means understanding growth plans and identifying critical skill gaps that, once filled, will prepare the organization for changes such as expansions into new markets or leadership transitions. 

Talent acquisition closely tied to business strategy makes hiring more proactive. Teams plan for upcoming gaps and avoid the scramble of filling roles on the fly. Aligning talent acquisition and management can establish a clearer line between these efforts. 

Build a strong employer brand and candidate experience

Branding isn’t just about how customers and clients see your organization. Job candidates form opinions about your organization, too, often developing them long before you extend an offer.  

You can help shape a more positive opinion of your company by setting clear job expectations, communicating promptly, and maintaining a straightforward hiring process. This also includes rejecting early and late-stage candidates in a professional way that maintains your long-term strategy. 

A positive candidate experience can improve offer acceptance rates and strengthen your talent pipeline over time. Gallup found that among employees hired in the last year, 2 in 3 said their candidate experience with their current employer was exceptional or very good. 

Slow or unclear processes, on the other hand, can make strong candidates grow weary of your brand, possibly pushing them toward other opportunities.  

Use data to improve hiring decisions

Like most things within your business, hiring decisions tend to be stronger and more successful when they’re backed by data. Metrics like time-to-fill and offer acceptance rates help gauge hiring efficiency and competitiveness, while tracking candidate drop-off points can reveal where the process might need attention. 

HR analytics and decision-making help your team spot patterns early so they can quickly adjust their approach and make more informed decisions than instinct alone. 

Nurture talent pipelines

Waiting until a role opens to start looking for candidates can lead to rushed decisions. Building relationships in advance, however, helps create a pool of workers who are already familiar with your organization. 

Nurturing these pipelines involves staying connected with past applicants and encouraging employee referrals. It also includes supporting internal mobility whenever possible. For hard-to-fill or high-impact roles, the ability to tap into an existing pipeline can boost both the speed and the quality of your hire. 

How technology improves talent acquisition

Technology plays a central role in strengthening modern talent acquisition strategies. Integration, customization, machine learning, and AI can help teams move faster by automating repetitive tasks.  

Tech’s real value, though, comes from improving how decisions are made. Better visibility into candidate pipelines, hiring trends, and performance metrics helps teams focus their efforts on areas that make the most difference. 

Modern solutions also make it easier to connect talent acquisition with broader workforce planning. Within a single data model and HCM platform, hiring data lines up with business goals, helping organizations plan for (instead of reacting to) gaps. As your team evaluates next steps, consider how the right tools can support your talent acquisition strategy and efficiency. 

Frequently asked questions

What is talent acquisition? 

Talent acquisition is the process by which organizations find and hire people who can support their goals over time. It goes beyond hiring for open roles to focus on building a workforce with the right skills for what’s ahead. 

How is talent acquisition different from recruiting?

Recruiting is about filling a role that’s open right now. Talent acquisition looks further out. It considers future needs, builds pipelines, and focuses on hiring people who can grow with the business. 

What is the talent acquisition process?

It’s the set of steps used to identify hiring needs, attract candidates, evaluate them, and bring them into the organization. Strong processes also include planning ahead and setting new hires up to succeed once they start. 

What challenges do talent acquisition teams face today? 

Skill gaps are a big one, especially for specialized roles. Competition for talent is another. In addition, expectations of candidates have changed, putting more pressure on teams to move quickly and communicate clearly. 

How can technology improve talent acquisition?

Technology helps teams stay organized, move faster, and make data-informed decisions. It can streamline tasks like screening and scheduling while also giving leaders better insight into what’s working and where hiring efforts need to improve.