The job title of Talent Acquisition Manager and even the use of the term Talent Acquisition, is quite new. The definition of talent acquisition and the accompanying profession simply refers to the job and process of sourcing, attracting, recruiting, interviewing, and on-boarding employees to an organization. It is a function of corporate recruiting and is usually housed within the Human Resources department.
Human Resources, as many other corporate departments, is awash in a ever-changing vernacular of corporate colloquialisms. Human Resources itself is a new development from the old naming convention of the Personnel department. But does calling a corporate recruiter a different name really signify change, or is it simply another example of job-title scope creep?
Corporate recruiting may be one of the few examples where a name change means something. Recruiting has gone through a process of upheaval and transformation over the past ten years which might explain the need for a changing nomenclature. Talent acquisition now comprises a very broad field, since recruitment channels have multiplied and the scope of the recruiters’ job has broadened. Talent Acquisition Managers now head up employment marketing initiatives, branding campaigns, internal referral programs, and develop employee engagement metrics and retention programs. It’s a broad set of responsibilities that cover more internal policy and external communications than individual corporate recruiter jobs did in the past.
The talent acquisition specialist or manager devises strategy and recruitment process, as well as actual execution of the sourcing or recruiting campaign. They may be involved not only in finding and screening candidates, but developing the corporate policy for talent bench-marking, talent assessment, and interviewing policies. Often the talent acquisition department will also either liaise with the legal department or retain their own legal specialists to ensure compatibility with employment law.
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