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What is the difference between talent acquisition and recruitment?

Hello,
What are the core differences between talent acquisition and recruitment? What are the pro's and cons? Also, how does it play into Human Resources?
Thank you in advance!! (:
#talent-acquisition #recruitment #recruiting #human-resources #hr

Thank you comment icon Hi Joan, recruitment and talent acquisition are very similar in that the core function of each specialty is the same. In talent acquisition, you are working to find the best talent to fit the organization's needs along with onboarding and sending offer letters. In recruiting, your primary task is to source and it doesn't include the other tasks such as sending offer letters. Rameel Zahid

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Liezl’s Answer

They are synonymous terms at my company. The goal of a recruiting team is to attract external talent. The recruiting organization is one specific team within a human resources organization. Hope that helps!
Thank you comment icon Thank you! This certainly helped me understand the field better. Have a great day! Joan
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Chuck’s Answer

In the simplest sense they are really the same thing. "recruitment" may indicate the science of "finding" people (i.e. sourcing) where as Acquisition could be seen as the full motion of finding, offering, and hiring (maybe even onboarding). But again, I mostly see them as the same thing and are often interchangeable.
Thank you comment icon Thank you so much! I really appreciate this! Joan
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Tiffanie’s Answer

Hi! I found a really great site that gives a great definition and difference between the two.
https://www.adaface.com/blog/talent-acquisition-vs-recruitment/

Talent Acquisition is a proactive and a cyclical process that is geared towards building a positive employer brand, creating a feasible talent pool, and foreseeing future hiring needs.
Recruitment is a linear process that deals with hiring candidates to fill open positions within an organization quickly. When compared to talent acquisition which is more of a proactive and continuous process, the recruitment process is reactive and momentary.
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Melissa’s Answer

Hello, Joan!
In that each specialty's primary purpose is the same, recruitment and talent acquisition are extremely similar. You work in talent acquisition to identify the greatest individuals to match the company's needs, as well as onboarding and delivering offer letters. Your major responsibility in recruitment is to source candidates; additional responsibilities, such as writing offer letters, are not included. To put this simple recruitment may refer to sourcing/finding candidates while acquisition can be refer to the entire process of offering, and hiring staff.
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Divya’s Answer

What are the core differences between talent acquisition and recruitment?

Talent acquisition refers to the process of identifying and acquiring skilled workers to meet your organizational needs. The talent acquisition team is responsible for identifying, acquiring, assessing, and hiring candidates (google definition).
To clarify further:
Identifying: Think about processes to source candidates (e.g. finding talent on LinkedIn, outreach via LinkedIn messaging, and so on). Also job boards such as Indeed, etc that candidates visit to reference job opportunities - recruiters typically source via these multiple talent platforms.
Acquiring: In this stage, recruiters would typically reach out to candidates, build out a pipeline for a job opening, enter candidate details in an applicant tracking system (e.g. PeopleSoft: Front end of Peoplesoft is integrated to website that candidates typically visit to apply to jobs: e.g. company website). ERP platforms such as PeopleSoft enable both identifying and hiring candidates.
Assessment: Think of tests you need to take to qualify for certain roles, again testing workflows and websites are integrated with ERP systems such as PeopleSoft/ SAP).
Hiring: Once the above workflows have been completed, candidates are hired into the system and their data is logged in the enterprise software for data management, referenced by compensation, etc.
Recruitment is a subset of Talent Acquisition processes higlighted above, and would fall into the Identifying and Acquiring buckets.

What are the pro's and cons? Also, how does it play into Human Resources?
There are no pro's and con's as these processes are tailored to enable companies to identify the best talent. There are metrics that companies track, such as time to fill, etc that are indicators of the effectiveness of each phase of talent acquisition outlined above. Human Resources is broader than Talent Acquisition and generally also covers other areas of an employees lifecycle, for e.g., Talent Acquisition, Benefits, Compensation, HR Data Analytics, Learning and Development, etc.
Thank you comment icon Thank you for this detailed answer! It certainly answered my questions! Have a great day (: Joan
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Meghna’s Answer

Recruiting is there when you need to fill vacant roles quickly. There's a clear short-term goal: fill the job and move onto the next. Talent acquisition is an ongoing process of attracting and engaging talent with specific, sometimes niche skills, experiences, and perspectives. It's also more strategic.

