Deciding between talent acquisition or recruitment is important. While they are similar areas, they mean very different things.
Since people tend to know less about talent acquisition than recruitment, we’ll spend more time considering talent acquisition here.
Let’s take a look at the typical characteristics of recruitment and talent acquisition to determine whether you would like to become a talent acquisition or a recruiter.
Should I become a Recruiter?
If you become a recruiter, your role will be to build relation with Candidates and Clients in order to hire somebody with specific attributes to fill a particular job vacancy.
One of the trends of recruitment is that you will normally be expected to fill positions quickly and times you will be on commission or base salary plus commission.
Another defining feature of recruiter that differentiates it from talent acquisition is that the position appears first and then it is the job of the recruiter to find someone to fill that vacancy.
Should I become a Talent Acquisition Specialist?
Your role as talent acquisition goes beyond looking for someone to fill a position. You should be able to identify future job vacancies as well as ability to seeking an expert, leader, or other well-qualified professional.
If you are working as talent acquisition, you do not need to wait for a vacancy to open up. Rather, you will be actively looking for exceptional people who can perform certain roles.
Areas that are seeing skill shortages are often in need of talent acquisition. Often, it’s not that there is a vacancy, but rather a lack of talent in a particular field.
Whereas many people might be a good fit for a role filled via a recruiter, talent acquisition deals in finding people who tend to have more skills, experience, and qualifications.
To work as talent acquisition, you will benefit from a background in marketing, or at least a marketing mindset.
The idea is to use your skills to identify possible candidates and ensure that the right kind of people hear about you and the positions available.
As with modern marketing, it helps to be able to identify niche groups, because the kinds of roles that require these people tend to be niche.
Recruiter and talent acquisition specialist are different but go together. The former is a staple, relied upon by every industry, across the world.
The latter is increasingly popular, can be highly effective, and particularly rewarding.
Note that hiring managers often perform the work of talent acquisition. Having developed an eye for a good candidate, he or she needn’t ignore an innate ability to spot talent and connect it with suitable roles.
It’s up to you to decide where on the spectrum you sit and how you wish to define your role. This will depend on your goals, your eye for talent, and your ability to market. Both aspects are rewarding and necessary for successful businesses to survive and to grow.