According to RecruiteX (TimesJobs’ recruitment index), ‘the Year 2019 saw many spells of active and subtle hiring periods at the India Inc. With the year 2020 unfolding, a 12% M-o-M and 4% Y-o-Y uptick in the talent demand indicates that the corporates have a positive hiring outlook for the Year 2020.’
Mentioning about these observations, Mr. Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig said, “The growth in talent on demand is an encouraging sign for the economy.” Talent acquisition plays a major part in the success of any organization.
What is talent acquisition
Talent acquisition means understanding the talent on demand and then acquiring the skilled workers to meet the organizational needs. A particular team undertakes this process wherein they identify, acquire, assess and hire people to fill in the vacancy within an organization. Some important features of talent acquisition include employer branding, future resource planning, diversifying the labor force of the organization and developing a strong channel of candidates. This team takes care of talent on demand and sometimes is a part of an organization’s HR department. In some companies, talent acquisition is its own department that works hand in hand with the HR team. Sourcing strategies, candidate assessment, compliance and hiring standards, and fluency in employment branding practices and corporate hiring initiatives are some expected skills in the professionals of this team.
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Recruitment vs talent acquisition
The two terms are often very confusing for many. To comprehend it more clearly, let us understand that recruitment is all about filling in the vacancies. On the other hand, talent acquisition is an ongoing process where experts, leaders or upcoming executives are found for the company. Talent acquisition not only focuses on the long term planning of human resources but also searches for the suitable candidates for the important positions that require a specialized set of skills in the company. To idealize the situation, a company must align the planning and talent acquisition strategies across the different departments for the purpose of recruiting or hiring talent on demand. This aligning of strategies is done to identify, target and attract the most and best qualified candidates for a given position.
The most essential steps of talent acquisition process are:
- Lead generation
- Recruiting and attracting top candidates
- Interview and assessment
- Evaluating references
- Selecting the best candidate(s)
- Hiring and onboarding
Once the process of talent acquisition is done, the task of talent management begins. Let us understand what talent management is.
What is talent management?
The full scope of the HR process that attracts, develops, motivates and retains high-performing employees can be called as talent management. Let us understand this definition in detail. It has three parts:
- When we talk about ‘full scope of HR process’ we refer to the sets of HR processes that are integrated with each other. The talent management activities are bigger than the parts taken individually. We can also say that talent management strategy should be utilized at its full potential.
- If we are using words like ‘attract, develop, motivate and retain’, we are not using a comprehensive list. Talent management encompasses all the key areas of HR like, hiring talent on demand, employee on boarding, performance management and even employee retention.
- When we mention ‘high-performing employees’, we talk about yet another aspect of talent management that is increasing employee performance, by motivating, engaging and thus retaining the employees in a company.
Thus we can say, talent management is such a process which not only recruits or hires talent on demand but also aims at driving performance via practices of integrated people management.
Scope of talent management
If you are good at your verbal and non-verbal communication, skill of interaction and dealing with people and qualities like patience, empathy, ability to work hard to meet deadlines, decision making, problem solving and negotiation skills are your asset then you are for sure going to succeed in the career of talent management. Talent management is more inclusive than the other HR management functions one is more acquainted with. Its main functions, as we have discussed above, are to formulate and implement strategies which include sourcing talent on demand, developing and retaining them. It treats people or the employees as talents by differentiating their performance in an organization. These days many companies are calling their HR function and processes as talent management functions, and are thus giving more attention to the people aspect.
Talent acquisition and talent management not only sought to sustain the employee retention, it also created a good opportunity for recruiting and hiring talent on demand, which rose high in almost all sectors of India. Let’s recall some of the top talent on demand hiring trends in India in 2019.
Telecom sector: Job share was the highest at junior level. However, demand was high for senior level candidates as well.
Manufacturing sector: Manufacturing industry saw an overall growth of 7% in hiring.
BPO/ITeS sector: Demand grew over 30% in accounting/financial products at middle level of management.
BFSI: Talent demand was up in Pune and Chennai by 12% and 16% respectively at the middle level. Channel sales specialists saw the maximum demand of 21% at the junior level.
Consumer Durables/FMCG: Talent demand grew at international locations for junior and senior levels of management.
Projects/Infrastructure: With 6% job share, accounting & finance witnessed a rise in talent demand. Design engineering specialists saw a growth of 12% at the junior level. Hiring of senior level specialists for highway/roadway was up by 17%.
Retail: Jobs for retail sales professionals was high at various levels of management.
Automobiles: Demand was high for production/ manufacturing/maintenance functions at the junior level.
Healthcare/Pharma: Doctors/nurses/medical professionals were among the top desired skills in the sector.
Logistics: Talent demand grew for professionals in engineering IT/ telecom and export/import functions demand grew over 30% at junior and middle level of management at international locations.
You might also be interested to read:Impact Of Technology On Talent Acquisition
References:
- What is the Difference Between Recruitment and Talent Acquisition? Jobvite April 27, 2016
- Talent Acquisition – Hiring Success glossary – Smart Recruiters
- Talent demand saw growth across the sectors: Hiring trends 2019, Posted on 07th Nov 2019
- Insights on India’s talent landscape as it gears up for a $5 trillion economy: India Skills Report 2020, by Ryan Frantz
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