Hope this helps
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Veerle’s Answer

it is actually the same so roles of recruiter or talent acquisition officer are very similar
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Vanessa’s Answer

I like to break it down to simpler terms. I break it down to layers. TA is the top of the pyramid and then you break up to different tiers. I also depends on the company itself how they break it up within their organization but the essence HR and TA all fall under the same bucket; your are connecting with talent and building that human connection for the company you are working for. Sourcing you are searching for great talent through different tools (LinkedIn, CRM tools, etc) and reaching out to them seeing if they would open to opportunities and creating connections. Recruiting is very similar but they may have more processes then a sourcer would.
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Tricia’s Answer

Its the same With one possible differentiation. Recruitment is used more by recruiting agencies..those that get paid by a company as a 3rd party. And Talent acquisition is almost always an internal recruiting function.
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Layne’s Answer

Great question! In general, there is not a major difference between recruiting and talent acquisition. They are often used interchangeably by companies. This happens with many functions in HR. In fact, HR is often called Human Capital, "People", and other similar terms. Likewise, you may see compensation and benefits called "Total Rewards." Recruiting is (generally) attracting candidates to your company, and engaging with those candidates about roles within your company. Similarly, when companies call a department Talent Acquisition, they are saying that this group is charged with finding (and acquiring) the best talent available for open roles.
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Silvia’s Answer

Talent acquisition and recruitment are two peas in the same HR pod, but they each have their own unique flavor and goals:

Recruitment:

The Spotlight: Recruitment is all about finding, attracting, and welcoming new team members to fill specific roles in a company. It's more of a quick, get-it-done kind of function that focuses on filling immediate job vacancies.
The To-Do List: Recruiters are busy bees! They post job ads, hunt for potential candidates on job boards, social media, and networking events, sift through resumes, conduct interviews, and make job offers.
The Clock: Recruitment is more of a sprint than a marathon. It's a fast-paced, reactive process that responds to current job openings as they pop up.
Talent Acquisition:

The Spotlight: Talent acquisition is the strategic, long-haul trucker of HR. It's all about planning for the future, finding and keeping the best talent, and making sure recruitment efforts align with the big-picture goals and workforce needs of the company.
The To-Do List: Talent acquisition does everything recruitment does and more. It's also about promoting the company as a great place to work, planning for future workforce needs, building relationships with potential candidates, and creating strategies to attract top-notch talent.
The Clock: Talent acquisition is a steady, ongoing process. It's all about building and maintaining relationships with potential candidates and ensuring a constant flow of talent, even when there's no immediate need to hire.
In a nutshell, while recruitment is all about filling immediate job openings, talent acquisition is a more strategic, big-picture approach to finding and keeping the best talent, focusing on long-term workforce planning and the overall success of the company.
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Andrea’s Answer

+1 to Liezl's answer. If you're interested in talent acquisition (TA), I would consider focusing on the type of company. A start-up company that is growing quickly will focus more heavily on building it's TA organization, hiring and developing recruiters with a vast array of skills that work directly with the business leaders and managers. As the company matures, typically HR Business Partners will work more directly with the business on a broader range of HR topics including recruiting.
Thank you comment icon Thank you so much! I really appreciate this! Joan
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Rimma’s Answer

I would say this is totally same thing, it is a matter of how companies title their roles. You can see HR director in Microsoft and Chief of People Operations in Google, for example being same roles in the end. Pay attention to requirements when you apply to the role. Good luck.
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Juanita’s Answer

I have been working with this company for almost 13 years and for 6 of those years I was a Recruiter for the Talent Acquisition Team. When searching for a job, I would use both terms, it depends on the company which one they use but they mean the same thing. My recommendation is to find a company that is reputable. There are many employment laws so it is important to be familiar with them and to be fair and consistent in the process. Other than that I can tell you it has been the most rewarding position I have ever had!

Juanita recommends the following next steps:

Go to a career fair and interview Recruiters for different companies.
Research the company you want to work for.
Take a Recruiting class.
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