How to Develop a Winning Talent Acquisition Strategy

May 11, 2023

For many organizations, the hiring process begins when an employee leaves, leaders make the decision to find a replacement, or a new project requires additional workers. However, this reactive approach to recruitment can lead to tight crunches and poor hiring decisions. Moreover, teams are often left to make do with growing skill gaps while handling multiple workflows, harming productivity.

To hire and retain the best talent, and ultimately stay ahead of the competition, you need to build a proactive acquisition pipeline that delivers highly qualified candidates when you need them most. But how can you accomplish this?

Let’s take a closer look at how you can develop a winning talent acquisition strategy that achieves unprecedented results.

Identify and Align With Business Goals

Before you dive into creating or modifying your recruitment process, it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. What are your organizational goals over the next few years? How can your strategy meet these talent needs. Think about how your company will scale or expand in the future and focus on finding skilled candidates that can take you there.

By taking the time to align your process with business goals and plan out your workforce needs, you’ll not only make better hiring decisions — but you’ll also be laying the foundation for future success.

Refine Employer Branding

Just like a consumer brand is aimed at spreading awareness and driving customer engagement, your employer brand should focus on marketing to candidates. Before a person even applies to a position, they’ve likely already interacted with your brand in some capacity. You need to present an image that immediately attracts attention and encourages job seekers to find out more.

According to LinkedIn, passive candidates comprise around 70% of the global workforce, meaning most talent isn’t actively looking for new job opportunities. To attract these skilled workers, your employer branding should be highly targeted and relevant to these audiences.

Optimize the Candidate Experience

Outside of first impressions, the next most important thing to a potential employee is the hiring experience. Do your job descriptions set realistic expectations? Are they engaging and mobile-friendly? Do your applicants have to wait weeks to hear back from you?

Candidates want a seamless experience throughout the hiring process. Optimizing this journey requires regular communication and consistent messaging across multiple touch points.

Streamline the Onboarding Process

Even after an employee accepts an offer, it’s still possible to lose them to a competitor. A seamless onboarding experience can smooth the transition and set up every employee for success, no matter their role or responsibilities.

Start by introducing your new hire to the team, which will create an environment of trust and support. Then, define the expectations you set out in the hiring process. This will provide a foundation for professional growth and development, clearly demonstrating your company culture while articulating your organization’s goals and processes.

Add Value With Professional Development

Retaining top employees is no easy feat, especially in today’s competitive labor market. However, when you offer your workers a clear path toward the next step in their careers, they’ll be more likely to stay with your company and learn new skills.

Whether you provide extensive training to reskill or upskill employees, or you offer professional development programs to help your people advance their careers, these investments strengthen your company in the long run. Plus, you can shape your employees into future company leaders to ensure you have the right talent with the necessary skills for any position.

Develop a Proactive Talent Pipeline

With an effective strategy in place, it’s time to shift focus toward building a proactive pipeline for talent acquisition. Unlike recruitment, which reacts to changing hiring needs, proactive talent acquisition prepares your organization for the rapidly evolving hiring landscape. Identify where you need additional support (both short- and long-term) and develop a targeted persona to clearly define your ideal candidate.

Don’t know where to start? A recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) partner like Envision can help you understand your current strengths and areas for improvement.

Reach out to an expert today to see how Envision can elevate your talent acquisition strategy.